On Fri, May 24, 2002 at 11:49:05AM -0500, Cameron Moore wrote: <snipped stuff> > > As the EULA come after the "purchase" of the product (i.e. after it was > > downloaded), it has the same significance of the EULA you have to > > acceppt when you are installing a product. > > > > So -at least in Germany- you don't have to care about it at all. It's a > > change of contract that one party (M$) wants and offers to the other > > party (you). So you are free to accept it or discard it. > > > > Note: There's no hint about an EULA at the website and even worse (for > > M$) you don't have to accept it (e.g. by clicking on it) before you are > > downloading it. > > The way I see it, a EULA doesn't have to be clicked through or > explicitly accepted through some procedure. The EULA ships with the > product just like the GPL ships with FlightGear. Both are applicable > and *using* each product implicitly means you accept the license. > > I know (via /.) that people have jumped through hoops to keep from > clicking through a EULA, but it's pointless. We should respect > Micros~1's EULA's just as much as we respect the GPL.
There's a big difference between the GPL and MS' EULAs: the GPL is a licence to /distribute/ - you have no rights to distribute a copyrighted work other than those granted in the GPL. The GPL says nothing about your personal use of the work. MS' EULAs put restrictions on your use of their products. These restrictions have nothing to do with the restrictions defined in copyright law, or anywhere else - you can do /anything/ you want with something you've bought, aside from the things made illegal by copyright laws. When you buy something or download it or anything like that, you don't actually agree to a contract placing any extra limits on your use of the product (unless you have to click through /before/ downloading or buying), and so you're buying the product under the assumption that it's covered by copyright law and nothing else - same as with a book or magazine or whatever. MS' click-through licence agreements come /after/ that purchase, and hence constitute a new agreement MS is trying to get you to enter into, over and above what you agreed to when you handed over your money. /That/ is where the problem comes from - you already have the right to do whatever you want with what you bought, within the bounds of copyright law. MS is trying to get you to agree to new terms. You don't have to - if you don't agree, your rights to use the product revert to those granted by copyright law. As I understand it, there's actually case law that says that you can ignore the click-through license thingy completely - if you have to click "I Accept" to install and use what you bought, you can, and that /doesn't/ constitute agreement to the terms in the license. I imagine this varies between jurisdictions, of course . . . IANAL, of course - this is just the understanding I've gained from folowing this issue for the last few years. But I'm fairly sure it's reasonably accurate. The GPL is /vastly/ different from an EULA - it /grants/ you rights, where an EULA takes them away. Simon (Can you tell you hit a big red button of mine? ;-) -- PGP public key Id 0x144A991C, or ftp://bg77.anu.edu.au/pub/himi/himi.asc (crappy) Homepage: http://bg77.anu.edu.au doe #237 (see http://www.lemuria.org/DeCSS) My DeCSS mirror: ftp://bg77.anu.edu.au/pub/mirrors/css/
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