P2P licensing dissected.

[Rat]

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/p2p/#intro

This article is interesting if you can find time to read it. (You may also want to increase the font size in your browser when you view it cos it's all pretty small). Benjamin Edelman has taken apart the EULAs of 5 P2P programs to reveal their general sneakyness. Not surprisingly, the worst results seem to be for Kazaa (182 pages of hidden licensing along with lots of nasty spyware you agree to install). Perhaps the best is Limewire which has no license at all (You have to wonder if this is safe?) but loses out in terms of size... enormous install for those who don't already have a java runtime environment installed. Also compared are Morpheus, e-donkey and iMesh.
This appears to be well done research (each program was installed on an otherwise clean system - XP and testing software only) and the results are well presented. Lots of info, lots of screenshots. Well worth a look.

[KM]

very interesting... nothing suprising really, except the limewire one... looks like a "filled with crap" program but is actually one of the cleanest