• abhibeckert@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The sentence “IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE” doesn’t fly where I live. You don’t get to choose wether or not you’re liable - the law decides who is liable. This thing is about as enforceable as those sovereign citizen license plates and would get the same reaction in a court room.

    Plenty of other commonly used licenses have the same issue unfortunately and and the biggest nightmare (at least in my country) is laws against “misleading” or “deceptive” conduct. Telling someone you’re not liable for anything is blatantly misleading/deceptive.

    Even if your software works perfectly, you are still breaking the law… a victimless crime that would normally fly under the radar or result in a “cut that shit out” order by the court… but it’ll really hurt your case if there is actually a victim (e.g. if your software has a bad security flaw that caused real damage).

    That’s why organisations with big legal teams tend to choose licenses like Apache 2.0. Ones with language like “unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly negligent acts)”.