A programmer has released a piece of code that will remove the
End User Licence Agreements (EULAs) found in most retail software,
according to a report by news site The Register. In effect, the
programmer is making a statement against what he considers the
absurdity of these agreements.
The author – who does not reveal his name – says he has done
this partly to ridicule what he sees as the absurdity of agreements
that buyers cannot know about until after a sale, and partly to be
able to honestly say that he never accepted any EULA.
Software licences typically appear when the package is opened
and the CD-ROM loaded. The licence asks the customer to click his
acceptance before use of the application – known as a click-wrap
licence. Such licences have been accepted as valid by courts. In
the event that the user disagrees with the terms of the licence, he
or she could, at least in theory, return the product for a
refund.
However, the author of the Visual Basic script appears to
acknowledge that his approach is unlikely to stand up in court.
Rather, he is making a statement to the effect that software should
not be subject to whatever conditions the developer desires. He
argues that it should instead be subject to copyright laws alone,
as with a book or a music CD.
