zlacker

I have no idea how you interpret it this way.

How does being liable for damages caused by software or services you sell equate to being an idiot? I just see it as the normal way to do business, and the reason why limited liability (the way I’ve been doing business for more than 2 decades) exists.

>>fipar+(OP)
Example: I will make a library controlling some integrated circuit as open source and charge money for commercial use. My software has a little bug that occasionally causes misreading of the IC values. A military software company uses my open source library in their nuke platform. My library misreads values on one nuke that goes off. Are you telling me I am going to be liable for that? Let's say independent multi-pass root cause analysis pinpointed the problem to my library and only to my library.

>>trepri+ai
My take would be that if the military company paid you for the commercial use right, then you have "sold" the software and yes you would be liable. If they used it in an open source compatible way (no actual license is stated), and did not pay you for it then no, you would not be liable.

>>trepri+ai
If you did not sell the library to the military software company then no, it’s them whom are liable (assuming they did sell their software, that uses your library, to whomever had the nuke that went off) and not you.

IANAL but it seems clear cut to me: if you asked for money in exchange for your software (or to access to your software through an API or similar), or if you asked for personal information (in exchange for your software) then you’re liable, otherwise, you’re not.

>>mark_u+Ao
So basically I have no say about how my library is going to be used once I sell a license to a company, and if its use by a 3rd party leads to e.g. a mass-casualty event due to a bug in my code, I am liable?