[packagekit] Handling of License Prompts

[Richard Hughes]

On 10/09/2007, Justin Haygood <jhaygood at reaktix.com> wrote:
> On OpenSUSE, packages (such as Flash Player and Java) can have licenses that
> must be agreed to when installing a package. How is this to be handled?

Short answer: It's not.
Long answer: I don't think licences should be agreed to at install
time, rather first run-time.

Rationale:

* You can't localise prompts, well, not without passing locale to the
helper, which then breaks fast-user-switching to other locales
* Waiting for a prompt blocks the process. This means other stuff like
scheduled system updates can't complete, and searching no longer works
* We can't do clever things like "fire and forget" to install new
features in programs.

The whole legal grey area of prompting before installing, or asking as
a post-inst is just a crazy bodge in my opinion. Can those packages
not be installed "quietly"?

Richard.