Bug#690495: Prohibit click-through licenses or disclaimers
On Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 08:27:47PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
>
> > To me, this feels like a specific instance of the general problem of
> > excessive maintainer script prompting.
>
> Oh, I see why you didn't class it that way: this isn't something done by
> the maintainer scripts, but rather something done by the package itself.
> Sorry, I had somehow missed that.
>
> Yes, indeed, the chapter on maintainer scripts doesn't really help with
> that. Some similar issues apply, but not all of them (for example, the
> problems caused for non-interactive installations aren't an issue, and
> that's much of the concern with maintainer script prompting). So we can't
> really lean on existing bits of Policy; this would strike out into new
> areas.
>
> I think the root question is indeed whether this is the sort of bug (I
> would also consider it a bug, although I'm not sure on severity or whether
> the package maintainer needs to put a high priority on fixing it) should
> be specifically called out in Policy. As Sune mentions, there are a bunch
> of closely-related cases (splash screens, first-time wizards, etc.), and
> it's kind of hard to see how to draw a clear distinction, at least to me.
I'd very specifically draw the line at copyrights, licensing, terms of
use / terms of service, and disclaimers. I don't think Policy needs to
comment on splash screens, first-time wizards, and similar.
> I do think this is iffy from a DFSG #7 perspective, since it's forcing the
> user to agree to the additional license, but I'm not sure we've ever
> discussed that in general.
That thought crossed my mind as well, but I think it makes sense to
proscribe the practice by Policy whether it triggers a DFSG issue or
not.
- Josh Triplett
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