Click-Thru Licensing on Open Source Software?

Russ Nelson writes "At the July OSI board meeting last week, we approved the Academic Free License (think MIT/BSD/X11/Apache with a patent grant) and we sent four licenses back for reconsideration. Here's the hitch: we were asked to approve a license which includes a requirement for click-wrap. Read more to see why we're asking you about it. The submittor had already been asked if that requirement was a necessity. She said yes, because of various legal precedents. We consulted a few people and yes, it looks like a license without click-wrap is weaker at protecting your rights. So, folks, the lawyers are coming. The time is coming when you won't be able to distribute software unless you have presented the license to the user and their assent is necessary to access the software. Even free software. Our industry is maturing and we need to be more legally careful and rigorous. The question here is whether we should amend the Open Source Definition so that it is clear whether click-wrap licenses are allowable or not. We could go either way, but we want to hear from you first. Your opinions solicited, and engaged!" While I can understand some legal necessities are necessary in the software world, click-thru licenses have never, and will never, make sense to me. Maybe commercial software has soured me on the concept, but I dislike agreeing to something before I even get a chance to use it.

Comments

censordot

[Anonymous Coward]

version 1.3, (last updated 1st August 2002)

Note to moderators : Do not moderate this post down, if you do then you support the editors stance on censorship and

you support the end of free speech and support evil organisations like Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA and laws like the CBTBA

and DMCA. Moderating this post will only waste mod points, and will not work!

Sign this petition, let your voice be heard!

Slashdot is using censorship! It is trying to eridicate free and open discussion like we know slashdot to be, it has the

following RESTRICTIONS in place to Censor you

They claim they don't, but they do, wonder why their are so many trolls, crapflooders and lamers on slashdot, because

they are fighting for their rights! Slashdot is trying to silence the trolls. Remove the filters, the trolls get bored, and

slashdot will be troll free!

• Lameness filters (It blocks a lot of legitmate posts)
• Unnessary posting delays. Hasnt taco learned to touch type? A lot of posts are typed in less than 20 seconds and it is a
  
  ANNOYING DELAY! 2 minute ban? Come on, so some are faster then others, big deal, some people have more to say than
  
  others
• Broken moderation system, The whole point is to sort the gems from the crap, yet a lot of posts designed to make a
  
  LIVELY DISCUSSION are MODERATED as flamebait! Come on, not everyone likes X, but just because some one bashes it
  
  dosent mean its Flamebait. Flame bait is more useful for DIRECT INSULTS and not legitmate discussions.

The "troll" moderation reason is fragmented and broken, why? Because they are trying to use an obsolete usenet term on a

realtime discussion, "trolls" can cover a huge blanket of ideas.

• Crapfloods, a meaningless flood of random letters or text, which the lameness filter does a crappy job at trying to stop,
  
  besides trolls have written tools using the opensource slashcode to generate crapfloods which bypass the filter
• Links to offensive websites, the most common one is known a http://www.goatse.cx, a awful site which shows a
  
  bleeding anus being stretched on the front page. Trolls sneak these links in by posting messages that look legitimate, but
  
  infact are sneaky redirects to the site. Common examples include rd.yahoo.com, www.linux-kernel.tk, goatsex.cjb.net, and
  
  googles "Im feeling lucky".
• Trying to break slashdot, this is actually a good thing, as it helps test slashdot for bugs. Famous examples include the
  
  goatse.cx javascript pop-up, the pagewidening post and the browser crashing post!

Subnet banning, this bans a user unless they email jamie macarthy with their mp5ed ipids. This is unfair, and banning a

subnet BLOCKS A WHOLE ISP SOMETIMES, and not that individual user! This can cause chaos! But real trolls use

annoymous proxys to get around this so THIS JUST BANS LEGITMATE USERS! Also, they are trying to censor some

anoymous proxies, mainly from countrys like africa, so this yet more DISCRIMINATION! If you try and post before the ban

is over it gets extended.

Pink page of Death, This censors people who use legitmate proxys or firewalls. It also blocks serivces like CgiProxy and

filters like t'inator.

The Bitchslap! An unethical punishment which is applied to moderators who fight censorship against this site! In addition

the Editors use their un-limited mod points to create a communist style censored discussion on slashdot! This one sided

discussion makes trolls more determined

But, the issue that concerens us the most, is the COMMENT QUOTA. A discrimatory system that stiffles discussion,

cripples the community and will ultimateley destroy slashdot unless it is removed! Annoymous cowards are allowed only

10 posts a day! This is unethical! Users with negative karma only get two! That is DISCRIMINATION! How would you like

to only be able to speak once a day, just because of the color of your skin. That would be racism, and slashdot is

discrimitating on people just because of a negative number in a database! BOYCOTT SLASHDOT! LET THEM DIE!

We wan't these stupid useless restrictions REMOVED! This comment will be posted again and again until it does!

Inportant imformation for users
Boycott slashdot, they are pissing over their community, they are becoming like the RIAA and MICROSOFT! Do NOT

TOLERATE THIS SHIT! Here are some real news for nerds sites. We don't need slashdot, slashdot deserves to die!

MSNBC
BBC NEWS
News.com
Linux online
Linux daily news network
Weird news from dailyrotten.com
Trollaxor, news for trolls, they are real people too!
CNN.com
New york times (free registration required)
LINUX.com
News forge
K5
Mandrake forum
Toms hardware
The register
Kde dot news
The linux kernel Archives
Adequecy
Xfree86.org

There are hundreds more, But this is where slashdot STEALS THE MAJORITY OF its "news" from.

Proxy sites
Anti proxy
Jmarshalls Cgiproxy,which has been pink paged!

Infamous Trolls
Wipo Troll
Klerck

Punish them, here are their emails, spam them, flame them goatse them!
Rob malda
Jamie Macarthy
ChrisD
Hemos
Micheal
Pudge

The others ones apperantly dont have an e-mail, probably because ROB MALDA IS PRETENDING HE IS JOHN KATZ.

Thank you for reading this, please feel free to repost this information, please reply to add your comments, fight slashdot

and its CENSORSHIP

Don't forget to sign the petition!

Re:We should take a stand.....

[NineNine]

There are many different ways to "buy" something. You don't buy it or rent it. You can rent something for an indefinite period of time, a definite period of time, you can buy something outright, you can buy an option to buy something, and you can buy rights to use something for as long as you exist (ie: a francisee has rights to use the company's logo for the life of his business or a utility company buys an easement). There's nothing inherently wrong with software licensing.

You didn't sign anything? So does that mean with OSS, I own it, and I can do whatever I want with it (including sell it), because I didn't sign anything? I could probably sell a good number of copies of RedHat as NineNineOS. After all, I didn't sign a contract, so it's mine!

Actually, OSS has an even weaker case. There's no consideration (payment of any kind) given for the software, or the right to use it, so under the UCC, generally the GNU would be considered an unenforceable contract.