Re: JRockit in non-free, part II

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Johan Walles <walles@mailblocks.com> writes:

>>Yes.  As 2.1 says, "...for use by End Users who agree to be bound by
>>an End User Agreement."  If Download.com is distributing this software
>>without getting end users to sign something, then they are in
>>violation of the license they signed.
>
> The license says that end users have to "agree to be bound by" the
> EULA, not that they have to sign it.  According to my (admittedly
> quite weak) understanding of copyright law, the alternative to agree
> to the EULA is the default license which says "hands off" basically.

Not quite.  The right to use it, to make a backup copy, to make
whatever copies are needed for proper operation, and to reverse
engineer it to create interoperable products exist without the EULA.

Also, given what your license seems to ask, it isn't the sort (like
the GPL) which grants only permissions -- it looks a lot like a
contract, which requires a signature to be binding.  That signature
might be a click on an "Accept" button, but it's no less binding for that.

>>What if it has significant modifications to Debian Main, and so isn't
>>just a mirror.  What if it's a mirror of just Debian non-free?  Just
>>the .deb for this package?
>
> The only thing this license agreement touches is Debian's distribution
> of the JRockit .debs.  

Then this pretty-clearly is a Debian-specific license.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu