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Rule clarification sought -- EULAs and the breaking thereof

wasted pixelswasted pixels Registered User regular
Something I've noticed lately is that threads and posts which inquire about (or endorse) violating the end-user license agreement (EULA) attached to various gadgets has been enforced pretty unevenly. Let me give some specific examples:

Apparently not okay
Jailbreaking your PSP to play homebrew games (per G&T)
Installing OSX on non-Apple hardware (per Stupid Technology)

Apparently okay (or at least I haven't seen mods crack down on it so far)
Jailbreaking your iPhone to run homebrew software (per H/A)
Installing dd-wrt on your router (per Stupid Technology)

All of these things are in the exact same legal gray area (as it's a standing question as to whether or not EULAs are even legal or enforceable), but they seem to be treated differently by the mod team. Would it be possible to get somebody "higher up" to comment on which of these topics are kosher (if any), and why some are held to a different standard (if indeed they are)?

tl;dr: Am I going to get infracted for giving people advice on jailbreakin' their routers or putting dd-wrt on their phones?

wasted pixels on

Posts

  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    edited February 2009
    We can't see everything. If something was missed, chances are no one saw it. Use the report button if you're unsure.

    Tube on
  • BarrakkethBarrakketh Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    Something I've noticed lately is that threads and posts which inquire about (or endorse) violating the end-user license agreement (EULA) attached to various gadgets has been enforced pretty unevenly. Let me give some specific examples:

    Apparently not okay
    Jailbreaking your PSP to play homebrew games (per G&T)

    That's commonly used for piracy. Yes, there are legitimate uses, but by far the most common reason the average Joe does that is to play "backups" (though I also understand that playing a game without using the UMD drive increases battery life). And as per forum rules, piracy is bad.
    Installing OSX on non-Apple hardware (per Stupid Technology)
    That is an actual violation of the EULA for OS X.
    Apparently okay (or at least I haven't seen mods crack down on it so far)
    Jailbreaking your iPhone to run homebrew software (per H/A)
    Jailbreaking your iPhone isn't usually done for homebrew software (but can be a perk), but rather to let you use it with non-AT&T carriers. This seems a be a legitimate issue, but obviously that's up to the mods. It should probably be treated like the OS X issue, but I think most reasonable people would have trouble seeing anything wrong with letting your use the phone on any carrier you want.
    Installing dd-wrt on your router (per Stupid Technology)
    Not an EULA violation or legal grey area. A router is just a piece of hardware and DD-WRT/Tomato/other firmware are legal and freely available. The source code for just about everything needed to make the router function (except the WLAN drivers) is available under the GPL (or other OSS licenses). Even if there was some EULA that said that you can't install third party firmware on it you can refuse to agree to that EULA and install DD-WRT anyway, much like how I could theoretically buy a new PC from Dell, refuse the EULA(s) for Windows and replace it with Ubuntu.

    Barrakketh on
    Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
  • wasted pixelswasted pixels Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    Tube, am I correct in concluding from your post that anything (including iPhone jailbreaks and the like) that violates an EULA is off-limits?

    Barrakketh, this isn't really the correct venue for that discussion (even if you ARE totally wrong on your last two points), so let's not have it here.

    wasted pixels on
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    edited February 2009
    Tube, am I correct in concluding from your post that anything (including iPhone jailbreaks and the like) that violates an EULA is off-limits? .

    sure fine that

    Tube on
  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    actually, Jailbreaking your iPhone does not equal unlocking to use on another carrier. As far as I know, the iPhone 3G has not been unlocked yet. jailbreaking allows you to run those apps that we can't talk about. Jailbreaking does not allow you to run the iPhone on another carrier. You need to unlock it for that. Those are 2 different things. With the first iPhone, they included the unlock in the jailbreak, becuase they knew how to do it. 3G, not so much.

    wunderbar on
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  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    Tube, am I correct in concluding from your post that anything (including iPhone jailbreaks and the like) that violates an EULA is off-limits?

    Barrakketh, this isn't really the correct venue for that discussion (even if you ARE totally wrong on your last two points), so let's not have it here.

    Um. DD-WRT's "EULA" is the GNU GPL, version 2.

    Daedalus on
  • Kate of LokysKate of Lokys Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Tube, am I correct in concluding from your post that anything (including iPhone jailbreaks and the like) that violates an EULA is off-limits?

    Barrakketh, this isn't really the correct venue for that discussion (even if you ARE totally wrong on your last two points), so let's not have it here.

    Um. DD-WRT's "EULA" is the GNU GPL, version 2.
    I'm pretty sure pixels is pointing out that installing dd-wrt is against the EULA of some routers. (Here's an example of a hardware company implementing a strict EULA that limits the software/firmware used on their hardware). He's not saying anything about the dd-wrt rules of use, which are irrelevant.

    Kate of Lokys on
  • DaedalusDaedalus Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    Daedalus wrote: »
    Tube, am I correct in concluding from your post that anything (including iPhone jailbreaks and the like) that violates an EULA is off-limits?

    Barrakketh, this isn't really the correct venue for that discussion (even if you ARE totally wrong on your last two points), so let's not have it here.

    Um. DD-WRT's "EULA" is the GNU GPL, version 2.
    I'm pretty sure pixels is pointing out that installing dd-wrt is against the EULA of some routers. (Here's an example of a hardware company implementing a strict EULA that limits the software/firmware used on their hardware). He's not saying anything about the dd-wrt rules of use, which are irrelevant.

    And, as Klocek v. Gateway shows, a license agreement that comes as a sheet of paper in the box, that you never click "I agree" to, has the legal validity of toilet paper.

    The reason we can't discuss installing OSX on commodity PC hardware isn't because my netbook manufacturer doesn't want me installing OSX on it, because that wouldn't be legally binding anyway. It's that OSX's license agreement forbids me to install it on non-Apple hardware.

    Likewise, installing DD-WRT on a router is perfectly acceptable if one never agrees to the license agreement with the router's built-in software (perhaps using the hardware-implemented TFTP interface to flash the router, which is what I needed to do for my Buffalo router anyway), because nothing in the DD-WRT license says otherwise.

    Software might be "licensed" under various terms, but hardware is (at least for now) "bought" and "sold", under rules that have existed, mostly unchanged, for centuries. The manufacturer of a device doesn't have rights in perpetuity to tell you how you may and may not use that device, at least not in the United States, where Penny Arcade's servers are located. For example, Ford might say that you can only have their cars repaired at one of their licensed dealerships, but that does not automatically make it so.

    Daedalus on
  • wasted pixelswasted pixels Registered User regular
    edited February 2009
    If you're really that determined to argue about this, Daedalus, why don't you start a D&D thread? My question is answered, so I think this can (and should) be locked.

    wasted pixels on
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    edited February 2009
    oh yessir massa I be lockin the thread no thankee fer bein so gracious wi me massa

    Tube on
This discussion has been closed.