The American law institute's principles on software contracts and their ramifications for software engineering research.

The American Law Institute has recently published principles of software contracts that may have profound impact on changing the software industry. One of the principles implies a nondisclaimable liability of software vendors for any hidden material defects. In this paper, we describe the new principle, first from a legal and then from a software engineering point of view. We point out potential ramifications and research directions for the software engineering community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]