[olug] Political statements and other oddities in software licenses

[Will Langford]

On Jan 28, 2008 1:07 PM, Adam Haeder <adamh at aiminstitute.org> wrote:
> GlovePIE is an application specifically designed to emulate Joystick and
> Keyboard input from a variety of devices. It's primary purpose is to allow
> for the use of a Wiimote on a PC.
>
> Take a look at this software license:
> http://www.wiili.org/index.php/GlovePIE#Copyright_Notice
>
> For those that don't want to follow the link, here are some highlights:
> - You may not use this software directly or indirectly for any military purpose.
> - You may not export this software to Israel, or use it in Israel
> - Missionaries may not use this software


Too lazy in of myself to read the license itself... but, like similar
comments already posted -- expecting anyone to read and or follow an
EULA is fairly... futile.  I have actually read several EULA's in
their entirety... some are frightening, others stupidly long winded
for what they do (attempting to grant you some rights while then
having to explicitly detail what you can or cant do).

Generally, nonsensical clauses in a warranty/EULA are meant for a
chuckle.  The Israel and similar export things might have some legal
validity depending on governing countries embargoes and similar.

As far as any real attempt at filling an agenda within a software
license, you think entirely too much of yourself or your software.
WarFTPD used to (and might still) have a gay rights thing on their
home page.... which is much more appropriate/useful than some self
important wishwash in a license.  I also recall some old VB3 Win3.1
apps that had a religious shareware-like pop up on startup.
Personally, only as tedious as any startup message box, I do recall
people getting annoyed at it... which probably hurt it's distrobution.

-Will