[niggler]

It's better to be safe than sorry, as the saying goes. I've never been burned personally. I'm also pretty sure that anyone working for a large software company is warned about using third party code or snippets found on expertsexchange or stackoverflow or random blogs.

Normally people are well intentioned, but sometimes you stumble upon repos with very strange licenses (for example, a javascript repo that has operating system restrictions https://github.com/stephen-hardy/xlsx.js/issues/8 ).

It's usually not of a concern for most people working on small projects (after all, another party has to notice and then decide to take action), but if you are trying to enter an industry with a highly litigious incumbent then you should make sure your ducks are in a row first.

[sanderjd]

That all makes perfect sense. I think I misread your original comment somewhat - I read it as "licenses are the #1 thing I consider when evaluating projects", rather than "of the projects I decide not to use after evaluating, licenses are the #1 reason for that decision", which isn't the same thing at all.