3 ms·

There aren't legal requirements for many (most?) pieces of software. You can release a piece of software without any terms of use at all--that's perfectly legal

There aren't legal requirements for many (most?) pieces of software. You can release a piece of software without any terms of use at all--that's perfectly legal. So I don't buy the idea that complexity is driven by legal requirements.

nickff 6y ago
The legal problems come in when the software is discovered to have some flaw or an undisclosed interaction with some other system, and the class-action lawyers swoop in to eviscerate the publisher.
- 0xffff2 6y ago
  Has this ever actually happened? Particularly, has a software publisher ever lost such a case?
  - fapjacks 6y ago
    Class action? Like, on behalf of consumers? I can't think of any off-hand. Cases on behalf of Larry Ellison, however...
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  Lots of open source software has gone for decades with the following license, without the wrath of god falling on them: Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders> Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. It seems to me like you could just cut the paragraph starting with "Permission" and the words "and this permission notice" from the next paragraph, and you'd have the same protections, but for a closed-source project. So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and continue to believe that these EULA's are definitely not written with the user in mind.

nickff 6y ago

The legal problems come in when the software is discovered to have some flaw or an undisclosed interaction with some other system, and the class-action lawyers swoop in to eviscerate the publisher.

0xffff2 6y ago
Has this ever actually happened? Particularly, has a software publisher ever lost such a case?
- fapjacks 6y ago
  Class action? Like, on behalf of consumers? I can't think of any off-hand. Cases on behalf of Larry Ellison, however...
kerkeslager 6y ago
Lots of open source software has gone for decades with the following license, without the wrath of god falling on them: Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders> Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. It seems to me like you could just cut the paragraph starting with "Permission" and the words "and this permission notice" from the next paragraph, and you'd have the same protections, but for a closed-source project. So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and continue to believe that these EULA's are definitely not written with the user in mind.