On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 09:57, Thomas Hruska <thruska_at_cubiclesoft.com> wrote:
> On 3/20/2011 10:48 PM, Dmitry wrote:
>> Hey.
>>
>> 20.03.11, 12:01, "Jari Aalto"<jari.aalto_at_cante.net>:
>>
>>> There is one problem: a dialog box is presented requiring to accept
>>> GPL license before the software can be installed. This is misleading
>>> and incorrect use of GPL.
>> How should the developer present the disclaimer then? That dialog present the GPL text along with the disclaimer. "I agree" mostly belongs to the disclaimer. The purpose of the disclaimer is to shield the developers from liability in case the program malfuncitons and causes any unintended negative consequences. How should such shielding be done without the "I agree"-kind click-through?
>>
>> Thank you.
>> Dmitry.
>
> Doing a couple searches turns up a campaign that Jari Aalto has going to
> eliminate "I agree" from various software installers. I'd be wary of
> this individual. I'm not sure what Jari's motivations are or what this
> person's legal expertise is. I'm a bit surprised to see developers are
> changing their installers without consulting a real lawyer first. This
> should set warning bells off in people's minds and give pause to
> consider the implications as Dmitry has done.
>
> But let me preface my reply with "I am not a lawyer" (but I've got a
> pretty good clue). I'm also not a TSVN dev - just a lurker.
>
> In the United States, "I agree" is considered to be clickwrap licensing
> because it requires the user to explicitly agree to all terms and
> conditions contained therein before continuing installation. Most of
> the statements of the GPL are rather harmless and basically make sure
> that all GPL'ed source is open and public for which clickwrap isn't
> really necessary. However, there are statements that could require
> explicit confirmation to protect the developer from harm. Without an "I
> agree" clickwrap license, all legal statements which require explicit
> confirmation by the receiving party may eventually be viewed as void in
> a court of law. Specifically, without clickwrap licensing the GPL,
> sections 15 (Disclaimer of Warranty) and 16 (Limitation of Liability) in
> GPL v3 and equivalent sections 11 and 12 in GPL v2 might be voided in a
> court of law due to a lack of explicit confirmation since both
> statements directly reference the relationship between the user of the
> product and the developer of the software. Clicking "Next" without
> prior agreement may not constitute sufficient explicit confirmation.
> Therein lies the danger.
Has anyone actually *read* the text in the TSVN installer license page?
Hint: the GPL is only mentioned as the underlying license which
applies. We did this to avoid having a multi-page text which no one
ever reads but only have a short text in as plain English as possible.
And of course the "disclaimer of warranty" is there too.
(I also ignored the first post by Jaro because of the big "[BUG]" in
the subject line - this is not a bug, never was)
So to sum up and stop this thread before it changes to a flamewar: the
license text as it is will stay, and the installer will keep requiring
that the checkbox "I agree" must be checked before proceeding.
Stefan
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Received on 2011-03-21 11:15:28 CET