Questions for Guido van Rossum (Was: ...Tim Peters)

[Clarence Gardner]

On Mon, 07 Aug 2000, Greg Ewing wrote:
>Gary Momarison wrote:
>> 
>> All licenses are contracts. Any
>> agreement between two people is a contract.
[The one thing I remember from my law overview in college is that,
legally, that is not true.  There must be consideration for both parties. :) ]

>But a license (of the sort we're talking about here,
>at least) isn't a two-way thing, it's a one-way
>thing. In this case, it's a statement of what CNRI
>is willing to allow people to do with its intellectual
>property. It doesn't require anyone to agree to it in
>order to be effective. If it disallows something, it
>still disallows it even if someone doesn't agree with
>that.
>
>So I can't see how you can regard it as a contract.
>
>Incidentally, this means that all the stuff about
>clicking on the ACCEPT button is meaningless and
>superfluous. Worse, I think it's misleading, because
>it gives the impression that it *is* a contract that
>you can accept or reject, when in fact it is not.
>

What am I missing here?  Of course you can reject it.  And in doing so,
you also choose not to use the product.

--
Clarence Gardner
Software Engineer
NetLojix Communications
clarence at netlojix.com