[rigelbm]

Not A Lawyer. The Court of Appeals decided to take this case to trial because it is novel and will probably serve as precedent for future cases. There has been no decision on liability and what not. Author is a bit overreacting. Sure, it's annoying and all to have to defend yourself. But seems unplausible that a decision would be made to ignore license for liability given all the repercussions, not just to this case, but to the software industry as a whole.

[Blackthorn]

It's not "annoying", it's ruinously expensive.

[eyelidlessness]

I’m not concerned that the case will result in a decision voiding the liability clause of the MIT license in the UK. That seems so unlikely as to be amusing we’re even discussing it.

I’m concerned that any court… at least any court with a reputation remotely in the realm of “not a plainly obvious farce intentionally designed to boast its illegitimacy for intimidation purposes”… would pick a precedent-setting case of this magnitude, where the defendant is anything but flanked by an army of lawyers.

By all means, set the obvious precedent. But there has got to be a case which isn’t set up to probably ruin the life of an eventually vindicated open source developer defendant.

Edit: and I should also clarify I’m not concerned about crypto or whatever. I’m concerned that anyone at all working on clearly warranty-free software can have their lives sucked up into a case of national and probably international impact just because some court decides to make an example of their plaintiff.

[midmagico]

If the appeals court judges decided to push this case forward as a precedent (they didn't really, although they implied as much in their decision) it is not only completely financially infeasible to expect someone to pay millions of dollars to defend it, but it's also a *terrible* example of a case due to the absurd multi-continent-fraudulent behaviour of the plaintiff!

It will almost certainly not serve as precedent because of this fact alone.

[chippiewill]

> The Court of Appeals decided to take this case to trial because it is novel and will probably serve as precedent for future cases.

They didn't decide to take it to trial for this reason. If they needed it for precedent they'd just wait for the next case instead.

They decided the case needs to go to trial because there are questions around fiduciary responsibility that they can't answer without a trial.

[nullc]

> They didn't decide to take it to trial for this reason

Both in the decision and the permission to appeal the specifically cited the public importance of the subject area as a factor.

Which is great for them but of no concern to us -- you could say that it's an "some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment" to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.