Notices by Chris Shaw (chrisshaw@twit.social)

@emilygorcenski nice blog on Appalachia... There's always interesting stuff in your RSS feed

@kaia my mind is willing but my body is weak

@TobiWanKenobi @hollybrigstocke @quietmarc @MarkRNay @breadandcircuses all wildlife is a just a brutal, relentless and unfair competition for resources.

The only thing that sets humanity slightly apart from the rest of wildlife is regulation. It has made life a bit less brutal, but it still remains relentlessly unfair.

I don't mind capitalism because the alternative of wildlife is too brutal for me to contemplate.

@kaia I'd be very surprised if the owner of an internet connection is responsible for everything done by people you authorise to share the connection with.

@silverwizard @neil @sldrant but I'm guessing you didn't hold the original authors of the open source to account?

@sldrant @silverwizard @neil I'm sure there are open source components used in planes and medical devices. But they are regulated, so no-one can use them until compliance is demonstrated to the relevant authority.

Having just read Neil's blog on this subject, one critical question is whether putting something on GitHub constitutes offering a service.

I don't think it should, any more than a research paper on arvix should be considered one.

Source code is knowledge. Binaries are applications.

@sldrant @silverwizard @neil I think that it's clear that legal obligations lie very much with the operator, not the supplier.

Neil is also coming at the question from other angles like ethical.

Another way of framing that question is "is it unethical to deploy software without safety" and "is it unethical to distribute software without safety".

The answer to the first is almost certainly yes. The answer to the second is less clear cut.

@silverwizard @neil I don't think any FOSS developer would ever claim that their software is fit for any purpose. It's supplied "As is" to whoever wishes to make use of it.

Even in the commercial world, the SLAs have various force majeure and 'get out clauses' to evade responsibility if unexpected things happen during its use.

@neil it's the operator of the software who is responsible for safety features, not the author.

If software does not contain the appropriate safety features to operate according to regulations in their marketplace, the operator needs to commission them.

In the case of open source of course, they can either ask the initial author to implement them, or do it themselves.