Most important agreement changes juli 7th

[Black Tiger]

The XenForo license agreement was last updated on Jul 7 2021. So the day before yesterday.

It's a long piece of text, so can somebody state the most important changes between the old and new license agreement?

Additionally, wouldn't it also be wise to maybe send license agreements (and most important changes) via mail to the accountholder?

 

[djbaxter]

Why? Just read it online, like the user manuals for Xenforo. Bookmark it.

 

[Paul B]

This:

You undertake to ensure that the Software is not used by You or others to engage in illegal activity. You may not use the Software to engage in any activity that would violate the rights of third parties.

Was changed to this:

You undertake to ensure that the Software is not used by You or others to engage in or promote: illegal activity; any activity that would violate the rights of third parties; defamation, discrimination, harassment, hatred or harm of third parties.

 

[Black Tiger]

@djbaxter you asked why? That is already stated:

It's a long piece of text

It's quite normal for companies to give the most important changes. Reading online does not let me see what changed.

Thank you @Brogan . However, I don't agree that software developpers should interfere in what users are using it for. There are laws to prevent that kind of use if necessary. Laws are different in different country's.

For example, in our country, torrent links are forbidden (in other country's it's not). So now with the new agreement, if I or my users would say "you can get that via torrents" then this would be promotion of illegal activity and I would violate the new forum sofware agreement. What happens then? What is Xenforo's punishment for that? And how about in country's where that is not a violation of law?

Certain jokes wouldn't be allowed anymore because some people could see that as discrimination or harrassment and again, violating software agreement of Xenforo. That is not the job of software developpers but for law.

I do understand the reasons behind that, but I also have the opinion that this interferes with freedom of speech and freedom of use fo something you bought.
If I buy a car and decide to run over somebody with it, or harass people by driving around with extreme loud music, then there are laws for that, the car company should not interfere, it's not their task.

What happens if we don't agree to the new license agreement? Because this is an inbetween change, I already agreed to the original one, which already goes far on that part.

P.s. as stated in my original mail, this change is too important to not send it via mail to accountholders, so I still wonder why. Lots of us almost never visit the account section here.

 

[Chris D]

For example, in our country, torrent links are forbidden (in other country's it's not).

This isn’t relevant to the changes we’ve made in the license agreement which only pertains to various types of online abuse.

What happens if we don't agree to the new license agreement? Because this is an inbetween change, I already agreed to the original one, which already goes far on that part.

If you don’t agree to the license agreement then don’t accept it. But you won’t be able to download future versions of the product.

 

[Black Tiger]

which only pertains to various types of online abuse.

Which is very unclear then, since torrents also violate rights of 3rd parties which is specifically mentioned.

As for the harassment and racism etc. part... who decides what is racism and whats not? Is that measured to local laws or to Xenforo's interpretation?

If you put up such kind of agreement requirements, you have to be clear for customers, when they will violate the agreement and when not.
At this moment, this is still totally unclear to me, and the previous about the "only pertains to various types" makes it more unclear to me.
Maybe also because I'm not native English.

But I do see a complete difference between online abuse (which might also be racism and harassment), and violation and promotion!!! of third party rights, which does not exclude infringement and copyright rights, so it can be all kind of things.

One has to be able to know at which point one is violating or not.
For example, take the Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) discussion in our country. Groups say that is racism, others (as least as big a group) say it's not. Government say it's a social discussion.
So that is very unclear. I presume such discussion is allowed.

But harassment, hatred and harm are too unclear terms and defamation... well that can only be concluded if that is the case after being in a court of law.

So there has to be more clearness. Are all the agreement terms ment to be c.q. limited to what the local law says about it?
If yes, then it's clear, because when I violate the law on these terms, then I also violate Xenforo's agreement.
If not, then it has to be made more clear when the agreement will be violated.

In any case, in spite that I'm against racism and harassment etc. I still have the opinion that it's not a developpers task to put things like that in agreements, it's a governments task.

 

[frm]

It looks like Xenforo now has Zuckerburg-style rules governing the use of a license. This could mean that a member of a protected class could feel wronged in one way or another on a forum owned by us, and instead of settling it on the forum, run directly to Xenforo to have a license revoked.

Am I interpreting this correctly? With regards to Xenforo, do we really own our communities anymore?

 

[frm]

@Chris D @Mike @Kier

Bump

I think we need to have a serious conversation, with examples and definitions as they are arbitrary at this point and differ from country to country, if users can now dictate whether or not we can lose a license, which man-hours are heavily invested in, due to content they post and engage with.

We also have countries and regions within countries that practice and enforce Sharia law. Is this applicable as religion is a protected class?

 

[Chris D]

We have nothing more to add apart from to reiterate that this change in the license agreement does not reflect a change in our policy and simply clarifies our current definition of the existing “rights of third parties” clause.

We expanded upon this in a similar thread on the subject:

2021-07-07 License agreement update issue

It appears that the following: You undertake to ensure that the Software is not used by You or others to engage in illegal activity. You may not use the Software to engage in any activity that would violate the rights of third parties. has been changed to: You undertake to ensure that the...

xenforo.com

As this is a duplicative discussion, and we have nothing further to add that has already been said, I will close this now.