Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ig!arizona!joel
From: joel@arizona.edu (Joel M. Snyder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: 3b1 dissassembler patches
Keywords: 3b1 7300 disassembler license
Message-ID: <9045@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 4 Feb 89 23:15:01 GMT
References: <1636@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> <434@polyof.UUCP>
Reply-To: joel@mis.arizona.edu (Joel M. Snyder)
Organization: U of Arizona MIS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 26

I don't want to begin a long legal discussion (which belongs on another
news group), but I do want to remind the gentleman @polyof that the license
agreement which is printed on the envelope which you "agree" to when
you open the envelope is not necessarily enforceable in all states, and
in ones in which it is, the clause involving disassembly has never (to
my knowledge) been tested .  

The whole point of this class of "shrink wrap" license agreements is
that someone can't hold you to a contract which is (I forget the legal
term for it, but roughly:) "one-sided."  A contract in which you 
implicitly have no chance to negotiate terms and conditions is not 
necessarily a valid contract.

The opinion of the folks in our department that deal with those
agreements is that we agree to follow the spirit of the agreement in
re: one license bought per machine, but that the miscellaneous 
conditions regarding the number of backups, disassembly, and all that
other nonsense, are both unenforcable and useless. 
 
In summary: just because it says it on the paper, doesn't mean it's
so.

(please, followups to the appropriate news.whatever group, NOT 3b2!)

jms@mis.arizona.edu
(Joel M Snyder)