Many people have complained about the long and detailed licensing agreements that come with software in a shrink-wrapped package or downloaded on the web. The latter are especially dangerous, since some companies like Gator place provisions allowing them to spy on you in return for using their free software. The average user wants to know how safe and standard a license agreement is, without having to carefully read the entire thing and calling their lawyer friends about the more worrisome paragraphs.
The solution is to use the trick that encouraged eBay members to do business with complete strangers - a collaborative rating system. Every software license should come with an alphanumeric code. A software association should build a website which anyone can visit and type in any license code. The website will then display the entire license agreement with the number the number of people who approve of it and the number of people who disapprove of it. You can then read their particular criticisms. For example, someone may refer you to the precise paragraph and sentence that he finds objectionable, and why he feels that provision should be a deal breaker. If you feel a certain criticism or defense is invalid, you can respond and post your own. Companies could see which provisions are causing the most concern, and will undoubtedly have their employees respond, just as eBay users do when they get into a dispute. The overall system though will enable someone to quickly see what the disputable aspects of a license agreement are without having to carefully read through the entire thing.
It goes without saying that if all reputable software companies would start using this system people would stop agreeing to any license that doesn't have a code. In fact, there will no doubt be some lazy people who will figure that any company that agrees to give you their code must not have too bad a license, and they may not even bother to visit the website. On the other hand, any company that refuses to give their code will in effect be admitting that their terms are so offensive that the average user would never agree to the license if they knew what was inside of it or what others thought of it.
The software industry as a whole would benefit if their customers were comfortable with their license agreements. A website which allows customers to voice these concerns can enable the industry to calm them in a simple and straightforward manner. Once people are there, the website would probably also try to inform them of other issues which the industry would like their help on, like writing to politicians to maintain a moratorium on Internet taxes, or to speed up the depreciation of computer purchases. A service like this would strengthen the software industry's relationship with its customers, which is always a worthwhile investment.
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It's a decent idea, but I think that so few people read the license agreements at all, that you would end up with a ton of false positives. The difference with ebay is that when you have an actual transaction with someone, then your feedback/rating actually means something. If you can get people to acknowledge that "I have read and understood" this agreement, then it might be valuable, but I don't know if that will ever happen.
I think most people won't leave any comments at all. Unlike eBay where each party to a transaction is expected to leave a comment and a rating, people will only feel compelled to do so here if they actually read the entire agreement. There will no doubt be those who will enjoy surfing through the website and reading through the agreements as a way of policing them and protecting the public. (I can even see a high school teacher giving his students a homework assignment requiring them to find an objectionable line in an agreement on the website.) And like eBay, the false ratings will carry more weight than the positive ones. (Buyers care much more about whether a seller has few negative ratings than they do about how many positive ratings he has.) And unlike eBay where a negative rating must be taken on trust, here the person can give you the exact quote from the license agreement that scares him.
I agree the system isn't perfect, but with all new ideas you should ask who would gain and who would lose if they were implemented. Those who would rather see what others think of a license agreement than have to read it themselves would clearly gain. Reputable software companies will make it even easier for them by placing a web link at the bottom of the agreement that will bring users directly to the page of the website for that particular agreement, where they can see the all the info including the rating. The people who would lose would be those unscrupulous purveyors of spyware who must choose between not getting a code for their agreement and giving a link to the website, or to do so and risk the scrutiny of a now better informed public. The old trick of burying clauses deep inside an overly long agreement won't be nearly as effective.
Software licences on downloaded software are unenforceable.
These long licence agreements are a peculiarity of US companies.
I regularly download software that asks me to certify I am not on the US treasury list of banned persons. There is no box for "don't know". I even sent them an e-mail once asking if I was on their list. I never got an answer.
I am also asked to certify that I will never pass the software on to a citizen of Cuba, Iran or whatever other country is on the current US list of "baddies". Impossible, most large companies have at least one employee who is a citizen or one of these countries.
And if the software is "banned for export" and I am asked to certify that I am in the US, I Lie!
These US licence agreements are unenforceable, because I am not in the US so US law does not apply to me.
I suspect they are just there to cover the company if somebody sues them or claims they are breaking US law. They can claim that because you broke their licence agreement, you are liable and not them. Just ignore this waste-of-bandwidth, I do.