Epic requires that UE downloaders sign a license; does AUR bypass it?

BEEDELLROKEJULIANLOCKHART · 2025-07-10 16:54:29

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php?ti … %20package explains that UE5 is available in the AUR.

Per some discussions at the Discourse posts linked at https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/pre-c … /609358/14, it seems like most people I've spoken to think that either the AUR package exists because nobody's DMCA’d it, or because they've misunderstood the license.

I'd hope and expect that the latter is true. Consequently, can anyone explain how the package can pull UE's source, appearing to bypass the GitHub license acceptance requirement?

I ask because if I can ascertain how it accomplishes this, it would help to explain how other distributions can do so.

Many thanks.

V1del · 2025-07-10 17:16:43

The wiki page you link has a prerequesite section before any of the AUR related stuff instructing you to setup the license and connection credentials: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unreal … requisites

PKGBUILDs are open source and can be viewed, in this particular case, it doesn't bypass the licence request but only downloads the engine once you've done so: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/ … ngine#n169

The -bin package expects the binary to have been placed into the PKGBUILD folder manually beforehand.

Last edited by V1del (2025-07-10 17:20:57)

BEEDELLROKEJULIANLOCKHART · 2025-07-10 18:16:29

I was under the impression that that section and the subsequent one about the AUR were mutually exclusive (despite the heading), because I believe that all of the source is protected by the agreement signature requirement. Are you saying that solely part of the source is restricted by the requirement to sign the agreement? (I've tried to make sense of the script, but my specialism is OOP PowerShell; POSIX Shell Script is fairly illegible to me.)

V1del · 2025-07-10 18:41:29

What gives that impression? Only the subsections under "Compiling" are interchangeable if you want the engine to be managed as a pacman package you can handle with pacman or just having loose files lying around. 1 and 2 are mandatory regardless.

The source is protected, the AUR PKGBUILD makes no attempt to circumvent that, if you're connected and made the proper arrangements that the github account is linked to your unreal engine account, the package will operate on the github source you now have official access to. If you haven't done that the AUR build process will print a warning and error out: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/ … ngine#n171

What's your reason to enquire this (as you could just test this yourself on Arch) what's the purpose of this question? For which other distribution are you trying to package this and how?

Do you understand that a PKGBUILD is a recipe on how to create a package and does not directly include any source code of any project you are installing via the AUR? If that's the distinction that makes you wonder then I suggest you read: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository -- at least the introduction and the FAQ sections

Last edited by V1del (2025-07-10 18:50:52)

BEEDELLROKEJULIANLOCKHART · 2025-07-10 21:18:06

Testing this on Arch would require me to learn how to use Arch a lot more than I know how. Thanks, though – I think I didn't expect the AUR installation process to be as interactive as it was, so I think I understand now. Basically, the parts that are protected, you acquire yourself, and then the resources from the AUR package that into a local package than Pacman can manage, rather like the Local Package Factory that so many people use for Spotify.

I've asked this to see whether maintaining this as a package on other distributions’ repositories would be possible. I'd asked at Fedora because they're strictly FOSS, and asked at SUSE's forum because they're not.

In retrospect, though, regardless of repository, it seems like it'd be solely feasible under an interactive installation method much like the AUR's or LPF's, but not under an unattended method, like most package installations. In this case, Epic Asset Manager probably already provides this as best one can.

Thanks for the assistance.

seth · 2025-07-10 21:31:08

AUR installations are typically not more interactive than ordinary pacman ones
You're supposed to vet the PKGBUILD and monitor the process (like every -Syu) or at least inspect if afterwards, but that's it.
Manual download etc. is really only a thing to deal w/ license issues where this is explicitly required (eg. some AUR packages will require you to provide the game data by other means, because they can't just draw proprietary IP from bittorrent or so)

Arch Linux

#1 2025-07-10 16:54:29

Epic requires that UE downloaders sign a license; does AUR bypass it?

#2 2025-07-10 17:16:43

Re: Epic requires that UE downloaders sign a license; does AUR bypass it?

#3 2025-07-10 18:16:29

Re: Epic requires that UE downloaders sign a license; does AUR bypass it?

#4 2025-07-10 18:41:29

Re: Epic requires that UE downloaders sign a license; does AUR bypass it?

#5 2025-07-10 21:18:06

Re: Epic requires that UE downloaders sign a license; does AUR bypass it?

#6 2025-07-10 21:31:08

Re: Epic requires that UE downloaders sign a license; does AUR bypass it?

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