[pjam]

Assuming the "criminally prosecuted" piece is a reference to that thread [1], based on what other comments have also pointed out, did anyone in there actually say that, or imply it? I read that thread and didn't see anything close to that, there is clearly harsh language in there, such as:

> Look if you can't understand that this is a thing that will happen in the real world and that people will potentially suffer as a result you shouldn't be writing a crypto library.

Which is still far from suggesting someone should be prosecuted.

[1]:https://lwn.net/Articles/893327/

[nyanpasu64]

Search for "liable" in the parent thread, https://lwn.net/Articles/893285/. That's the closest thing I could find.

[pjam]

Ha, perfect, exactly what I was looking for, thanks for pointing it out, didn't realize I was looking at a subsection of the thread, my bad.

But it confirms what I was thinking, going from "liable" to "criminally prosecuted" is a pretty big stretch imo.

[verdagon]

What's the difference? (for a legal layperson like me)

[pjam]

I am not qualified to make any comments on the legal difference between the terms either, and I should also add that I am an ESL, so take that with a grain of salt.

Reading the original comments about being "liable", it felt like another way of saying "there are consequences to your decisions, and as the author you bear some responsibility of what you put out there", which imo is pretty far from how the author of this blog post described it, hence me calling "a pretty big stretch"

[ssokolow]

For one thing, "liable" applies to both civil and criminal law, so equating it to "criminally prosecuted" is definitely wrong.