Ask HN: How do I protect myself if I open source some code?

by W-Stool on 3/30/2024, 2:47:23 AM with 3 comments
I want to make some code freely available (not sure on the specific license yet) but I also want to protect myself legally in case someone does something (I'm thinking medical instrument or something like that, but who knows?) totally inappropriate with the code. I will have an LLC in place but what else can I do to protect myself and my LLC?

  • by bhaney on 3/30/2024, 3:09:37 AM

    Pretty much every common open source license I'm aware of includes some all caps disclaimer along the lines of "this software is provided as is without any kind of warranty etc etc" specifically for this purpose. To my knowledge it's held up well for the millions of software authors who have used it so far. I'm not a lawyer but I personally think that's enough to protect you. If you're also assigning the copyright to an LLC that you haven't "pierced the veil" of, then you have way more protection than the vast majority of OSS devs, all of whom are already well protected.

  • by cylinder714 on 3/30/2024, 4:01:54 AM

    Here's the OpenBSD license template:

    https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/share/misc/license.template?r...

  • by theandrewbailey on 3/30/2024, 3:15:52 AM

    IANAL, but BSD, MIT, and Apache licenses are quite clear that you aren't legally liable for anything.