[krisoft]

> I see for this is legal liability for the company if they end up unable to provide for their customer,

That is not the only legal liability. If EE has a contract with DEFCON saying that they will give DEFCON the firmware and the rights to distribute it. But EE does not have those rights (because they haven't signed a thing with the developer) that can go very wrong for EE.

Basically the developer can sue DEFCON, since they are distributing his code. DEFCON believes they have the rights to do so, because of their contract with EE, but basically EE is giving away something they don't have. That can be a lot worse than just failing to deliver the contracted firmware. In my opinion.

[ranger_danger]

To me that sounds the same as "unable to provide for their customer".