[Asterisk-Users] 911 and lawsuits

[Terence Parker]

It's just as well that here in Hong Kong employers don't have to worry about
being sued by their staff tripping over their own laces ; or microwave oven
manufacturers getting sued by old ladies drying off their poodle ; or
supermarket owners getting sued by stupid customers who trip over their own
kids. In most countries cases such as these would be thrown out the minute
they are filed.

Of course, these are slight exaggerations insofar as asterisk is concerned -
because being able to dial 911 (or 999 as it is in this part of the world)
is a much more 'genuine' problem. But nonetheless, it should be the
responsibility of the implementor of such a system to ensure that there are
adequate measures taken against system failure - such as UPS, or even a
primitive analogue phone line somewhere in the home/office.

Though I cannot possibly comment regarding 'fear of being prosecuted',
simply because I have no reason to fear (i'm not under jurisdiction of a
ridiculous judicial system) - I would say that it is a huge shame that a
group of people all with the common goal of contributing towards free
software projects such as this should even have to worry about things such
as lawsuits.

If there are people out there who have problems with asterisk, I suggest
they just don't use it. To go as far as suing - that is just taking the
piss! (sorry, can't think of equivalent non-British term).

Terence


> > Just curious if any of the Asterisk installers are doing anything
special
> > to protect themselves from a possible lawsuit caused by 911 failure
> > during a Asterisk/computer crash?
> >
> > I realize that any traditional PBX or even a phone line can fail but,
> > anything running on a computer is probably going to be less reliable
> > than most PBXs.
>
> What do you think most PBXs are? Maybe not a x86, but it is a computer.
>
> > Anybody requiring customers to acknowledge and sign any kind of
> > waiver?  Just the legal fees of defending yourself in a lawsuit could
> > sink most Asterisk installers.