Re: EULAs and the DFSG

[Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS <edmundo@rano.org>]

I'm trying to think of a vaguely plausible use for an EULA with free
software ...

Suppose you want to force people to publish the source when they use
the software to drive a publicly accessible web server. This condition
would still be DFSG-free, I think, but you can't enforce it with a
pure copyright licence like the GPL because using the software in a
web server is not an activity that requires permission from the
copyright holder. So you might put that condition in an EULA and only
give the software to people who agree to the EULA. In addition, you
use a copyright licence that allows distribution only when the
distributor makes the recipient agree to the EULA. This way you
recursively enforce a condition on use of the software, and the
software is DFSG-free, and the whole thing is possible using standard
copyright and contract law. Maybe. There are some details to be worked
out here, and I'm not sure whether you could make it possible for
anyone (not just a copyright holder) to sue someone who uses the
software in a web server without distributing the source.

Edmund