Bruce Perens on OSI

[der.hans]

Am 02. Aug, 2002 schwätzte Derek Neighbors so:

> > Now, not trolling, just interested in the discussion, what do you see wrong
> > with a click-wrap license that is Free?
>
> It just doesnt make sense.  Analogies never seem to work, but it would
> be like requiring your signature for cash purchases.

This is a nice analogy, actually. It shows that we have a method use that
doesn't require the extra step. Someone else has proposed another use that
does require the extra step ( not only that, but the extra step doesn't hold
up in court anyway ). Why should the system that doesn't need the extra step
be held back by the one that does?

Checks and credit card purchases need signatures. Cash purchases don't.
Proprietary licenses want click-throughs because they're limiting our
rights. GPL is granting rights, so doesn't require any ritual of acceptance.

> Its much like the open vs free debate.  It sounds good today but erodes
> over time.  People just do NOT really read these things.  If Free Software
> starts popping click throughs explaining all the new great freedoms you
> get soon EULA's that are bad will be hard to distinguish from ones that
> are good.

We already have that. Also, you'd have to click a dozen licenses every time
you load a new box with a GNU/Linux dist. Maybe it would actually help
because everybody would move to GPL, LGPL, and BSD licenses in order to help
reduce the pain...

ciao,

der.hans
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