User:RHung

Things I noticed in Visual Studio's EULA, GNU GPLv3, and MIT License

Visual Studio

LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES. YOU CAN RECOVER FROM MICROSOFT AND ITS SUPPLIERS ONLY DIRECT DAMAGES UP TO THE AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR THE SOFTWARE.
YOU CANNOT RECOVER ANY OTHER DAMAGES, INCLUDING CONSEQUENTIAL, LOST PROFITS, SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES.

• So basically, unless Visual Studio directly causes harm to your computer, Microsoft is absolved of any fault. Although this part surprised me a bit more...

It also applies even if Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages

GPLv3

c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. 
This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. 
This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.

• Based on my understanding, if someone uses GPL code, that person's program must be licensed under GPL.
• Compared to BSD and MIT, GPLv3 is really legalese. Wordier than Microsoft's.

MIT License

• It was refreshingly short compared to GNU GPL and Visual Studio. Definitely written for non-lawyers. Very specific regarding what a user can do with the program and/or code.
• Another thing that distinguishes MIT from GPL aside from MIT not being viral is that you do not have to provide the source code to a program you distribute, which allows proprietary software vendors to keep their source code to themselves.

Link to my fsoss 2011 report

http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/User:RHung/FSOSS_2011