Re: Bug#317359: kde: ..3'rd "Help"->"About $KDE-app" tab calls the GPL "License Agreement", ie; a contract.
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
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