I'm mostly curious what that means for something like the MIT license... For those who need a refresher, this is the part I mean.
> THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
I concur, but I don't agree this is in the right direction.
> I'm mostly curious what that means for something like the MIT license
I think the article addressed that. Let me quote it for you:
> Today you can license-away that liability by putting the onus on the user to accept the risk, since bugs happen and hackers hack. Not your fault, you did your best, and you told the user that upfront. My read of the emerging regime changes that. It forces you to prove your code wasn’t the cause of the harm – “strict liability” in legal circles. Products like cars often get regulated this way. Essentially, the carmaker is at fault when something goes wrong unless they can prove they’re not.
> A license like the one Apache provides won’t help, since state-imposed strict liability isn’t a harm that can be licensed away by private actors.
If strict liability isn't a harm that can be licensed away by private actors then the last sentence you quoted couldn't be enforced:
> IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.