[OpenWrt-Devel] Disclaimer for user documentation?

[Sebastian Kemper]

On Sat, Jul 28, 2018 at 02:36:20PM +0200, Alberto Bursi wrote:
> In other articles where user error might cause issues we placed a banner 
> on top with a warning, like this 
> https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wan/smartphone.usb.tethering

Hello Alberto,

Thank you for your input. I put up a warning like that now.

> I personally don't think people writing the articles can be blamed 
> unless the guide they wrote is actually wrong. If users screw up that's 
> their own responsibility.

I agree. But lets say for the sake of argument that a company has an
admin who uses your guide to configure his telephony system. And then
somebody takes advantage of some configuration issue in your guide and
commits toll fraud. Lets say for a couple thousand <insert your
currency>. The provider will get their money from the company. And the
company goes to the admin who then points to your article. Would the
company perhaps consider suing you, the author of the guide?

> But I don't know the legal side of things, can someone actually sue 
> OpenWrt or try to go after the contributors if such things happen?

Interesting questions. The answers may also be different depending on
your location.

> If others agree (I'm CCing this mail to other wiki maintainers) I can 
> add a new "Legal" page with link on the menu on the left where such 
> disclaimers can be placed.

I think a general disclaim-all DISCLAIMER would be handy.

> In the meantime you can place any disclaimer you want in the warning box 
> at the top of your article, and be covered by that. A good starting 
> point is copy-pasting LineageOS's https://lineageos.org/legal/

I'll not put up a guide right now as the liability situation is
uncertain. I'll just provide basic infos about some of the packages.

Kind regards,
Seb

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