Alice Averlong🏳️⚧️it has been ZERO DAYS since I have had to agree to the GPL
THE GPL IS A PERFECTLY FINE LICENSE BUT IT IS NOT A EULA AND YOU NEVER HAVE TO AGREE TO IT
the GPL grants you redistribution rights with conditions: You don't need to "agree" with it, you either aren't affected (you aren't redistributing it) or you have to obey its rules (or you lose your rights to redistribute it).
At no point are you asked to "agree" to the GPL. It's not that kind of license
what's happening here is that there is a requirement to alert the user that the code is GPL-licensed: You want them to know they have extra rights!
But you just need to tell them. You can say "hey this is GPLed, read LICENSE.TXT for more details" on the front page.
and the other reason is that installers often have a "license page" template, which is intended for commercial software that uses a EULA you have to agree to before installing it.
which is not required for GPL. You don't need to agree to the GPL to use GPL software: "agreeing" grants you no extra rights. You already have a right to run GPL'd software.
(according to the FSF, sticking a GPL-EULA in your installer is wrong but not illegal to do, because it's legally meaningless)
but once you notice installers doing this, you will see it everywhere. So many GPL'd programs out there are pointlessly asking people to agree to a non-EULA
the most TL;DR I can make for this:
The GPL is a license for REDISTRIBUTORS, not USERS.
If you are not planning to modify and redistribute this code, the fact it is GPL has no legal effect on you, and you don't need to read it, let alone "agree to it"
The GPL is a license for REDISTRIBUTORS, not USERS.
If you are not planning to modify and redistribute this code, the fact it is GPL has no legal effect on you, and you don't need to read it, let alone "agree to it"
but if I was gonna rewrite this program or make my own installer for it, I'd download their SOURCE CODE not their INSTALLER
the GPL is for CODING and DISTRIBUTION not RUNNING
it probably doesn't help that "making a windows installer" is one of the last and most-neglected steps of making an open source program
everyone else can just install the deb/rpm or type something into whatever portage-system they're using this week
Chuck@foone I wonder how many of those change the license they present so that you end up agreeing to a non-GPL actually license?
Eniko (moved ➡ gamedev.place)@foone most of the time I'd be happy with a zip file with windows binaries
Brad Grzesiak 🦆@foone I’m gonna write a license that looks almost identical to the GPL (maybe “CPL” would look the closest?) and have it be the same text as the GPL, except that—well below the fold—Foone has to agree to it whereas everyone else just needs to be aware of it
@listrophy AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Glyph
Nora Reed 
@foone i get annoyed by this every time
Thomas@foone yeah one of your tweets about this has changed my perception and now I see "agree to GPL" literally everywhere /o\
It feels like an infohazard that SCP should do something about before every single human can only see GPL agreements everywhere!