An Interview with Tom Lord of Arch (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

An Interview with Tom Lord of Arch (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2004 10:36 UTC (Sun) by dpj (guest, #24991)
In reply to: An Interview with Tom Lord of Arch (O'ReillyNet) by lm
Parent article: An Interview with Tom Lord of Arch (O'ReillyNet)

Just take the time to think of the following clauses if they existed:

- In gcc: your are not allowed to use gcc to develop a compiler
- In Visual Studio: you are not allowed to use this product to compete with MS products.
- In any networking product (routers, switches): you can not use this product to test interoperability with your products if these ones compete with ours.

Don't you think it would be a very silly world !

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An Interview with Tom Lord of Arch (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 26, 2004 11:36 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

IIRC, that Visual Studio clause actually exists. It's obviously totally unenforceable (well, in the UK at least, a court would laugh at it; you don't need to be a lawyer to understand this, a straightforward reading of the Unfair Contract Terms Act is enough; which is good, because that's all I can do myself :) ).

And yes, it's utterly insane.