Xcode command line EULA

[James Berry]

On Feb 24, 2012, at 3:48 PM, Jeremy Huddleston wrote:

> 
> On Feb 24, 2012, at 15:08, James Berry wrote:
> 
>> ...
>> I mean, what are they protecting by making you accept a license agreement to run xcodebuild from the command line? What are they protecting that you don't already agree to when you download Xcode,
> 
> You didn't agree to anything when you downloaded XCode (accept maybe the App Store TOS).

See below.

>> or join the developer program,
> 
> You don't need to join the developer program to run XCode
> 
>> or run any number of other command line tools?
> 
> They're making you accept the XCode EULA.  In the past, you used to accept this when you ran the XCode installer package.  Now that XCode.app is just copied, they needed a new way of showing you the EULA, so it's done on first launch of XCode (or any of the XCode command line tools that are covered by it).  Yes, the '$PAGER /path/to/License.txt' approach is not as pretty as the AppKit version, but you're running a command line tool, so you're already opting in to that "way" of doing things.

As Xcode is available only through the Mac App Store now (or through the developer program), and because the app store allows a custom EULA to be attached to an app, it seems that a much more reasoned approach would be to simply attach the Xcode EULA to the App Store entry for Xcode, and have it be done with. I don't know, maybe they did that too ;) In any event, when the user accepts the App Store terms of service, they agree to be bound by the terms of any custom agreements attached to apps that they buy…  (http://support.realmacsoftware.com/discussions/rapidweaver/3434-mac-app-store-license). As convoluted as is that chain of agreements, I'm not sure it's any less enforceable than is the "new" command line EULA. But frankly, I don't think enforceability is really the issue: it's all just bureaucratic CYA, like I said before ;)

James