On Wed, Jul 13, 2005 at 10:07:49PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote: > I'm talking about copyright infringement. Maybe I'm the only one?! The > question is whether its "okay" to mandate acceptance of the GPL at download. > I am suggesting that you have to agree to it in order to avoid copyright > infringement. Hence, if you have to agree the GPL to copy it off the server > in the first place, a "click-wrap" license is no more non-free than just > simply attacting the license as part of the COPYING file.
No, the question is whether it's free to mandate *explicit*, click-through acceptance of the GPL at (download, install, whatever) time. (The question of whether it's acceptable to mandate agreement to a contract at all, and whether the GPL does so, is unrelated.) There's a world of difference between 1: requiring that a person agree to something, but allowing that agreement to be expressed implicitly, through conduct (eg. by doing something which only the license allows), and 2: requiring that a person (and all recipients of the program from that person, and so on) indicate his agreement by displaying the license and refusing to install unless a button is clicked. #2 is what's in question, and requiring #2 is infinitely more invasive and problematic than #1. I don't know how you can keep claiming that #1 == #2; they have nothing in common. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
