Re: Licensing problem in winstaller

Under UK law almost any time you copy a file is a copyright infringement
unless you have explicit permission or are covered by one of the
incredibly narrow exceptions. There is no real "fair use", in the
american sense. I might argue that in the UK it is necessary to accept
the GPL in order to use GPL'd software. These issues are complex precisely
because there are cross country issues... Anyhow, what do you propose we
do about it? I don't want to have to get people to agree to the GPL when
they run the distribution servlet...

On Thu, May 19, 2005 at 12:35:01PM +0000, Bob wrote:
> The winstaller says that you *have* to agree to the GNU GPL to install / use
> Freenet; however this is not true :
> 
> "5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
>  signed it.  However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
>  distribute the Program or its derivative works.  These actions are
>  prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.  Therefore, by
>  modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
>  Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
>  all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
>  the Program or works based on it."
> 
> i.e. _use_ is fine without accepting the GPL, only distribution and modification
> are not allowed. This is a very common problem with win32 Free software, people
> want something to use for the installshield license.txt and assume the GPL is
> basically a EULA like any other, but it's not. An example of how it should be
> done is the Zinf audio player, which has a "we're licensed under the GPL, here
> it is" message and a "Cool!" button instead of I Agree ;^)
> 
> Maybe someone was thinking of the distribution servlet, which would infringe if
> they didn't agree, but that has to be run manually as a deliberate
> 'distribution' action.
> 
> Relevant discussion :
> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=41387&cid=4380262
> 
> Bob
-- 
Matthew J Toseland - toad-EI5O+8PHWbJeeLb3ft/[email protected]
Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/
ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.

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