From: agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!ne ws.sei.cmu.edu!firth@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Robert Firth)
Subject: Re: New Arcadia/IRUS AFLEX-AYACC release
Date: 8 Jan 93 13:02:30 GMT [thread overview]
Message-ID: <1993Jan8.080230.22934@sei.cmu.edu> (raw)
In article <EACHUS.93Jan7193852@goldfinger.mitre.org> eachus@goldfinger.mitre.o
rg (Robert I. Eachus) writes:
> First does any warrant of merchantability reside
>in any free software product? Probably not.
In the UK, very probably, yes. This was made explicit in the old
original Sale of Goods act in 1880. Blackstone's summary reads:
"In a sale or by sample, there is an implied
warranty of merchantableness" [UK Law Times, 1885]
This was further reinforced by a case in the 1930s whose details
I forget but you can look it up. The distributor was a pharmaceutical
company that gave free sample of its products to doctors as a means
of advertising them. When one of them killed a patient, the company
argued just that - there was no implied warranty because no sale.
They lost. The issue is not whether you charge for the product, but
the fact that you distribute it.
Robert
next reply other threads:[~1993-01-08 13:02 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1993-01-08 13:02 agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!ne [this message]
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1993-01-09 11:26 New Arcadia/IRUS AFLEX-AYACC release Don Tyzuk
1993-01-08 16:55 Robert I. Eachus
1993-01-08 0:38 Robert I. Eachus
1993-01-07 16:24 MILLS,JOHN M.
1993-01-07 12:54 agate!spool.mu.edu!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!ne
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