[Adium-devl] [macsb] Re: Disk Images

[Andreas Monitzer]

On Nov 12, 2006, at 05:56, Peter Hosey wrote:

> 2. Move the license file to an on-mount display, or put it in the  
> Adium menu. I prefer the former, simply because people should be  
> able to easily view the license before using the app under its terms.

Note that you don't have to agree to the GPL in order to use a  
program. When you don't agree to the license, you can still use the  
application, but you're not allowed to distribute it at all, since  
it's copyrighted and both parties (the user and the developer)  
couldn't agree on any special terms, so the copyright law applies.
You can display the GPL (the FSF recommends it), but you should not  
have agree/disagree buttons there.

 From the FSF web page (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html):
---------------------------------------
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like  
this when it starts in an interactive mode:

Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
type `show w'.  This is free software, and you are welcome
to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
for details.

The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the  
appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the  
commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and  
`show c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever  
suits your program.
---------------------------------------

Of course, since the FSF doesn't acknowledge the existence of user  
interfaces other than the command line and emacs, this has to be  
adopted a bit.

andy