Mika Fischer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > The main issue for the developers is AFAIK the "no warranty" clause and > how to make it legally binding.
I'm not really sure what it means to make a "no warranty" clause "legally binding". If you are trying to avoid getting sued then you might be better off if you make a sincere effort to inform users of the potential risks rather than rely on some legal gobbledygook to give you magical protection. I don't know which jurisdictions you're interested in, but I've been told that disclaimers don't help much under German law, for example.[*] Common sense says that it is more useful to warn people in ordinary natural language of the real risks specific to a particular product rather than attach the same legalese that nobody reads to every product. Remember, also, that users may be children, who don't understand legalese and cannot make a contract with you. > In order to continue with the download and installation of UnrealIRCd > you must accept the following license agreement: > > [Full copy of GPL] Which includes, presumably, the following words: 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. > I don't know much about licensing issues. As far as I understand it, > nobody has the right to copy, modify or redistibute your software > without a license to do so. Thus it doesn't make sense not to be bound > by a license agreement because then you don't have a right to copy the > software. Yes, but if you download a program, are you copying it, or is the web site copying it, or both? I rather suspect that if you can obtain the data by following a URL (even one containing the string "&accept=yes") then it might be the web site that is copying, as someone can always claim to have obtained the data by following a URL they saw in IRC rather than by filling in your form. I'm just speculating here. Edmund [*] Still, it's funny how German signs tend to use the word "verboten" where a British sign would use the word "danger". I rather like this style of sign as I once saw on a country walk in England: "Danger. Uncleared military target area. Don't touch anything. It might explode and kill you."