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