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Both EULAs and FOSS licenses are license agreements. Presenting them in the same way is not disingenuous. The length of the GNU GPL rivals that of some EULAs.

If you do not need to agree to a license before you use a piece of software, then EULAs would be invalid. You do need to agree to the license before you use the software. That the license grants permission to run the software for any purpose, usually with a disclaimer of liability, is irrelevant.

If you do not comply with (for instance), the terms of the GNU GPLv2, then you no longer have a license to the software. That means that you must cease distributing and using that piece of software or be at risk of a lawsuit from the copyright holder.

If you do not need to agree to a license before you use a piece of software, then EULAs would be invalid.

As they should be according to 17 USC 117: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117

The standard dodge is that it refers to the "owner of a copy", while EULAs claim that you do not own a copy and are only "licensing" it. Which is BS in my opinion, but regardless the GPL specifically doesn't make that claim, so you don't need to accept anything to run GPL software.

As others in this thread have said already, the GPL is written such that it does not need to be accepted in order to use the software.

> If you do not need to agree to a license before you use a piece of software, then EULAs would be invalid.

I believe the GPL was written the way it was, in order to remove any concern that it might not be enforceable. If someday the courts decide EULAs aren't enforceable, the GPL would still stand.

Of course, the GPL also relies on standard copyright law forbidding modification and distribution without express permission, so if the courts ever change that then the GPL is in trouble since it's not an EULA. But that seems pretty unlikely.

"The license only exists to give you extra rights you didn't already have under standard copyright law (permission distribute the program, under certain conditions)." Wildly false - not just copyleft, which I like to grab your work (fair enough) - but a thorough patent grab to take both your hardware and software patent rights from you.

This is not the case. As per section 9 of the GPLv3:

>You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program. Ancillary propagation of a covered work occurring solely as a consequence of using peer-to-peer transmission to receive a copy likewise does not require acceptance. However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work. These actions infringe copyright if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or propagating a covered work, you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so.

GPLv3 does require a patent grant if you convey the software, but as GP states, you wouldn't have the right to do that otherwise anyway.

EDIT: And as per the FAQ[0]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#NoDistributionR...

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#NoDistributionR...

Or if you contribute to it. So you're right, plain use is without imposition.

> A lot of free software licenses such as the GPL v2 spell out explicitly that they have nothing to do with anything except copying/distribution or modification

Check out AGPL. It exists specifically to remove the "loophole" of using the software without distributing it.

> Really, if you use free software you can just completely ignore all the licenses

For some very narrow definitions of use, maybe. But not if your usage includes building upon it, which is what OSS world excels at.

The AGPL closes no such loophole. It says you must make the source available if you distribute the output of the program itself over a network, e.g. in the case of an open source web application. This is something the GPL itself goes out of its way to allow (unless your output is the program itself).

So it falls squarely under distributing the program, which you didn't have permission to do without the license itself.

> But not if your usage includes building upon it[...]

Building upon it & distributing the result, but yes, this is what OSS is great for, but unrelated to my point that you as a user can completely ignore the license & don't have to know about it. You can just follow standard copyright law.

It says you must make the source available if you distribute the output of the program itself over a network, e.g. in the case of an open source web application.

Don't you confuse "distribute" and "let users interact with" now?

IIRC AGPL doesn't make a distinction about whether i send the bytes of the program over the network (distribute the program) or let a user send input and receive output to/from it (interact with the program).

> It says you must make the source available if you distribute the output of the program itself over a network

Are you missing the difference between distributing the program and distributing its result? The latter lands firmly into "usage" category.

> So it falls squarely under distributing the program

No it doesn't. This claim makes zero sense - it's like saying if I send somebody a Word document it's the same as if I sent them a copy of Word. That's baloney.

> you as a user can completely ignore the license & don't have to know about it.

Looks like you somehow ignored the whole comment. Again, only if "user" means "never modifying or building on it", which in OSS world is a very restrictive condition.

