Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again) To : comp.programming From : Randy Howard Date : Thu Sep 01 2005 08:45 pm Willem wrote (in article ): > Gerry wrote: >> If you buy the software, you are entitled to do with it as you wish. >> >> If you buy a non-exclusive licence to use it, which is the stated or >> implied contract in typical retail transactions, you haven't bought the >> software. > > If I go to a store and buy something, there is no implied contract. > After I open the package, any contract or licence I happen to find > inside doesn't apply, as it wasn't shown to me at the time of sale. If you disagree with it after opening it, you could try to return it. Some stores might balk at the return if the media itself was opened (seal broken) before you got to the license/contract. Or, not being born yesterday, you know such a contract will be in their /before/ you take it home, and you could decide not to buy it in the first place. :-( > I don't know about the US, but that's how it works here in the Netherlands. > And if I may say so, I would find it ridiculous if it were otherwise. Laws are quite often ridiculous. :-) The idea that a software company will ask you to forego any complaint if their package does a secure erase of every file on your hard drive, despite being sold as a word processor, not a security tool, is also ridiculous. However, they /all/ do it now, so if you want anything at all, you have to make such an agreement to use it. People roll over something small, something bigger comes along to test it. Like pay-per-use licensing. That has to be the biggest test for a total lack-of-spine ever dreamed up by the industry. The acronym has been overloaded, but the original use of DIVX was for a pay-per-view DVD variant dreamed up by Hollywood and pushed by Circuit City back in the early days of DVD, 1997 or so. They were selling special DIVX players, and you would have to hook up a phone line, IIRC, to pay for each time you watched a DIVX disc. The discs were basically free to get you to take them home. Fortunately, the DVD crowd didn't go for it, because they did have a spine, and Circuit City lost millions. Many people boycotted them and refused to buy anything from them over it. The current 'divx' video format being used by various people does not involve pay-per-view. It would be really nice if a few hundred million people refused to agree to the Vista license agreement when it ships, and returned their packages en masse for a refund. But, the lemmings will dominate, as usual. -- Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR) .