Re: [Gnash] Adobe EULA

[Dave Crossland]

On 06/01/2008, Sylvain Beucler <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> It's 2.5.1, the clause about reverse engineering.
>
> "[Information] may not be disclosed to any third party or used to
> create any software which is substantially similar to the expression
> of the Software."

Thanks for the quick reply!

> Do you know what happens when somebody installs the flash player and
> then uninstalls it? Is that person still unable to contribute to Gnash
> then?

In the USA, it appears so. Not in the EU though.

EULAs are regular contracts in additon to copyright licenses, even
though they have "license" in the name.

This differs from the GPL, which is a pure copyright license, not a
contract - many journalists mistakenly refer to it as a contract, and
many people are influenced by this into unclear thinking about the GPL
and say that it too "hasn't been tested in court." That's because it
doesn't need to be, because copyright licensing is a slam dunk case,
while contract agreements are much more complex.

So although such a term is outside of copyright licensing in the USA,
it is probably within the scope of "fair" contractual agreements in
the USA, but in the EU it falls foul of "consumer protection" bounds
on contractual terms.

IANAL but I'm studying free software licensing in depth, because fonts
is a legal minefield, and I'd love to be corrected if I'm mistaken
with this.

-- 
Regards,
Dave