On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, Chris Wareham wrote:
> Baby Peanut wrote:

> > If an equivalent was done on a "PeeCee" site it would be criminal negligence
> > and no amount of warrantees on the software would do any good to protect since
> > it's not the software that is in question but the "surprise attack" of not
> > posting any visible warnings that is the problem.
>
> I think you want to go and reread the EULA ("license") that comes with
> most PeeCee software. It says you have no rights, no recourse to legal
> recompense under any circumstances, and the software provider can
> withdraw your right to use their product at any time. Some EULA's (most
> notably Micorsofts) often go beyond this, and that's the source of much
> pants wetting on sites like Slashdot.
>
> Meantime, the BSD license clearly states that your on your own, but that
> you can do almost anything you like with the software.

Okay, well, although this is /technically/ correct, I don't think
pointing this out to our understandably distressed friend Baby Peanut
here does much help him feel better about his predicament.

If there's anything worse that being bitten by a damaging and unpleasant
"gottcha", it's being bitten by one that's been known about and
understood for months.  And if there's anything worse than that, it
would probably be getting preached to that the licensing terms make no
warranties about the software not being evil.

I suppose it'd be worse if his machine exploded, bursting into flames,
but I don't think Microsoft ever wrote any software that runs on VAX
systems.

-brian.