[CLUE-Admin] CLUE ADMIN Installfest June 15

[Lynn Danielson]

Crawford Rainwater wrote:
> On the installation prep lectures, why not just point
> them to the LDP's How-To's, since I think there are a
> few on those topics?  Simple and lawyer free solution.

The waiver that Dave mentioned has to do with "what if
the person you help at an installfest loses valuable
data or their machine is damaged as a result of a ill
fated installation attempt."  The first installfest I
was involved with, the hard disk of the fellow I was
assisting went down in flames.  The drive was reasonably
new and the guy was disgusted with it.  Most importantly,
as far as I'm concerned, he didn't blame me.  But what
if he had?

We've been kicking the idea of a waiver around for years.
Something that would absolve CLUE members from any
liability on the off chance that something goes horribly
wrong during an install.  Did we warn the person that
resizing their Windows partition could result in a
complete loss of their data?  Did we explain that when
we pull a card out of their motherboard to identify its
chipset that the mainboard might flex enough to break,
especially if it's old?  Did we tell them about the
dangers of static electricity and gamma radiation and
any other reason that their machine might not come back
to life the next time they push the power switch?  Even
if we did and they nodded their head in acknowledgement
and assured us that whatever we wanted to do was fine,
is their anything, other than human decency, preventing
them from turning on us and suing if something does go
wrong?  I don't think so.

This is definitely a pessimistic worst case senario.
As far as I know, no one has ever been sued becuase of
assistance given at an installfest.  That's why we
haven't worried too much about waivers.  But it doesn't
mean having one is a bad idea.

Just as another example.  I like to judge at homebrew
competitions.  It's standard practice for us to sign a
waiver that we will not hold organizers or the owner of
the building responsible if we get in trouble with
alcohol in our blood stream.  We're all there for the
love of beer, mead, and wine.  We drink responsibly.
Nothing bad's ever happened that I know of following
any of these events.  But in this letigious society,
that waiver gives peace of mind to those who could
potentially be held responsible for a problem.  Do we
want to offer anyone willing to volunteer at our
installfests the same peace of mind?  If so, we should
have a boiler plate waiver and make sure that it's
worth the paper it's printed on.

Another thought from the more cynical and delusionally
paranoid corners of my mind.  Is Microsoft capable of
sponsoring a conspiracy directly attacking the Linux
community by sending quislings to installfest with the
sole hope of being able to sue its participants?  Not
likely, but a simple peice of paper with a few words
and a signature on it could help pacify such neurosis. ;-)

In the past we put this issue off, because we were
debating the merits of registering CLUE as a nonprofit.
We've since decided that it's not currently worthwile
for us to pursue that.  This should make it easier for
us now to determine the necessary wording an installfest
waiver should contain.


Lynn