I remember in late 2003, when I read the legalese bumf that came with Windows XP… very long, and painful, drudgesome, cryptic, hiding “deal with the devil clauses” (they can change the agreement after you agree), and very restrictive.
Then I read the GNU GPL v1, and other Free Software licenses.
Never went back to the abuse of proprietary licensed operating systems.
The freedom, the upfront honesty, the brevity, the simplicity, … I thought for sure “The Year of the GNU+Linux Desktop” was sure to be the next year. … Everybody else reads the terms and conditions… right?
Most of the TOSes boil down to: “Don’t be a jerk towards us. Don’t be a jerk towards others. We don’t owe you the service. Sue us in California.” I usually skim the TOS to see if there’s something unusual.
I read the terms and Conditions for Windows 10.
It was clear that the person who wrote that had neither understanding of writing Terms and Conditions nor understanding of software.
It was only later that I realized most laws are also written by people that neither know how to write laws nor understand the topic that law applies to.
Also Terms and Conditions.
Yup.
I remember in late 2003, when I read the legalese bumf that came with Windows XP… very long, and painful, drudgesome, cryptic, hiding “deal with the devil clauses” (they can change the agreement after you agree), and very restrictive.
Then I read the GNU GPL v1, and other Free Software licenses.
Never went back to the abuse of proprietary licensed operating systems.
The freedom, the upfront honesty, the brevity, the simplicity, … I thought for sure “The Year of the GNU+Linux Desktop” was sure to be the next year. … Everybody else reads the terms and conditions… right?
Those arw like the best sites ever: https://www.tldrlegal.com/ https://tosdr.org/en
Most of the TOSes boil down to: “Don’t be a jerk towards us. Don’t be a jerk towards others. We don’t owe you the service. Sue us in California.” I usually skim the TOS to see if there’s something unusual.
I read the terms and Conditions for Windows 10. It was clear that the person who wrote that had neither understanding of writing Terms and Conditions nor understanding of software. It was only later that I realized most laws are also written by people that neither know how to write laws nor understand the topic that law applies to.
My favourite is when the privacy policy is behind a “do you accept our privacy policy, yes or yes” popup