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OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

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Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#81

Post by joosters »

chrisseaton wrote: post #80
joosters wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my other post containing the actual text (all-caps). You're right about the 'permitted by law' bit but who knows what that actually covers? I've never seen a clear summary anywhere. License agreements are long, the consumer laws are probably an order of magnitude bigger (and that's assuming you even know which bits are relevant)

Those are all valid points, but it isn't Apple's job to solve them, so it simply puts 'permitted by law' and moves on.

Well, it's a bit of an irrelevance whether or not they state 'as permitted by law', since everything in any license is restricted by the law. Nothing changes.

My point is that Apple (and every other company) makes no attempt to define what their software is meant to be able to do. The license tries to wash their hands of everything that they can.

If I buy a camera and it can't take photos, it's not fit for purpose and I can return it. If I buy a computer to be able to (say) Facetime chat with my relatives, and it doesn't do that due to a bug or incompatibility, it's a murky legal quagmire whether or not I could get a refund.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#83

Post by 746F7475 »

tajen wrote: post #55
746F7475 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's more about Apple washing their hands, like if someone uses a Mac to plan a bombing or hack into something, no matter what happens no one can point a finger at Apple. It's a long shot, but it's same kind of thing when your microwave says "it's not suitable for drying living animal"

The microwave is interestingly slightly different, it doesn't disown you. It's more like a cascading penalty: Say if you do something wrong in the house, then the house doesn't belong to you anymore. It's far fetched to accuse Apple in case of bombing, although we've seen anything in the US jurisdicting; as far fetched as it is to disown someone of their computer if they pirated an ebook (which has already happened w…

I think that "you are just loaning our software" will become (or is) defacto standard, say Apple discontinues iTunes, they can just remove it and no one can sue them because the lost their MP3 library because they were just loaning the content in the first place.

Another company that does the same is Valve with Steam, you do not own any of the games you have in your library, you just have momentary right to play them and if, say, Valve goes bankrupt and Steam just vanishes from the Internet you have no right to complain that you can't play your games anymore.

It's just to cover their asses so some nutjob doesn't find a loophole and milk them for half their worth.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#84

Post by jzwinck »

dogweather wrote: post #56
jzwinck wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with legal markup is the same as with FIX, the financial data protocol (which is widely used). Lawyers (finance people) will never stop innovating (increasing complexity), and they will not be one moment delayed by a protocol which falls short of their aspirations for sophistication (bamboozling). Therefore, the only adoptable protocols are mere transports. They might rigidly specify some commonly used th…

Naive first thought: it seems like an active standards body is required. Like for HTML. That took care of e.g. The CENTER tag.

There is one. It cannot possibly move as fast as all the individual actors. Standards bodies can provide high quality at slow pace. Participants here want fast pace and only adequate quality.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#85

Post by jzwinck »

moe wrote: post #62
jzwinck wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with legal markup is the same as with FIX, the financial data protocol (which is widely used). Lawyers (finance people) will never stop innovating (increasing complexity), and they will not be one moment delayed by a protocol which falls short of their aspirations for sophistication (bamboozling). Therefore, the only adoptable protocols are mere transports. They might rigidly specify some commonly used th…

I don't really see that as a problem, that's how all popular protocols evolve. If all exchanges have invented a liquidity-field, then there's a good chance the next version of FIX will standardize it, no? Imho the legal system is very much ripe for digitalization. Both on the low-end (where it pretty much consists of overhead), and even more so on the high-end, where the complexity of legal contracts between companie…

The next version of FIX can try, but everyone stopped upgrading FIX versions years ago. Also, once you standardize the liquidity field, you need to think about its values. These expand continuously...it used to be two or three values, now some systems use a dozen or more.

Basically, if you want a protocol for legal documents, you may as well use an existing one, such as PDF, XLS, TeX, etc. Trying to embed more domain knowledge in the protocol will never work at a highly generalized level. It would be like asking HTTP to standardize e-commerce.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#86

Post by toyg »

lorenzhs wrote: post #48
toyg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This summary is precisely for El Capitan, so no, it has not changed.

The GP's question was not "is #10 still there" but "is #10 new in El Cap?"

Sorry, I read it the other way because afaik hackintoshes have always been in break of license terms.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#87

Post by jordigh »

anjbe wrote: post #26

I think there’s a lot to be said for a license that’s so simple it doesn’t need a summary. For example, take the ISC license: “Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. “The software is provided ‘as is’ and the author disclaims all warranties with regard…

Shortness of a license should not be a goal in itself. The GPL is long because without its length we would not have everyone pitching in patches to Linux or gcc for all different architectures. I know non-copyleft licensed software also gets collaboration, but Linux's and gcc's near universal hardware support seems to require the coercion of copyleft. Without copyleft, we would never have had any sort of free Objective C compiler either, and I'm still waiting for Apple to do good on their promise to free up Swift.

Also, unlike EULAs, the GPL is meant to be understood. Have you read it? It is long, but without reaching EULA lengths, and it's written with clear definitions and a language that aims for clarity. It was written by hackers and lawyers. If you're having trouble understanding it, there's a FAQ:

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

Apple doesn't publish EULA FAQs, as they do not want widespread public understanding of each item in their EULA.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#88

Post by Udo »

tymekpavel wrote: post #3
archmikhail wrote: post #2

Wow, that was really not as bad as I thought.

"I cannot, don’t even think about it, just plain can’t, make money from MPEG/H.264/AVC videos I create. For that, I need to buy another something from somebody." This was pretty surprising to me. Why does Apple not allow making money from MPEG videos that you create? Does this include uploading them to YouTube?

Interesting, this means you can't use OS X to make your videos if you're a Youtuber.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#89

Post by sbanach »

joosters wrote: post #81
chrisseaton wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all valid points, but it isn't Apple's job to solve them, so it simply puts 'permitted by law' and moves on.

Well, it's a bit of an irrelevance whether or not they state 'as permitted by law', since everything in any license is restricted by the law. Nothing changes. My point is that Apple (and every other company) makes no attempt to define what their software is meant to be able to do. The license tries to wash their hands of everything that they can. If I buy a camera and it can't take photos, it's not fit for purpose an…

The distinction arises when the full text of a clause is not possible to claim by law, but some weakened or lesser version is OK: If you missed the 'maximum extent permissible' part, your clause would be completely invalidated. Its a hedge.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#90

Post by acd »

Legal agreements was used to be a agreement between two parties where an equal agreement was reached. EULA tends to be one sided agreements where the company take away your rights.

"I gotta run it on Apple hardware (no Hackintoshes). I can’t help anyone else do that."

Isnt help anyone else doing that taking away your legal right of free speech?

I have also seen agreements where the company says you may not publicly mention any security holes that you find in their software. Does a company have the right to take away your free speech in their license agreements? Have this been tried in the highest court?

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