A "Large Hardware Vendor" Wants A EULA Displayed For Firmware Updates On Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: A "Large Hardware Vendor" Wants A EULA Displayed For Firmware Updates On Linux

The open-source Fwupd firmware updating utility paired with LVFS as the Linux Vendor Firmware Service has seen explosive growth for vastly improving the BIOS/firmware updating experience on Linux. Many major hardware vendors distribute their firmware updates on LVFS for consumption by Fwupd and more than 17 million firmware files have been served. Now though there is a new "large hardware vendor" willing to distribute their firmware updates this way but they want a end-user license agreement (EULA) added...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Should-Fwupd-Do-EULAs

[flower]

Luckily i live in germany where all EULAs are invalid anyway (maybe except B2B - not sure about that).

[dlq84]

Richard Hughes, If you're reading this; tell them to go F themselves.

[edwaleni]

Almost all vendors make you agree to a EULA when you download it, not when you apply it. Tell that "large hardware vendor" to do the same.

The last firmware update where I got a pop up Eula was on a consumer device and it was running Windows.

[Peter Fodrek]

Phoronix: A "Large Hardware Vendor" Wants A EULA Displayed For Firmware Updates On Linux

Now though there is a new "large hardware vendor" willing to distribute their firmware updates this way but they want a end-user license agreement (EULA) added...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...Fwupd-Do-EULAs

Name of the vendor is required for me. I wish large vendor not to be:





Vendor is evaluating the service

• Has test account on the LVFS

https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/#amd

[fagnerln]

I 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.

The problem with EULAs is that mostly of it is made with the intention of misleading people, with long and complex text.

[dlq84]

Almost all vendors make you agree to a EULA when you download it, not when you apply it. Tell that "large hardware vendor" to do the same.

The last firmware update where I got a pop up Eula was on a consumer device and it was running Windows.

Isn't LVFS also a firmware repository?

[torsionbar28]

The problem with EULAs is that mostly of it is made with the intention of misleading people, with long and complex text.

Perhaps in some instances, but for firmware, generally not. Firmware EULA's usually say two fairly benign common sense things: 1) the firmware is offered without warranty, so don't sue us if this bricks your hardware. 2) don't re-distribute the firmware, we want people to download it from official sources only.

Add the dang EULA. The firmware blob is not FOSS, so the vendor can license it how they see fit. Offer an --accept-eula command line option for automated deployments. I don't see what the big deal is. Some Linux distros make you explicitly accept a EULA (the GPL) during installation too.

Edit: Pretty much every hardware vendor makes you accept a EULA on their web site to download firmware. This is no different, it's simply using a different tool (LVFS) to initiate the download, rather than a web browser. So of course they would want to retain the same EULA functionality that they have today via browser.

[phoron]

I don't use proprietary software (at least replaceable proprietary software). Does anybody know how do they do it for updates of proprietary software (applications, OSes...) ? Do you have to agree again to the license each time you update? even if the software updates itself on its own (OTA) ? only when the users asks for upgrade ? only when the license changes ? just at first installation ? With free software the license is usually something which you can consult in documentation, in a program option, or sometimes it is shown the first time you run it and not again (unless the user requires it). But the distro you use should have its own criteria on what licenses they accept so you have a rough idea of your rights even without looking at each license (and free software licenses are not completely standarised, but much more so than proprietary licenses, so you end up knowing the most common ones without reading them again).

I suspect if firmware were free they wouldn't care so much about showing licenses again. So just tell the vendor to free their firmware. Or just change the facility to only update free firmware

[bug77]

Well, it seems 70% of the respondents got it right already.
Whenever an individual in a pack thinks their use case is more special than others', I'd urge them to either reconsider or make an argument for their case.