Originally posted by bridgman
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A "Large Hardware Vendor" Wants A EULA Displayed For Firmware Updates On Linux
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Originally posted by lu_tze View PostWhen we discuss what GPL gives or takes, it is not relative to empty state, but to previous legal state. Here, the Copyright Act is the default. You can do everything that it allows and cannot do everything it disallows. It is Copyright Act that disallows you to modify, build and distribute someone's other code.
By your logic a EULA does not take any rights away either, although I guess you could argue that copyright law may not explicitly prohibit reverse engineering in some jurisdictions.Test signature
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Originally posted by bridgman View PostBy your logic a EULA does not take any rights away either
More specifically,- "This license does not grant you the right to disassemble/reverse engineer/etc." -> no agreement necessary
- "You agree to not disassemble/reverse engineer/etc." -> agreement necessary in order to take effect
- "This comes without any warranty to the extent permitted by applicable law" -> no agreement necessary
- "You agree to binding arbitration" / "you will not engage in class lawsuits" -> agreement necessary
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Originally posted by JMB9 View PostSo if the current automate nonsense will break it would be better far all ... but not to present those idiotic texts!
Admins need to automate - a cli works fine for that. But we test first and then deploy on a test group and finally the rest of the company.Last edited by slalomsk8er; 12 August 2020, 02:52 AM. Reason: clarity that the the first paragraph conserns private / single workstation
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Not a problem. They want an EULA display & negotiation – and they won't get it. So their fw won't be distributed through the usual mechanism that works for everybody else. They will need a separate firmware downloader that display their EULA. This downloader have to be written, maintained and distributed by whoever wants to distribute such firmware then. (The "large vendor" or their linux-using fanbase.) Users will be urged to complain to the vendor until they give in and distribute firmware the normal way.
An EULA display is impossible for many reasons. Particularly: Some linux boxes have no display that can show text, some have no keyboard/mouse for the "accept click". Now, this firmware may be for a graphics card – the machine may still be a headless compute node. People uses graphics cards to run neural nets and other highly parallel loads.
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Originally posted by fagnerln View PostI don't see much problem on EULAs, people are free to reject it anyway. It can be used to protect them legally, they should be transparent.
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Originally posted by torsionbar28 View PostUm, no. You are aware that the GPL v2 and GPL v3 are also EULA's, correct? So are MIT, Apache, and all of the open-source license agreements. Literally every piece of every Linux distro is covered by one EULA or another. There is nothing inherently bad about EULA's.
All this vendor is asking for, is that the user be prompted to explicitly accept it. I don't have a problem with that, especially since you already have to explicitly accept their EULA to download the firmware from their web site today.
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Originally posted by wswartzendruber View PostThe words "you" and "your" appear in the GPLv3 precisely 163 times. The end user is the whole point of GPLv3.
And on top of that, the whole thing GRANTS permissions, it doesnt make any restrictions.
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Originally posted by carewolf View PostAnd applies to the programmer, not the end user
Originally posted by carewolf View PostAnd on top of that, the whole thing GRANTS permissions, it doesnt make any restrictions.
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