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Microsoft Risks Copyright Impotence | |
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| Time: 00:00 EST/05:00 GMT | News Source: E-Mail | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
|
Who cares whether Microsoft’s FoxPro can run on Linux? Microsoft seems to care – and to care enough to risk copyright impotence for the sake of keeping Linux incapacitated. If Microsoft is serious about wanting to protect its right to enforce its copyright in FoxPro, it should stop trying to leverage its copyright into control over the rights of others. On April 17, 2003, The Register published John Leyden’s report that a Microsoft executive had “threatened a software developer to prevent him from demonstrating a Microsoft application running on Linux.” (See “MS legal threat derails FoxPro on Linux demo”). The ammunition for the threat was an end-user license agreement (EULA) attached to Microsoft Visual FoxPro that purported to give Microsoft the right to decide upon which operating system FoxPro may be run. | ||
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| #1 By 2459 (24.170.151.19) at 5/5/2003 6:48:52 AM |
|
The big deal here is that the guy was using several non-redistributable components that were licensed only for use on Windows. He was clearly in the wrong. The ammunition wasn't just the EULA for FoxPro, it was the EULAs and distribution rights for several components including the MS C/C++ runtime and OLE libraries.
People need to realize that if they want something offered by another platform, use that platform, build your own implementation (legally), find an alternative (again, legally), or just do without. |
| #2 By 2459 (24.170.151.19) at 5/5/2003 9:52:21 AM |
|
This is Microsoft's IP. They spent time and money developing it, and they should be able to control the licensing of it. These may be what you term "a few pissy little libraries," but if they allow this, where does it stop? The fact is that these libraries are built for and only licensed for use on Windows. If they allow the misuse of these components, Linux or other users could take more components in the future and make a case for using them based on MS allowing the use of these components. This would be no different than someone taking the entire MS .NET Framework and putting it on Linux.
MS doesn't invest time and money building products only to risk losing the revenue streams from those products or others associated with them. If you want to run FoxPro or any other MS technology, do it within the constraints of the rights issued to you or don't do it at all. The Linux crowd always gets in an uproar at the possibility of someone violating the GPL, yet they show little to no respect for licensing policies of others. If Linux (or any other platform) doesn't offer a technology that you want to use, that's tough. Either find a platform that offers it, or build your own. There's always the possibility of them running FoxPro on Windows in a virtual machine on Linux, or um, I don't know...maybe actually run Windows! I think it is time for Microsoft to stop acting like a child, grow some balls and realise that there is no need to go around acting like a little hitler over something that doesn't negatively affect them in any way. I think you have MS confused with the Linux zealots. I've never seen a more childish group: --Thoughts of average Linux zealots-- Platform loyalty overrides good judgement. We won't use a platform that offers what we need. We'll instead try to make it run on a platform that doesn't. Open Source is a god that everyone must bow down and submit to. Those that don't are the devil encarnate. How dare they offer binaries and no code. How dare they SELL licenses but not the actual software. No one can violate our license, but we can and will violate theirs. We preach choice, but do not really understand it ourselves. We don't understand why anyone would actually choose a platform that is not Linux. When we can't give away our product to enough people (we KNOW they want it), we try to force it upon them through legislation. We hate MS, we really do, but we hope they open source Windows or Office, or something so that we can rape their codebase and benefit from their investments and labor, etc., etc., etc. This post was edited by n4cer on Monday, May 05, 2003 at 09:54. |
| #3 By 2459 (24.170.151.19) at 5/5/2003 11:57:30 AM |
| So, how's life in the Twilight Zone? |
| #4 By 135 (208.50.204.91) at 5/5/2003 4:30:00 PM |
| Please don't feel the trolls. |
| #5 By 1845 (207.173.73.201) at 5/5/2003 5:58:49 PM |
|
K, rh, you're bugging me. I'd just love to hear a few more of your unsubstantiated assertions.
