[opensource-dev] A note on preserving "NO WARRANTY" for SL TPV developers

Jonathan Irvin djfoxyslpr at gmail.com
Fri Apr 2 07:23:52 PDT 2010


On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 09:00, David M Chess <chess at us.ibm.com> wrote:

>
> Jonathan Irvin <djfoxyslpr at gmail.com>:
>
> > Keep in mind, it's not LL that's saying it, it is their lawyers.  Like I
> said, LL is protecting their assets.  The best way for them to do that is by
> hiring good lawyers who can cover all the bases.
>
> This is wrong enough that I can't resist responding.   :)
>

Good point.  It is LL that is dishing out the policy, but my point is that
it's written in Legal language, not that of a geek.  So naturally, there is
going to be a language barrier there.

As far as the wording goes, look at any terms of service, EULA, Warranty,
Privacy Policy, etc... it's never really going to be fully understood by
people that don't know the lingo.

But nevertheless, your input was valid and appreciated.  Though your
opinions do not reflect the company you work for or Britney Spears, I'm sure
that IBM has a great culture so it's reflected in your post.

Thank you.

>
> The TPVP isn't signed "some lawyers who also happen to work for Linden
> Lab".  It is official LL policy, and published as such.
>
> If the question is whether people should hold individual Linden employees
> personally responsible for it, yeah probably not.  But the Lab as a whole
> has made the collective decision to make this Lab policy.
>
> "The lawyers made us say it" might be a good excuse if used by an
> individual employee, but it's not something that the Lab as a whole can say,
> or that it makes any sense for anyone else to say on their behalf.
>
> Legal departments, even good ones, have a tendency to give advice
> calculated to minimize the probability of harm occurring -in the form of
> lawsuits-; that's basically their job.  It's up to the business managers
> that the legal department advises to weigh the dangers of that sort of harm
> against the dangers of other sorts of harm (like a reduced TPV ecosystem,
> annoyed or confused or alienated users, etc).
>
> There are good reasons that the head of the legal department in a company
> is seldom the CEO.
>
> In this particular case, if the user and TPV developer communities can,
> rationally and responsibly, make the Lab aware of negative aspects of the
> current TPVP wording that might outweigh the reasons the wording was drafted
> that way in the first place, I'm sure the wording can be changed, whatever
> some particular employee may have send in the interwebs...
>
> Dave Chess / Dale Innis
>
> [All statements  herein represent my own opinions (at most), and are not
> official or unofficial statements of anyone else, including for example and
> without restriction my employer, IBM, the United States Government, the
> International Red Cross, General Motors, General Electric, the International
> Bank of Credit and Commerce, Nabisco, Acme Pet Supplies, Mattel, AIG, the
> United States Postal Service, McDonald’s, Linden Research, the Supreme
> Council 33° of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, the United Nations Security
> Council, Wham-O, and Britney Spears.]
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/opensource-dev/attachments/20100402/43022138/attachment.htm 


More information about the opensource-dev mailing list