[Foundation-discuss] Announcing OpenAFS E&O Insurance Covering Code Contributions

[Dave Botsch]

All,

On behalf of the OpenAFS Foundation Board of Directors, I am pleased to
announce that the OpenAFS initiative including any paid or volunteer
software development is now covered by Errors and Omissions insurance.
This is a big step forward and now allows contributions of code without
major fear of lawsuits.

Obtaining insurance was a major undertaking with several false starts.
We went through several different insurance companies and brokers to
find insurance understanding of the nature of Free and Open Source
Software. My thanks to the Drupal Association for pointing us at Durham
and Bates who successfully assisted us through the application, quoting,
and insurance binding process.

A few major points of the insurance ("we" below being the Foundation and
its volunteers/employees whilst contributing to the OpenAFS initiative):

=E2=80=A2 We are not covered for "OOPSes" done knowingly or on purpose.
=E2=80=A2 We are covered for bugs/security issues/data loss arising out o=
f
OOPSes.
=E2=80=A2 We are covered for copyright infringment claims.
=E2=80=A2 We are not covered for patent or trade secrets infringement cla=
ims.

The insurance binder and the policy are posted on the OpenAFS Foundation
website:

http://www.openafsfoundation.org/docs/insurance/mtk1562013-customer-binde=
r.pdf
http://www.openafsfoundation.org/docs/insurance/17-18-pkg-e-and-o-policy.=
pdf

If you have any questions, concerns, etc, please feel free to write.

--=20
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David William Botsch
OpenAFS Foundation Board
botsch@cnf.cornell.edu
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