I've always wanted to expose myself to unlimited legal liability by distributing open source software.

That seems like a false-dichotomy between two extremes when there's all sorts of space in the middle... It's also assuming developer-to-developer tools would have the same rules and exposure as in service-to-consumer.

If I sell a physical motor (let alone plans for one) I'll have some liability for things like it Not Exploding. If someone buys a dozen of those motors to assemble a tragically unsafe "rollercoaster" of their own design and construction, I'm almost certainly not responsible for any terrifying decapitations.

In other words, most of the world already does not rely on the issuance of "Get Out Of Infinite Liability Free" cards.

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ChuckMcM an hour ago | parent [-]

Exactly this. (and it is a false dichotomy to argue infinite liability).

To Terr_'s point, if you were publishing open source you would also publish exactly the things you intended it to be used for and anything else would violate your warranty (possibly implied) that it does what the documentation says it does.

There is a huge amount of tort law that covers exactly when it becomes a problem for you the creator vs you the user in your own project. And that liability is also based on once you know something bad could happen you make an effort to notify people[1].

[1] https://www.cpsc.gov/Newsroom/News-Releases/2026/Clorox-Agre...

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Ajedi32 39 minutes ago | parent [-]

Software can be copied infinitely, so even $1 of liability is effectively infinite since an unlimited number of people can potentially use it and sue you when it blows up.

Nobody's going to be distributing software on the internet for free if the cost of insurance alone precludes that.

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ChuckMcM 30 minutes ago | parent [-]

This is not how liability works, anywhere. So I write a piece of code that "makes your screen do cool things" and it causes the power supply to fail on those screens. Someone reports that bug to me and I check it out and say "Oh, shit it does break power supplies." Then I immediately put a notice on and in the code that says "WARNING: This code will break the power supply of your montitor." And I put that warning in the repo. And if there is a Discord or a mailing list I tell everyone "Hey, this is important, if you run this code it can break your monitor."

Guess what, I'm not liable for the damage. Why? Because I immediately responded once I knew that it could, I made a good effort to warn people who might already have the code of the risk, and I made it clear in the code that this risk is there.

Ever wonder why you get a booklet of warnings when you buy a product with even really stupid things like "Don't clean with gasoline" warnings? That's because once you have discharged your duty to warn you are not longer liable in what happens if someone ignores your warning.

The flip side is also true, you cannot say in your product both "Hey this product does these cool things" and "We don't warrant the product to actually do anything." This is especially true if there is money involved (like your user paid your some $ for the product.) There is always an implied warranty that the thing will do what you says it will do, which exists as long as the user has heeded all your warnings.

	▲	aleqs 6 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There's a pattern I noticed, especially on this site, where people claim various VC/ad/tech dark patterns, enshitification, privacy violations, dishonest marketing, etc MUST be allowed, otherwise open source or 'the internet' will face some sort of existential risk. No bro - open source and the internet existed long before SV tech parasitism did and will exist long after.

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ncallaway an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Would that be software used in a product? I don't think that would qualify?