restrictions on warranty disclaimers?

restrictions on warranty disclaimers?

[Dennis Heimbigner]

In my recent announcement of the availability of the Q RPC system,
there was the following paragraph:

	WARNING:
	We are given to understand that our warranty disclaimers
	are not valid in the EC, even though we are not charging
	for this software.  Therefore, if you are a citizen of
	the EC, we must request that you do not attempt to obtain
	this software unless you have specific legal opinions stating
	that our disclaimers are acceptable.

We were prompted to include this because of a dialog
that occurred on comp.lang.ada some months ago.
The announcment then of the adamakegen program included
its warranty disclaimer.  Someone posted a message
that said that such disclaimers were void in the European Community (EC).
There was some additional discussion about applying this law
to free software.  From the discussion, it appeared to me that it
applied to all software, free or not.

My question is: did I misinterpret that discussion? In the interim
have there been messages that have clarified the issue?

-Dennis Heimbigner
 (dennis@cs.colorado.edu)

restrictions on warranty disclaimers?

[Karl A. Nyberg]

I have specifically NOT limited the distribution, so we can hopefully get
somebody on the other side of the pond involved.

Attached is that message, dated 7 January.

-- Karl --

In article <1993Aug12.215128.5930@colorado.edu> dennis@dennis.cs.colorado.edu (
Dennis Heimbigner) writes:
>
>In my recent announcement of the availability of the Q RPC system,
>there was the following paragraph:
>
>	WARNING:
>	We are given to understand that our warranty disclaimers
>	are not valid in the EC, even though we are not charging
>	for this software.  Therefore, if you are a citizen of
>	the EC, we must request that you do not attempt to obtain
>	this software unless you have specific legal opinions stating
>	that our disclaimers are acceptable.
>
>We were prompted to include this because of a dialog
>that occurred on comp.lang.ada some months ago.
>The announcment then of the adamakegen program included
>its warranty disclaimer.  Someone posted a message
>that said that such disclaimers were void in the European Community (EC).
>There was some additional discussion about applying this law
>to free software.  From the discussion, it appeared to me that it
>applied to all software, free or not.
>
>My question is: did I misinterpret that discussion? In the interim
>have there been messages that have clarified the issue?

In article <1993Jan7.075406.6948@sei.cmu.edu> firth@sei.cmu.edu writes:
>In article <9301061627.aa17219@Paris.ics.uci.edu> irus-software-request@ics.uc
i.edu writes:
>
>> THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
>> IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
>> WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
>
>Since this message seems to have been posted with no geographical
>restriction, perhaps a warning is in order.
>
>As of 1993 January 1, all products distribuited within the European
>Community carry an implied warranty of merchantability, including
>all computer related products, and this warranty cannot be disclaimed.
>
>In most countries of the EC, in fact, it is illegal to attempt to
>disclaim this implied warranty; in the United Kingdom (at least),
>it is a *criminal offence* to do so.
>
>About time too, if you want my opinion.

-- 
Karl Nyberg			-- karl@grebyn.com
Grebyn Corporation		-- 1-703-281-2194
P. O. Box 497			-- Yes, I speak for the company.
Vienna, VA 22183-0497		-- I own it.