Defend and Indemnify

The CPL is the first major open source license to announce certain special responsibilities of licensees who are commercial distributors. It is the only place where the CPL uses the word should, implying that it has a philosophical or practical business objective in mind:

Commercial distributors of software may accept certain responsibilities with respect to end users, business partners and the like. While this license is intended to facilitate the commercial use of the Program, the Contributor who includes the Program in a commercial product offering should do so in a manner which does not create potential liability for other Contributors. (CPL section 4.)

What, by the way, is a “commercial product offering”? Almost certainly ...

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