Disclaimer - I too am not a lawyer.
Mounir Lamouri wrote:
I'm not a lawyer so I can't say for sure some software _need_ explicit
license acceptance to be used. However, I'm quite sure using a software
means accept the license.
Someone experienced in this area is welcome for clarifications.
Well, the basic gist of the argument is this:
1. A license is required to do something that you otherwise wouldn't be
allowed to do. For example, in my town I'm not allowed to burn garbage,
but if I got special permission (a license) from the local government I
could legally disregard the law.
2. There are no laws that state that it is illegal to run software.
3. Therefore, I don't need a license to run software - if I obtained it
legally then it is mine to do with as I wish.
Copying or distribution is a different matter - copyright law forbids
doing these (except under fair use), and therefore to distribute copies
of software one requires a license.
I think this vision is too simple. Some licenses add rules and rights
users should know.
Well, some licenses _claim_ to add rules and rights. Whether they
actually do so is debatable, and it can depend on the specifics of the
situation and your legal jurisdiction.
> Some applications can use your personal data (like
picasa) or forbid you to try to do reverse engineering even if
authorized in your country (can't remember name).
Use of personal data is probably more about using an online service, and
that falls more under the category of a service agreement and not a
license. They really aren't the same thing even if companies tend to
blend them together. Legally they aren't quite the same thing.
I am not aware of any court which has upheld license provisions that
prohibit reverse engineering. Again, almost EVERY proprietary license
out there makes that claim, but that doesn't make it legally binding.
So, even if most users don't care, we should at least help them know.
Because, at the moment, I can install something with a license saying "i
can use personal data you put in this app" without even have a clue.
I agree that we should make this information available, and I'm all for
giving users tools to pick and choose what kinds of licenses they're
willing to potentially subject themselves to. I just don't think we
want to be the license police - so even if ACCEPT_LICENSE doesn't
default to "*" we shouldn't prohibit this setting (and the example
config file should contain a comment that clearly indicates that portage
has this option).
Also - any service that makes use of personal data without going to a
fair amount of effort to ensure the user has agreed with this is asking
for trouble. Indeed, in many countries this kind of data is subject to
a great deal of protection no matter what the dialog box might say to
the contrary.
By auto-enabling only a set of licenses we can be sure at 99% users will
be safe. By auto-enabling everything, we can put our users in an illegal
situation where he is living. Better to be a little bit restrictive than
too comprehensive.
I do see the virtue of your argument - probably the practical solution
would be ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -...@eula" or equivalent. However, we should
certainly allow users to change this to ACCEPT_LICENSE=* if they so
desire. In any case, not doing so is silly - somebody will just issue a
patch for portage that does exactly this if we make it hard. I'd be
happy to host it in an overlay (or in portage if there were no strong
objections - though it seems silly to have an internal fork of the
package manager which is why it should simply be configurable). Gentoo
is about choice - we provide the tools, we don't tell users that live in
Freedomland that Freedom isn't allowed for Gentoo users. Likewise, if
Saint Ignutious wants to run "-* GPL" more power to him.
And maybe it will help users to think about alternatives before using
proprietary software.
Again, as long as the implementation is one that is designed to _help_
our users I think that this is exactly the gentoo way to do things.
What we don't want to do is police our users, or "help" them in ways
they don't want to be helped.
