Software companies crack down on license infringement
Overlooked EULA licenses gain legal ground as companies get serious
Calder Phillips-Graffin
Issue date: 5/28/09 Section: Sci/Tech
You've all run into them at one time or another; in fact, many of you probably clicked "YES" on one of their annoying windows in just this past week. What is it? It's the omnipresent software license, more correctly known as the End User License Agreement (EULA). Virtually every piece of software ever created is accompanied by some sort of license. Almost everyone who has seen one of these license agreements has simply accepted it without reading, mostly because their acceptance is required to use the software in question.
In fact, you're probably so used to accepting those boxes by now that you don't even think about what they say. But before you accept another software license, you might want to know a little bit about the fine print they carry. That said, my aim here is to give you a basic understanding of the major license schemes and what they mean to you.
If you have any experience with licensing schemes for software and data, you've heard of the GNU Public License (GPL), informally referred to as the GNU, or one of its many cousins. These free-use licenses allow you to do almost anything you want with software and data as long as you don't infringe the copyrights of the creators by claiming it as your own. In most cases, these licenses also protect freely available software from being resold for a profit. A common variant of this license type is the GNU Free Documentation License, the license scheme used for Wikipedia. These licenses are the ones you want to deal with, since they give you the most freedom of action. Free-licensing also prohibits the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) that can be used to copy-protect and encrypt data.
Most of the software you've ever downloaded and installed probably falls under this licensing category, mainly because almost all free software is licensed under the GNU or a similar creator-specific variant. Most, but not all software under this license is also "Open Source," although this may not necessarily be true. If you're looking for nice, friendly software that you can do just about anything with, then free-licensing is definitely what you're looking for.
In fact, you're probably so used to accepting those boxes by now that you don't even think about what they say. But before you accept another software license, you might want to know a little bit about the fine print they carry. That said, my aim here is to give you a basic understanding of the major license schemes and what they mean to you.
If you have any experience with licensing schemes for software and data, you've heard of the GNU Public License (GPL), informally referred to as the GNU, or one of its many cousins. These free-use licenses allow you to do almost anything you want with software and data as long as you don't infringe the copyrights of the creators by claiming it as your own. In most cases, these licenses also protect freely available software from being resold for a profit. A common variant of this license type is the GNU Free Documentation License, the license scheme used for Wikipedia. These licenses are the ones you want to deal with, since they give you the most freedom of action. Free-licensing also prohibits the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) that can be used to copy-protect and encrypt data.
Most of the software you've ever downloaded and installed probably falls under this licensing category, mainly because almost all free software is licensed under the GNU or a similar creator-specific variant. Most, but not all software under this license is also "Open Source," although this may not necessarily be true. If you're looking for nice, friendly software that you can do just about anything with, then free-licensing is definitely what you're looking for.
Be the first to comment on this story