Are you aware that disclaimers of liability are not considered valid contract terms in most scenarios and legal jurisdictions in western countries where software is likely to be used?
Do you believe that you can disclaim liability for negligence such as carelessness or a failure to thoroughly test? How about for intentional malicious acts? Courts in the US and commonwealth nations at least don't allow such disclaimers. What about other sorts of liability? Do you know the differences between direct, consequential, special, incidental and indirect damages?
The reality is that in enough jurisdictions to matter, authors can be held legally liable for bad code they create no matter whether they have a liability clause as a condition of licensing or not. Forming an LLC or corporation won't shield them either if someone wants to sue. The only protection in these cases is maintaining E&O insurance.
If I use GPL, BSD, or any other licensed code that disclaims liability, and the code is flawed because the author was negligent, I can sue the author for damages and I can win. The disclaimer does absolutely nothing.
What purpose then is there in cluttering up licenses with useless clauses?
Do you believe that you can disclaim liability for negligence such as carelessness or a failure to thoroughly test? How about for intentional malicious acts? Courts in the US and commonwealth nations at least don't allow such disclaimers. What about other sorts of liability? Do you know the differences between direct, consequential, special, incidental and indirect damages?
The reality is that in enough jurisdictions to matter, authors can be held legally liable for bad code they create no matter whether they have a liability clause as a condition of licensing or not. Forming an LLC or corporation won't shield them either if someone wants to sue. The only protection in these cases is maintaining E&O insurance.
If I use GPL, BSD, or any other licensed code that disclaims liability, and the code is flawed because the author was negligent, I can sue the author for damages and I can win. The disclaimer does absolutely nothing.
What purpose then is there in cluttering up licenses with useless clauses?