I myself am a lawyer and agree that EULAs need to be better integrated
into the entire ecosystem. I am highly skeptical that, if the issue were
squarely presented, Texas and US Federal courts would enforce a license
buried in the bowels of an operating system for which the user had no
opportunity to review or consent before using the software.

I am strongly convinced, however,that oem-config is the WRONG place to
do it because only the user who happened to be turning on the machine
the first time would have agreed to the *End User* License Agreement.

In addition, placing EULA in oem-config would violate the Free Software
Definition and would violate the GPL because it would force a user to
agree to one license as a condition to using other software.

"The Right Way"

The better practice is to run the EULA script by the x-session-manager.
The login manager (gdm, xdm, etc.) calls x-session-manager when the user
logs in. X-session-manager, in turn, runs the scripts in
/etc/X11/Xsession.d, which handle all sorts of preparations for the user
session. This is how, for example, new users get their directories and
get the default .gconf files, etc.

The EULA script in /etc/X11/Xsession.d/ should fire off a window asking
for consent to the EULAs.  If the user did not consent to the licenses
required for the system and the desktop to run at all, the login would
exit and return the system to the login manager. With respect to other
EULAs , the EULA script would add the user to a group with permissions
to use the software. If the user did NOT agree, the user would not be
added to that group, which would allow the user to proceed to use other
software.

IYCC is interested in developing a "EULA" package that "Does The Right
Thing". If anyone would like to participate, please advise.

By the way, we have debtagged every package in our default installation
with the type of license that covers the package. We use the debtags to
create a booklet with a copy of each license and a list of the packages
covered by such package. The booklet ships with our product as an
additional users manual. We will soon be making the debtags available
for others. If you need them sooner, please advise.

Happy Trails,

Loye Young
Isaac & Young Computer Company
Laredo, Texas 
http://archive.iycc.net

-- 
OEM config should offer support to show EULAs
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/315646
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