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Ask Slashdot: How To Share a SharePoint Site?

Posted by timothy on from the how-much-wood-would-a-woodchuck-chuck dept.

New submitter grzzld writes "I am a systems analyst for a County in New York. Last year I made a SharePoint site that manages grants and it was well received. So much so that it won a NACo award. Since then, there have been several requests from other municipalities from around the country who would like to get this SharePoint site. The county is trying to figure out how to protect ourselves from people making money from it and having people hold us liable if it they use it and something goes awry. I am afraid that ultimately nothing will be done and the site will not be shared since at the end of the day it is much easier to not do anything and just say no. I proposed that we license it under an Open Source agreement but I am not versed enough in the differences between all of them. It is also unclear to me if I could do this since the nature of the 'program' is a SharePoint site. It seemed like CodePlex would be a good place to put this since it is Microsoft centric and it an open source initiative. I just want to contribute my work to others who may find it useful. The county just wants to make sure they can't be held liable and have somebody turn my work around and make a buck. How can I release this to the world and make sure the county's concerns are addressed?"

2 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Warranty disclaimer's the important thing by abiggerhammer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The GPL variants and the BSD licenses all contain a disclaimer of warranty (the part that reads "THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE" or similar), which addresses the county's concerns. By releasing code under a license with such a disclaimer, you are asserting that no one can sue you if the code breaks, even if your code breaking caused them some kind of loss.

    --
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  2. Why can't anyone make a buck? by perbu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What is it with this fear that someone will make a buck? It does not diminish the value of the original work, rather it ads to it. The county should focus on what their job is and if somebody actually manages to create something valuable from that - great!