> You can just follow standard copyright law.

Did you just claim "following standard copyright law" and "ignoring the license" is the same and both things are easy and obvious? There are people that get literally thousands to millions of dollars income by helping people to "follow standard copyright law". It's not something that you can follow just by going on with your business - it's insanely complicated and dense set of laws (actually, a lot of sets since we're in a global world now and each country has their own) and dismissing having to comply with it as "just follow the standard" is plain ignorant. Of course, if you're a random Joe or Joann, the chance that somebody would come after you is low (though see Prenda Law case), but if you have any money riding on it, be assured it's very far from "just ignore everything and follow the standard" - you don't even know what the standard law is unless you're a lawyer, and unless you also spent time studying caselaw and such (or asked a lawyer), you have very little chance of getting it right.

    > Are you missing the difference between
    > distributing the program and distributing
    > its result? The latter lands firmly into
    > "usage" category. [...] it's like saying if
    > I send somebody a Word document it's the
    > same as if I sent them a copy of
    > Word. That's baloney.

The AGPL is meant to cover the cases where the "output" is what the program itself does. E.g. free software web applications like bug trackers, wikis etc.

So the analogy is not sending someone a Word document being like distributing Word, neither the APGL or the GPL cover that. It's setting up a paid-for VNC service where users can access your copy of Word.

The GPL explicitly permits this sort of thing, because it's quite lax about defining network interaction, the AGPL is more strict.

    > Again, only if "user" means "never modifying
    > or building on it", which in OSS world is a
    > very restrictive condition.

Copyright law has no purview over whether you modify or build on something, and neither can any free software license. I can modify and build on any software I have that I haven't signed a contract to obtain, copyright law only comes into play when I want to distribute the software in any way.

If and when I've done that whether I've modified or built on it has little bearing on whether I'm committing copyright infringement.

    > Did you just claim "following standard
    > copyright law" and "ignoring the license" is
    > the same and both things are easy and
    > obvious?

I really can't see how you've read this thread and somehow become this confused. All I'm doing here is correcting WBrentWilliams's misconception that free software licenses are somehow something you need to get end-users to agree to before they use freely licensed software.

That this isn't how things work is something the GPL itself explicitly states. The same applies to any free software license, the GPL just happens to be a rather verbose license which goes out of its way to explain the basics of copyright law to you.

> Copyright law has no purview over whether you modify or build on something, and neither can any free software license. I can modify and build on any software I have that I haven't signed a contract to obtain, copyright law only comes into play when I want to distribute the software in any way.

False; copyright law makes it an exclusive right of the copyright holder to make copies and derivative works (the former is where the name "copyright"—the right to copy—comes from); distributing them may increase the likelihood of damages or other penalties beyond whatever minimum statutory damages exist for such a violation, but it is not the root violation that brings copyright law into play.

>The license only exists to give you extra rights you didn't already have under standard copyright law (permission distribute the program, under certain conditions).

The license are the terms you must agree with or else you are breaking copyright law, if you ignore it and do things covered in the license you can be sued.

As a friendly pile-on, yes, you do have to agree to the terms of the GNU license or cease using the software. That's in black-and-white in the text of the agreement, along with making the source available and releasing changes to the source code under the same or later license.

My hypothetical model is choose not to do GNU's marketing. Frankly, they do a good job of it without my help. However, I cannot hide the fact that the software is GNU licensed. The EULA-style pop-up approach is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but presenting the license before download is vitally important.

Not really. According to the GNU FAQ if you only use GPL software and don't distribute it then there are no conditions that apply.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#NoDistributionR...

> As a friendly pile-on, yes, you do have to agree to the terms of the GNU license or cease using the software.

That is incontrovertibly false and has always been false.

Per the GPL v.2, clause 5 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html):

"5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it."

A end-user is free to run GPL software without accepting the terms of the license. However, they may not distribute it (modified or not) without accepting the terms of the license.