ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

According to the NCC, software licences are unfair, partly because they’re virtually incomprehensible, and partly because you don’t get a chance to see what the conditions for using the product are until after you’ve bought it.

Well of course that’s unfair. I said exactly that about 18 months ago when I launched my personal campaign for user friendly licences, which rather fizzled to a halt. But the 3-point plan I had then is still what I’d like to see on licences now:

• A plain English summary of the license agreement is presented in not more than 300 words at the top of the license that does not require reading ability more advanced than the lower secondary education level.
• All boxed products to have at least this license summary printed on the outside of all packaging where it can be read before buying it.
• Ensure that the law is clear and it is widely known that anyone rejecting any license agreement terms not explicitly stated on the packaging can return the product to where they bought it for a full refund.

Me, back in September 06

The NCC have referred the details of some licence agreements to the OFT, including those belonging to Adobe, Microsoft and Apple amongst others.

For further information — including the full report — take a look at the NCC’s press release.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 12:57 am and is filed under Language, Life, Web. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.