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Re: Is the University of Edinburgh clickwrap GPL DFSG-free?



On Fri, 03 Nov 2006, Sean Kellogg wrote:
> On Friday 03 November 2006 01:24, Don Armstrong wrote:
> > Setting up wrapper terms and/or clickwraps that cannot be removed
> > contravenes §6:
>
> ----------------------
> IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT ALL THE TERMS OF THIS LICENCE [sic], EDINBURGH GRANTS NO 
> LICENCE [sic] TO USE SOFTWARE, AND THEREFORE YOU SHOULD CLICK ON THE 'REJECT' 
> BUTTON TO EXIT THIS PROCESS.
> ----------------------

NB: Licence is also an appropriate spelling.

> Avoiding the click wrap means you have not accepted ALL the terms of
> the license (warrent/waiver provisions) and thus you have not
> received a grant.

Perhaps, but since:

 1.2 Redistribution with or without modifications are permitted under
     the terms of the GNU General Public Licence (Version 2, 1991,
     published by the Free Software Foundation, a copy of which is set out
     below).

it would seem that once someone either agreed to their terms or
avoided them, they could simply sever these terms and redistribute
under GPLv2.
 
> ----------------------
> You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the 
> rights granted herein.
> ----------------------
> 
> But that doesn't say you cannot impose further restrictions in
> general, only those which restrict rights granted by the GPL. So
> I'll re-ask my question... what part of the GPL prohibits a more
> explicit waiver of *liability* and *warranty* than already included
> in the GPL?

Again, there's nothing wrong with an initial distribution including
it, but unless you allow it to be severable, anyone else who
distributes it must also distribute and apparently cause distributees
to agree to the license. That's a restriction on your ability to use
and distribute the software, since it requires you to do things beyond
what section 1, 2, or 3 requires.

Of course, in this case, the terms of the liability and warranty
waiver are the GPL terms themselves recouched, so I've no clue why
they even bothered with a clickwrap.


Don Armstrong

-- 
I now know how retro SCOs OSes are. Riotous, riotous stuff. How they
had the ya-yas to declare Linux an infant OS in need of their IP is
beyond me. Upcoming features? PAM. files larger than 2 gigs. NFS over
TCP. The 80's called, they want their features back.
 -- Compactable Dave http://www3.sympatico.ca/dcarpeneto/sco.html

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu



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