Rubberduck: GPL is not an EULA

[retailcoder]

The installer is currently prompting our users to accept the terms of a license that has nothing to do with end users beyond "well you can download the source code too if you want".

Rubberduck doesn't have an End User License Agreement to agree to. IANAL but I doubt we need one? Let's remove that installer step.

Or better... come up with a witty legalese-looking parody of a EULA to present instead?

[A9G-Data-Droid]

End-User License Agreement ("Agreement")

Last updated: July 02, 2020

I know you're not going to read this End-User License Agreement carefully before clicking the "I Agree" button, downloading or using Rubberduck.

Acknowledgment

By clicking the "I Agree" button, downloading or using the Application, You are agreeing that humans should not be bound by EULAs that take longer than 30 seconds to read. If You do not agree to the terms of this Agreement, do not click on the "I Agree" button, do not download or do not use the Application.

This Agreement is not a legal document.

The Application is not licensed, or sold.

License

Scope of License

The Company grants You an irrevocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, unlimited license to download, install and use the Application without restriction.

The license that is granted to You by the Company is the same as it is for every other duck who can type.

Term and Termination

This Agreement shall remain in effect until terminated by You or the Company. The Company may, in its sole discretion, at any time and for any or no reason, suspend or terminate this Agreement with or without prior notice.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold the Company and its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, employees, agents, partners, developers, and ducks harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, due to or arising out of your use of the Application.

No Warranties

The Application is provided to You "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" and with all faults and defects without warranty of any kind.

Limitation of Liability

Notwithstanding any damages that You might incur, the entire liability of the Company and any of its suppliers under any provision of this Agreement and your exclusive remedy for all of the foregoing shall be limited to the amount actually paid by You for the Application or through the Application, which is nothing.

Product Claims

The Company does not make any claims or warranties concerning the Application. It might do something, it might do nothing.

Changes to this Agreement

The Company reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace this Agreement at any time. By continuing to access or use the Application after any revisions become effective, You agree to be bound by the revised terms. If You do not agree to the new terms, You are no longer authorized to use the Application. Please note this means we can do whatever we want, whenever we want.

Entire Agreement

We agree to disagree.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Agreement, You can contact Us:

• By visiting this page on our website: https://rubberduckvba.com/

[IvenBach]

I suggest changing Company --> Rubberduck (hereafter referred to as 'The Duck'). That way when reading:

• The Duck grants You ...
• The Duck reserves the right...
• ... liability of The Duck and any of ...

Doesn't matter what the first 2 people do. The 3rd person is always better.

[Vogel612]

GPL is an EULA, though. It was literally created to enforce protections of the rights of end users. It's an end-user focused license that the installing user agrees to. :tada: it's an EULA :)

Just because most companies are attempting to enforce restrictions on the end user through their EULAs, that doesn't make a permissive license "not an EULA".

[retailcoder]

I've been seeing an increasing number of posts about how accepting GPL terms in an installer doesn't make much sense; it tells end users that the software is provided as-is, and that they can get the source code if they want: it doesn't entail anything requiring accepting license terms until you fork the project and work with /modify the source code.

https://opensource.stackexchange.com/q/2865/575

Section 9 is rather explicit:

Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies.

GPL is "accepted" by modifying or distributing the software, and using the software doesn't require accepting GPL terms. That makes forcing users to accept the GPL terms to use the software... a (mild) violation of section 9?

[mansellan]

I'm not a lawyer, but I wonder if section 9 is adequate. Licenses are not just for obligations, but also for rights. At it's simplest, one can look at the MIT license, which is basically just a confirmation of assumed rights, a copyright notice, and a "No Warranties" section:

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

GPL is obviously and necessarily more complicated, but a similar "no warranty" clause applies. I would hate to get sued for a bug that somebody traced to my commit...

[mansellan]

Section 9 is rather explicit:

Acceptance Not Required for Having Copies.

An expensive lawyer might argue that "having a copy" is different from "using"...

[bclothier]

That's why I edited the proposal EULA in the PR #5586 to deal with those pigheads. Still, I can re-incorporate the warranty section in its entirety to cover all points.

[mansellan]

Sorry I didn't see you had an open PR. I think we at least need a "no warranties" section before the parody begins (and I love the parody).

Shouldn't be necessary, but these are the times we live in...

[mansellan]

Tbf, my lawyer (not expensive) would argue that my commits were made before (_a long time before..._) any license change :-)

[bclothier]

Frankly I think it's a losing proposition to try and sue a bunch of clowns who shared some code for free on some code sharing repository. Grant them the best case -- they win the lawsuit! Yay! What damages can they get? uh... I have 4 pennies, a button, and some lint? What about you?

[mansellan]

Well yes of course, but these are strange times. People have sucessfully sued for being scalded by a fast food coffee...

I think it's possible to do it and still keep the comedy flow. Something like:

"Don't assume this is bug free. We're volunteers, doing this for free for the good of mankind. Officially: (no warranties section). That's all you need to agree to, nothing that follows is legally enforceable, and is just for giggles: (parody)"

Am I being too paranoid?

[bclothier]

There are sections in the parody that I think ARE legally enforcable, one being the section about that GPL takes precedence over anything else in the EULA where it's in conflict. The "no warranty" is most likely enforceable. And that is the case even if it's a parody. The original version said it was not a legal document, which would have invalidated those sections. The current version now says it could be a legal document, soo...

[mansellan]

Intuition tells me it might be safer to have a real section (short), followed by a parody section.

[MDoerner]

There are two things I definitely want to be part of the EULA, no matter whether there is some parody in it or not:

1. A very clear and all-encompassing no-warranties clause akin to the one from the MIT license.
2. A severability clause

I might be a bit paranoid, but I really do not want to get into the position that I have to give away my personal money because, say, somebody used RD on an important large legacy program, some of the attributes in the program vanish and the company requires large effort to hunt down the missing attributes and has some financial losses because of the effort and the downtime of the program or because there have bee extensive changes before the bug has surfaced and a large amount of stuff had to be redone.

[bclothier]

FWIW, I updated the EULA to include the suggested clauses and put it at the top with some other revisions to ensure that even with the parody, it's clear that they are agreeing to not sue no matter what.

[daFreeMan]

Your sole remedy is to claim in refund or damages exactly what you paid for this product and you may claim it only from the party to whom you paid it.

That way, if someone is suckered by someone else into paying money for it (even if its for the cost of burning it to a CD for distribution - remember those days?) They're directed to whoever suckered them into it.