Blogging Ottinger (tim)Vista Eula Madness
Most everyone who installs some version of windows clicks on a button indicating that they agree with the terms of an End User License Agreement, or EULA. The majority assume that it’s not enforceable and doesn’t really mean anything, but this turns out not to be the case. Of course, hardly anyone wants to take the hours/days it takes to dig through the agreement and understand it. Whenver I read a EULA it makes me cringe. These license agreements are the best reason to use GPLed software instead.
Thankfully we have people like Ed Foster and Wendy Seltzer. Ed recently published an analysis of the censorship clause for us. It seems that the EULA (and therefore Vista) has some funny conditions that are pointed out by Wendy Seltzer. Is this something you really wanted to sign up for?
Of course, a very good source of information about harmful EULAs is the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s EULA page.
