Re: Bug#317359: kde: ..3'rd "Help"->"About $KDE-app" tab calls the GPL "License Agreement", ie; a contract.
(dropped CC's; it's probably not productive for the actual contract-or-not
debates to go to the bug, since we're not likely to come to a firm conclusion
anyway)
On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 02:11:24PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote:
> The debian-legal crowd is of several opinions. My own, shared by some on the
> list, is that the GPL contains certain warranty waiver provisions that cannot
> be done in a pure license... which means there must be a contract and it
> must be agreed to (in the GPL's case, it is agreed to by conduct). Others on
> this list take a different view, but fail to explain how they avoid the
> warranty stuff.
I don't really follow. I don't need a license to use software that I
obtain legally. If I'm not distributing or modifying the work, I'm not
using any of the permissions granted by the GPL; I'm not performing any
conduct that might indicate agreement merely by using the software.
(Even if the popular wisdom that "copyright covers copying, not use" is
no longer entirely true, the second paragraph of 0 explicitly excludes
use being covered by the license.) How am I agreeing to anything?
Saying "the warranty disclaimer is only valid if you agree to it"
doesn't explain how I've agreed to anything. You're arguing that the
warranty disclaimer isn't binding, not that the GPL is a contract.
(I won't debate whether warranty disclaimers work that way, since I
don't know.)
--
Glenn Maynard
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