Re: [Hampshire] Software bugs & impending liability

James,
You make some good points however having the known bugs listed in
Bugzilla is IMHO not going to be enough. In this increasingly ligitious
age, I think it is imperative for everyone involved in FOSS to have some
form of Professional Indemnity insurance.
If you are a member of a FOSS project in your own time and for some
reason that software is the cause of a lawsuit, you personally could
become liable for damages. Those damages could lead to you losing your
house and literally the shirt off your back.
Ok, I might be a bit extreme here but there is a reason that we have
Companies setup that in cases like this, limit the liability of any one
person in the company.
That is why Sole Traders are more risky to do business with than one man
Limited companies (from the person who is running the company's point of
view).
When I was working for myself I had Professional Indemnity insurance
just for this very reason. However if you as an individual try to get
such insurance it is AFAIK, nigh upon impossible.
There is a downside to FOSS products. We all trumpet the availabilty of
the source code as being great and that lots of people can review it to
make it higher quality. The flip side is that if you are going to be
sued then the evidence is out there for everyone to see.

What I'm trying to say really is that IMHO we as FOSS developers need to
become more professional and savvy simply in order to protect ourselves
from possible litigation. I'm sure that once people understand this
there will be quite a few developers who decide that it is not worth the
risk and pack it in. This is a shame but I just feel this is the way our
society is going. Only the lawyers are winners here.

Stephen D