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Planet KDE: Legal obligations vs social contracts
Quoting: Legal obligations vs social contracts – Adventures in Linux and KDE —
My post about responsibility for bug reports on old software versions the other day stirred up quite some discussion, and I wanted to drill a bit more into what I think is the crux of the dispute: the difference between legal obligations and the social contract.
When you package and distribute free open source software (FOSS), you legally have to comply with the terms of the license: “make the source code available,” “don’t change the license,” and so on.
You might also notice the absence of a warranty, or silence about responsibility for bug reports.