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A Model End Vendor License Agreement

Posted by timothy on from the by-receipt-of-this-fax-you-acknowledge-and-agree dept.

Teese writes "Low End Mac is presenting this article as a humor piece, but its vision of an End Vendor License Agreement seems to be pretty well thought out, and one that I wouldn't mind seeing in the real world."

8 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. #7 by dirvish · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I agree with most of them but this one seems unreasonable:
    All ongoing, recurring registration expenses must be clearly explained at purchase, or I will not pay them. This includes fees for services such as .mac and .NET. You must, however, continue to provide the services.
    Services change all the time. You can't expect a business to be able to look into the future, their business model may have to change in order to stay successful.
    --
    FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
    1. Re:#7 by steveit_is · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can and do expect that I will not have the terms of service changed on me after they have been agreed to by both myself and the other party.

      If one is selling a service for a length of time, then one had better be damn sure that they can provide THAT service for THAT length of time for THAT price.

      It is especially wrong when a corporation after having offered certain terms tries to change those terms by changing the EULA one must accept to apply a patch to a 'buggy' system that should never have been unleashed on the consumer in the first place. (winBlows service packs spring to mind )

      I guess my point is, screw their business model... I demand that promises(contracts) be kept!

    2. Re:#7 by El+Cubano · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Services change all the time. You can't expect a business to be able to look into the future, their business model may have to change in order to stay successful.

      You are only halfway correct. They may not be able to look into the future, but they sure as heck better know what is going at present. For example, you purchase software X and it depends on your ability to access a MS .NET server on which part of the app will reside (a subscription service that you must pay for). That had better be spelled out on the FRONT of the box, or it will piss off many customers.

      Think of it this way: You buy a new car. After 5,000 miles, the check engine light comes on. You go to the dealer and they say, "Oh yeah. by the way you need to bring in your car every 5,000 miles for as long as you have it and we'll reset that light for you for $500. By the way, if you let it stay on, the car shuts off after 100 more miles." That is the sort of thing that line item is trying to avoid.

      Now, if the business model or pricing changes, then they can notify the users and go at it from there, but the user should not buy something of which they are not aware (the requirement to subscribe to a service).

  2. Legislation by mao+che+minh · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What is really needed is legislation that protects an end user's basic rights before an EULA is even drawn up - a law that states clearly that an EULA cannot revoke the very basic privileges available to all consumers (somehow software seems exempt, as vendors are able to drastically limit rights in coniving ways, such as hiding the EULA within the shrink wrap. Such under-handed techniques are not allowed in the sale of most other products).

    This type of thing (what is mentioned in the article) would work, but only if a vast majority of consumers decided to join such a group. I say we find a way to protect the rights of everyone.

  3. They missed a couple by kimbly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    11. You must never install software on my computer that hijacks other software, causing it to display popups or to add affiliate ids to purchases I make.

    12. You must never install software on my computer that connects to a remote server, unless the software first obtains my permission to do so, and explains what information will be sent to the remote server.

  4. Re:EVLA by peacefinder · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Practicality or enforceability is not yet the point, I think. It clearly is absurd, and should not be considered an enforceable contract... which reflects the absurdity of a click-through EULA.

    It seems to me that a click-through EULA is rationally (but probably not legally) equivalent to or weaker than an EVLA delivered to the manufacturer by certified mail, or initialled by a software dealer's employee. It's a sweet idea for a protest at least.

    Furthermore, when we purchase software under a EULA, we allow a company to dictate terms to us, often terms that are onerous or not obvious. We wouldn't accept these entanglements when buying a book, a house, a car, or groceries. Why should we accept them here? For that matter, why shouldn't we have more say in the contract negotiations than "Yes or No"?

    We are citizens, after all, not just consumers.

    --
    With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
  5. Legislation... is unnecessary by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What is really needed is legislation that protects an end user's basic rights before an EULA is even drawn up - a law that states clearly that an EULA cannot revoke the very basic privileges available to all consumers (somehow software seems exempt, as vendors are able to drastically limit rights in coniving ways, such as hiding the EULA within the shrink wrap. Such under-handed techniques are not allowed in the sale of most other products).

    In several Western countries, you cannot legally sign away your basic rights. It doesn't matter what the vendors put in a contract, EULA or any other document, how much you pay for it or what you have to sign. Those rights are yours, and a court will ignore any documentation that doesn't respect that.

    This is why you find disclaimers in things like EULAs that if one part is found not to hold, the rest still does, etc. It's also why big businesses like Microsoft are terrified of a serious test case that might establish a precedent that EULAs have no legal weight because of the way they are set up. The net effect is that they rely on threats of legal action to get what the EULA would seek to secure for them, because it's the best chance they've got in most places and they know it.

    This is not to say that you should flagrantly ignore things you know to be in an EULA unless you want to play dice with the courts. But you're pretty safe in ignoring any unreasonable conditions, because it's about a 110% certainty that they won't be legally enforceable anyway.

    No, I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, and Slashdot is not the place for serious legal discussion. But use your common sense: no court is going to uphold something as manifestly unreasonable as a contract you supposedly agree to before you even have chance to read it. In fact, some places even have laws to the effect that if you can't reasonably be expected to understand a contract, you can't legally have entered into it. Not sure EULAs would fall within that, but it would be an interesting case...

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
  6. Re:Actually.. by HBI · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Labor unions rely on compulsion in most cases - if you work here, you must belong to the union. This works - no one can circumvent it. Who is going to force geeks to join this union though? So, it's a given it's all-volunteer as you have framed it.

    Any volunteer action is by its nature flaky and prone to miscarry. All you have to do is join a fraternal organization (Elks, Moose, one of the veterans groups, etc) to see this. We're talking about disciplined, together people who hold down jobs and run businesses, and getting a Friday night dinner together is a fiasco. People don't show, people don't want to wash dishes, we ran out of ketchup, etc.

    Look at all the abandoned Sourceforge projects for an illustration of how ineffective volunteer projects can be. Collective volunteer action is very inefficient and downright maddening in many cases. It is a given then that this has a be a real organization with expenses and a revenue stream, otherwise it just isn't going to happen.

    In the abstract, your idea is great. Get every geek to join a group to enforce license restrictions to benefit the consumer. But what happens when the person(s) running the group becomes suspect to some of the group? (think ICANN here) Does the group fork? Probably some people drop out or no longer participate.

    How effective is a pressure group without numbers behind it? The NRA wields power because they have the signatures of X million people behind them. (I forget how many...3 million?). We're talking membership dues here just to keep track of all the people to demonstrate your size and power. (they charge $25 a year for a basic membership I think)

    How many people really care about this kind of stuff, enough to fork over $20 or whatever a year? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Is that enough to change Microsoft's mind? How about Pkware? How about Intuit?

    I don't know the answers to many of these questions, but I have a feeling the answers to some of them are 'no' or 'not', as appropriate.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.