On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@gmail.com> wrote: > Didn't the user already accept the license by putting it in ACCEPT_LICENSE? > If not, portage will not download it. >
Well, I'd argue that it is impossible to "accept a license" in the first place. It is possible to agree to a contract if there is consideration on both sides and a meeting of the minds. Copyright says you can't copy something. A license says you might be able to. You don't have to "accept" a license to benefit it. A license does not restrict what a user can do, it restricts what the person issuing the license can do (I can't sue you for redistributing my code if I licensed it to you under the GPL). Some licenses are conditional - I only limit my own ability to sue you if you give people a copy of the source for any binary you give them, and if you don't do that I am now free to sue you. Ultimately the foundation for licenses is copyright law, and other forms of IP law. Copyright says we can't distribute anything we don't create except under very specific circumstances. A license says that we can distribute stuff without fear of lawsuit under some conditions. The yEd license says we can't distribute anything, so as far as I can see, we might as well not have any license at all. We're not protected at all from a lawsuit, except to the degree that we don't do anything that we can be sued for (like distributing their software). But yes, from a technical standpoint you can only install a package if its license is contained in ACCEPT_LICENSE. Whether this has any legal meaning is up to you or a court with jurisdiction to decide. Rich
