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Date: 8 Jan 93 13:02:30 GMT
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
Message-ID: <1993Jan8.080230.22934@sei.cmu.edu>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

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