[Gllug] Evesham/Linux for a small business

[Doug Winter]

On Thu 06 Nov Jason Clifford wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Doug Winter wrote:
> 
> > According to the bit of paper they give you, the license is not
> > transferrable to different people/companies.
> 
> Was the "bit of paper" and the information on it given to you BEFORE you 
> made the purchase?
> 
> If not it does not form any part of the contract.

AIUI this isn't entirely the case - admittedly this is from the US, but
in ProCD Inc. v Matthew Zeidenberg and Silken Mountain (1996) the court
drew parallels with other items where conditions are applied subsequent
to purchase, such as airline tickets, and used this to rule in favor of
an EULA applying.

It's a pretty flawed judgement IMO, and I think a major reason for it is
that the defendant, Matthew Zeidenberg, was basically being a bit of a
bastard and the judge really wanted to nail him.

Various other courts have found in favour of subsequently applied
conditions, such as in Hill v Gateway (1997), following ProCD.

Other cases such as Step-Saver v Wyse Technology (1991), have ruled
differently, but they were on different circuits, and the individual
circumstances were different.

So, yes, these cases are from the USA, but their Uniform Commercial Code
isn't that dissimilar to our common law, Sales Of Goods Act and so forth.

I would not be very confident at all that EULAs are as inapplicable in
law as they might seem at first.

IANAL, TINLA, YADA.

doug.

-- 
6973E2CF print 2C95 66AD 1596 37D2 41FC  609F 76C0 A4EC 6973 E2CF
"Perl is worse than Python because people wanted it worse." 
    -- Larry Wall, 14/10/1998

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