Re: broad indemnification clauses (TAES disclaimer)

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From: Soren Stoutner <[email protected]>
To: Andreas Metzler <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Subject: Re: broad indemnification clauses (TAES disclaimer)
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:12:22 -0700
Message-ID: <3951564.kQq0lBPeGt@soren-desktop>
Organization: Debian
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
MIME-Version: 1.0

On Saturday, June 6, 2026 5:18:40=E2=80=AFAM Mountain Standard Time Andreas=
 Metzler=20
wrote:
> Hello,
> netpbm's analyzer/pgmtexture.c features:
> 8X-------------------------------
> ** Code written partially taken from pgmtofs.c in the PBMPLUS package
> ** by Jef Poskanzer.
> **
> ** Algorithms for calculating features (and some explanatory comments) are
> ** taken from:
> **
> **   Haralick, R.M., K. Shanmugam, and I. Dinstein. 1973. Textural featur=
es
> **   for image classification.  IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and
> **   Cybertinetics, SMC-3(6):610-621.
> **
> ** Copyright (C) 1991 Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, employer for
> ** hire of James Darrell McCauley
> **
> ** Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
> ** documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provi=
ded
> ** that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that
> ** copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
> ** documentation.  This software is provided "as is" without express or
> ** implied warranty.
> **
> ** THE TEXAS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION (TAES) AND THE TEXAS A&M
> ** UNIVERSITY SYSTEM (TAMUS) MAKE NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES
> ** (INCLUDING BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, MERCHANTABILITY) WITH RESPECT TO ANY
> ** ITEM, AND SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL
> ** OR CONSEQUENTAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE POSSESSION OR USE OF
> ** ANY SUCH ITEM. LICENSEE AND/OR USER AGREES TO INDEMNIFY AND HOLD
> ** TAES AND TAMUS HARMLESS FROM ANY CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR
> ** POSSESSION OF SUCH ITEMS.
> 8X-------------------------------
>=20
> The fishy bit is the broad indemnification clause =C2=BBLICENSEE AND/OR
> USER AGREES TO INDEMNIFY AND HOLD TAES AND TAMUS HARMLESS FROM ANY
> CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR POSSESSION OF SUCH ITEMS.=C2=AB
>=20
> RedHat/Fedora looked at it
> https://gitlab.com/fedora/legal/fedora-license-data/-/work_items/255
> and dropped the respective file.

My first take is that I really dislike custom licenses because their=20
implications are not already known, so it takes a lot of effort to parse th=
em=20
and interpret their implications. You mentioned that RedHat just dropped th=
e=20
file.  Is it possible to do so without losing functionality?

> What is our stanza? I have asked upstream and Bryan wrote:
> | Actually, that isn't part of any license.  The copyright license is the
> | paragraph above that.  This paragraph starts off as a disclaimer of
> | warranty,
> | and ends with a covenant, both of which presume to be part of some=20
contract
> | between the licensee and the author, which doesn't exist.

I don=E2=80=99t think it is correct to say that this is part of a contract =
that=20
doesn=E2=80=99t exist.  This is fairly clearly part of the open source lice=
nse and=20
anyone who uses this file is bound by it.

I don=E2=80=99t personally have any problem with this provision, and I doub=
t it runs=20
afoul of the DFSG.  The first part of the text is pretty common in a lot of=
=20
licenses we accept:

> THE TEXAS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION (TAES) AND THE TEXAS A&M
> UNIVERSITY SYSTEM (TAMUS) MAKE NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES
> INCLUDING BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, MERCHANTABILITY) WITH RESPECT TO ANY
> ITEM, AND SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL
> OR CONSEQUENTAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE POSSESSION OR USE OF
> ANY SUCH ITEM.

The next part of the text just restates in other words what it means that=20
there is not warranty of any kind.  Specifically:

> LICENSEE AND/OR USER AGREES TO INDEMNIFY AND HOLD
> TAES AND TAMUS HARMLESS FROM ANY CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR
> POSSESSION OF SUCH ITEMS.

Because these are the same ideas, it doesn=E2=80=99t really matter how many=
 different=20
ways they say it.

=2D-=20
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]
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