"I think the entire GUI interface is one of the best piece of technology MS took from Apple" Microsoft improved upon Apple's GUI just as Apple improved on Xerox's GUI. Going a little deeper, the UI metaphors extant is Windows are significantly different from those in Apple operating systems. If you don't believe me, check out Apple's developer site, they'll tell you all about it. "opps.. forgot about the .NET technology they got from Java" Hmmm, what stuff was that? Virtual machines? Interpretted code? C-style syntax? Btye-code? Sounds like you know very little of the research and products of IBM and Bell Labs before Sun Microsystems was even founded. Java didn't introduce any new ideas. They introduced old ideas in new configurations. This is exactly what Microsoft did with .NET. What are we to conclude? We are to conclude that both Sun and Microsoft had wise engineers who could improve upon existing ideas. Both deserve kudos for that. "Yeah, Microsoft does pre-emptive multitasking pretty well, oh wait. They got that from IBM while working on OS/2" Silly me, I was thinking IBM and Microsoft co-developed operating systems, oh wait, they did. I see no evidence that IBM was the sole contributer to the multitasking functionality in PC/IBM/MSDOS, OS/2, or Windows. It's more likely that Microsoft was an equal contributor. "Talking about Apple just made me remember where Microsoft got all the neat multi-media ideas." Yes, Apple has had some good multimedia ideas. They weren't the only ones, though. First, if you are going to give props to Apple, you should also give them to Adobe. The two have colaborated on a good deal of Apple's multimedia strategy. This is similar to the colaboration Microsoft and Intel have had in times past. Microsoft has made considerable strides on its own on the digital media front. Arguably they have the highest quality audio and video encoding technology. Arguably they have the best performing streaming media server. Arguably they have the best audio/video player. If Microsoft did look to Apple to get the idea, Microsoft improved upon it, so they still deserve respect. "oh wait, .NET runs on Windows.... Java run on, let me see" Oh, .NET also runs on OS X and FreeBSD and implementations for Linux are also emerging from two different sources - Ximian and GNU. Java is how old now? Just hunch, 14 months after the launch of Java it probably didn't run on too many platforms either. But if you want to give Java so much acclaim, how many times has it been submitted and retracted from standards bodies? Nah, that's an old argument that is worth having again. You prove yourself a troll, sir, by making foolish sound byte statements intended to annoy rather than teach. If you have something to teach and have evidence to back it up, your posts are worth reading. If you don't, with respect to this site you're a worthless troll. And to think I bothered to come out of retirement for you. |
| #6 By 1845 () at 5/5/2003 6:03:14 PM |
| AW, what the bork is up with all these HTTP 500's ? It's just a little more than really annoying that I can barely even login. |
| #7 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 5/5/2003 8:46:54 PM |
|
hippie,
When this was first reported there was an excellent explaination of the issue from one of AW's foremost posters - holedup. I'll quote him in part. http://www.activewin.com/awin/comments.asp?HeadlineIndex=17424 (#5) for his full post. On the license itself he as this to say: In the case of compiled apps, four VFP runtime files (vfp7r.dll, vfp7t.dll, vfp7renu.dll, and vfp7run.dll) plus one Visual C++ runtime file (msvcr70.dll) were being used on a non-Windows platform. You can download the latest Microsoft Product Use Rights from http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/downloads/pur.pdf (this is basically a consolidation of all EULAs, updated quarterly). In the April 2003 version of the PUR, see page 48. Today's developers are spoiled; in the old days (and still today, in the case of certain COBOL products), you had to pay a free for each runtime you distributed. Microsoft allows royalty-free runtime redistribution, but you are restricted to the Windows platform. For Hentzen to publicly demonstrate the use of those runtimes on non-Windows was a license violation. As to the issue of using copyright protected works, he has a bit more to say: n the case of the IDE, it has problems running on Wine's emulation of oleaut32.dll, so the suggested technique is to copy a real oleaut32.dll from genuine Microsoft Windows and set the Wine configuration option to use it instead. Some people believe that if they own a license for a copy of Windows, they can take the oleaut32.dll from it and do anything with it. Under U.S. Copyright Law (and in the 96 nations which are signatories of the Berne Convention), allowing any portion of Windows to be used as part of something else would be considered a "derivative work." Anyone is allowed to create a derivative work of copyrighted material, as long as it is for private use, but once you decide to go public with it, the copyright owner must grant permission. If Microsoft knowingly allows a derivative work to be shown in public, it erodes Microsoft's copyright on Windows. This is the same as Eminem taking Dido's song and adding his rap. He can do it in private without permission, but he can't start performing it in public without Dido's permission. There are limited exceptions for things like parody, but Wine is clearly not using oleaut32.dll as a political statement. To say that Microsoft risks copyright impotence for enforcing its EULAs is to say that any other lisensor risks a similar fate when enforcing theirs. If I use GPL'ed code in my projects and don't abide by the GPL, I am in violation of the license. If FSF or EFF or some other group attempted to enforce the GPL they would be in the same position that Microsoft is in with respect to the illegal usage and public display of Visual FoxPro for Windows on Linux. It's really a simple matter. |
| #8 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 5/5/2003 9:26:41 PM |
| And the same applies to every other EULA. |
|
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