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>>An EULA is an agreement. You cannot be put in jail for breaching an EULA nor is it a criminal act (not even in the US), just because it is not a Contract.
>>Its a civil issue in court and is handled as such.
>>
>>So unless you know your legal stuff, please stop confusing everyone with nonsense.
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>Hi, Walter,
>
>I hear what you are saying - and I'm definitely not weighing in on this topic, as I don't know much about it, but wanted to offer this.
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>A problem that has gotten worse in the U.S. over the years is the language in proposed Acts regarding compromises in computer infrastructures, breaking TOS/EULA agreements, etc.
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>The people who have advocated stricter language have argued that it's to crack down on malicious hackers, but the problem has actually escalated to U.S. courts before any common sense surfaced. (Here is something from the 9th Circuit Court...)
>
>"Basing criminal liability on violations of private computer use polices can transform whole categories of otherwise innocuous behavior into federal crimes simply because a computer is involved."
>
>So while I agree with your sentiment, the honest truth is that some people have tried to take advantage of loosely-written laws to mete out punishment (certainly not in situation that's being discussed here). It's sad that it takes a court to arrive at reason, but that's the world we live in.

I think it a false assumption that EULAs will stop hackers. They will ignore anything. The main problem is that for any mere mortal, its impossible to distill what is legal and what is not by reading the EULA. You essentially have to be lawyer to know your rights and even there, since there is very little jurisprudence anywhere in the world it might be guesswork at best.

Did you know that copyright laws already protects the vendor against illegal copying and reselling software and explicitly allows for reverse engineering and decompiling?
From what I gather is that in Germany click wrap EULAs are by default non enforceable, the copyright allows you from decompiling and potentially fix existing bugs. Just like Chen does.

I would be surprised that VFP9 EULA is enforceable in china. We are considering entering the market in china with our flagship product, but one of the problems is that we have to deposit our source code to the Chinese government and leaves us powerless to protect our codebase.