[Liverpool] Software freedom (problems at the University)

[Sujita Purushothaman]

*IANAL*
I think they cannot remove the EULA - it is an *end user* license 
agreement, and the students are the end users. I believe Mr. Ward was 
incorrect when he said that the EULA doesn't apply to you. The problem 
with EULAs are that nobody reads them, so they don't understand what 
they are signing away. When Sophos comes knocking on everyone's doors 
then people will realise just how bad EULAs are!


> To Sujita:
>
> I do not know about a legal side of things, regarding requirement of 
> installing a third party software
> with the absurd EULA to gain the access to the University facility (a 
> wi-fi network in this case),
> which is being paid for from my uni fees. But I do feel that if this 
> is the case that their TOS
> actually require that (actually, can anyone find them anywhere?), the 
> policy must be changed.
> Either by removing the EULA from the Sophos antivirus binary 
> distributed by the uni, or
> removing this step whatsoever. The only thing that I could find is 
> that document:
> http://www.liv.ac.uk/csd/students/basics.pdf that states there's no 
> need to install any additional
> software or need to register additionally to access the network (p.10).
> This needs veryfing.
> Furthermore, the people at the helpdesk today were not dealing with my 
> issue by the standards
> that I always expect from the university. They said something like 
> that: we don't have time to
> deal with you right now, as we are understaffed, any queries should be 
> sent to the email
> of support services (as our supervisor) told us on a phone right now.
> And to add a bit more of an insult to the situation - it seems they 
> banned my mac addresses
> from the RoamNet too, as I couldn't connect to them today too.