> Fortunately, free software licences don't typically require any kind of > agreement from the user,
Ah! I think I see what is happening. You may be making the assumption that American courts actually try to do what is just and right instead of slavishly following the arcane and convoluted rules of contracts and intellectual property law. I share the view of most practitioners that American courts will treat the GPL as a contract, despite the FSF's vehement protests to the contrary. If the author of the software wanted only the rights provided by pure copyright law, the GPL would not be necessary at all. (Musicians don't include a license agreement with their music because pure copyright law protects them.) Although the GPL explicity grants usage rights, as you rightly point out, the GPL must create an enforcable contract in order for the "copyleft" provisions to be valid. American courts require some objective indicia of "acceptance" before finding the "meeting of the minds" of both parties necessary to enforce the license. If the license is never objectively "accepted", its terms will not govern the software, irrespective of the subjective awareness of the parties. The following language of the GPL is illustrative: "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it." (Note: It's hard for many of us to buy the FSF's argurment that contract law doe not apply when the GPL itself contains such pointedly contractual language.) Most practitioners concur that American courts will require that the putative licensee have an opportunity to review and accept the license before taking any action the license purports to govern. If someone purchases a computer with GPL software preloaded, the purchaser and any subsequent transferee would have a strong (and, I am convinced, a winning) argument that the license was never accepted and does not govern. For example, let's say that Pancho buys a computer with Ubuntu pre-installed, and no license documentation is included with the computer. Nothing puts Pancho on notice of the terms of the several licenses governing the software in his computer. He's just a regular guy that wants to use the computer to surf the net, etc. Over time, he uses more and more of the hard drive space and starts running out of room. He asks his buddy about it, who suggests that he delete the /usr/share/doc directory in order to free up some space. Again, so far, nothing has happened that would put Pancho on notice of the license terms or even that the license exists. He uses the computer for a couple more years and then decides to get a better computer. He cleans out his personal files and gives the computer to Dario, his cousin. Dario is a bright young man who likes to tinker. He knows how to program in C and find in the machine some way-cool code that he can use to write some software that he compiles and sells as proprietary software. The author of the original code finds out about it and bring suit against both Pancho and Dario to enforce the license. Result: The author loses. Holding of the court: Neither Pancho nor Dario "accepted" the license because they never had reason to know of its terms. On the other hand, if documentation provided to Pancho when the computer was originally purchased contains the terms of the licenses governing the software, Pancho would have accepted the license when he commenced using the computer and would thereafter be subject to license when he transferred the computer to Dario. The case against Dario is a difficult one still, but at least the author could argue that Pancho's convenyance of the computer to Dario was subject to the license because Pancho cannot convey more rights than he has. I am aware of the arguments made by the FSF and some other advocates of open source, and their arguments may prevail in subsequent litigation. However, the prudent course ex-ante would be to forestall any argument that a purchaser never agreed to the terms of the license. I do not believe that oem-config is the right place to do it, but I am firmly convinced that as a community we need to create some sort of comprehensive license management functionality. My thinking is that there should be a searchable and sortable license management program, which could print out a list of installed packages grouped and sorted by license and could print out a copy of each such license. In any event, it's something my company needs, so we'll likely have to write it if no one else wants to. If we can work up a requirements document for such a program, I will endeavor to get it written. Happy Trails, Loye Young Isaac & Young Computer Company Laredo, Texas http://www.iycc.biz On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 4:01 AM, Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Fortunately, free software licences don't typically require any kind of > agreement from the user, so I don't see that there's much to enforce as > far as end users are concerned. The GPL is most explicit about this > ("The act of running the Program is not restricted" in GPLv2 or "This > License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the > unmodified Program" in GPLv3), but it's largely true for others as well; > I can't think of any free software licences for which it would even be > possible to enforce any licensing conditions on an end user. It's only > modification and redistribution that really matters, and for that I > believe it's the modifier/distributor's responsibility to figure out > whether they have a licence to do so; music doesn't typically require > you to agree to a licence up front, for example, and music producers > seem to have no trouble enforcing copyright on redistribution. :-) I > certainly think it's good to let people know that free software is > involved, but this isn't shrink-wrapped proprietary software where the > user has to agree to an EULA first. > > If you have proprietary software involved, then it might well be a > different case, and you're welcome to work with me to get something > displayed at the start of oem-config. > > > > -- > Will we display license issue before install ubuntu > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/125984 > You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to oem- > config in ubuntu. > -- -- Will we display license issue before install ubuntu https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/125984 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
