Invisible wrote:
> Yep. Again fixed in XP. There you can press F8 immediately, without 
> needing to scroll down first. (I guess the idea was for "force" you to 
> read it - yeah, like that works!)

It does, in a legal sense. If they can prove you were required to scroll 
thru the whole thing and then said "yes, I agree", they have a much stronger 
position than someone who said "Oh, look, press F8 to continue" and pushed it.

People have lost lawsuits like that because the agreement you were agreeing 
to was on a different web page linked from the one with the agree button, 
and even if the agreement was on the same page but needed scrolling in the 
default browser setup.

Blame the lawyers.

I guess by the time 2000 rolled around, the courts had gotten their act 
together on clickware agreements.

>> Ah yes. Service pack 6a, which is service pack 6 with the patent 
>> license violating code removed. :-)
> 
> Is that the only difference?? o_O

AFAIK, yes.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> Yep. Again fixed in XP. There you can press F8 immediately, without 
>> needing to scroll down first. (I guess the idea was for "force" you to 
>> read it - yeah, like that works!)
> 
> It does, in a legal sense. Blame the lawyers.

I still think the entire concept of a layman actually being able 
comprehend twenty five pages of dense legalese and click "I agree" 
actually having any clue what they just agreed to is absurd. But this is 
not unique to computing; how many times have you signed some piece of 
paper shoved at you? Do you actually spend two hours pouring over the 
details? Or do you just sign it? Typically the salesman gets very 
agressive if you attempt to read it before signing it.

>>> Ah yes. Service pack 6a, which is service pack 6 with the patent 
>>> license violating code removed. :-)
>>
>> Is that the only difference?? o_O
> 
> AFAIK, yes.

OK, that's pretty special. OOC, what exactly did they have to remove?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Typically the salesman gets very 
> agressive if you attempt to read it before signing it.

  That's a clear hint that you shouldn't sign it.

  Never seen that here, though. Probably more usual in other places.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Typically the salesman gets very 
>> agressive if you attempt to read it before signing it.
> 
>   That's a clear hint that you shouldn't sign it.

Just a tad... ;-)

>   Never seen that here, though. Probably more usual in other places.

Lots of places seem to just assume that it's a case of "you need to sign 
this form, it's all pretty standard stuff". Sometimes you can take a 
form away with you, read it, and sign it at your leasure. But most 
people seem to assume that you can just sign it right now. After all, 
why would you need to actually *read* it? It's all "standard stuff", 
after all...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I still think the entire concept of a layman actually being able 
> comprehend twenty five pages of dense legalese and click "I agree" 
> actually having any clue what they just agreed to is absurd. 

Usually it's not that hard to understand, unless you get caught by some odd 
law or precedent that makes what the words say something different than they 
mean, or unless you're doing something unusual (like trying to use GPL code 
in a commercial product or some such) at which point you hire your lawyer.

> how many times have you signed some piece of 
> paper shoved at you? 

I never do that.

> Do you actually spend two hours pouring over the 
> details? Or do you just sign it? 

I read it, at least.

> Typically the salesman gets very 
> agressive if you attempt to read it before signing it.

Then you walk away. I don't need that crap from a salesman. ;-)

> OK, that's pretty special. OOC, what exactly did they have to remove?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/246009

OK, a moment with google shows there were a couple other bug fixes, but I'm 
pretty sure the *main* reason was to get rid of patent-violating code. But 
that's from memory.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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> Lots of places seem to just assume that it's a case of "you need to sign 
> this form, it's all pretty standard stuff". Sometimes you can take a form 
> away with you, read it, and sign it at your leasure. But most people seem 
> to assume that you can just sign it right now. After all, why would you 
> need to actually *read* it? It's all "standard stuff", after all...

LOL we had that recently.  The document referenced 6 other documents that we 
didn't have, so we asked for them before we signed it.  In the end they sent 
us 2 of them, saying the other 4 weren't relevant.  So we asked them to 
remove the references to the other 4 from the original.  "Oh it's a standard 
document, we can't change it".  In the end we wrote, by hand, on the 
contract that those four were not relevant and we weren't agreeing to them, 
then signed it.  I think they were a bit pissed at us.

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