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The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal)The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal)Posted Sep 14, 2002 10:23 UTC (Sat) by billabong_services (guest, #3682)In reply to: The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal) by rmdirms Parent article: The Toshiba Standoff (Linux Journal) This article has angered me a lot. I have made a personal resolution to ensure that my actions legally deprive Microsoft of revenue wherever possible. The refusal by microsoft, and it's resellers raises an interesting point. All microsoft software is licensed, and not sold. This is to side-step consumer legislation, which insists that products must be of merchantable quality. Licensing also allows Microsoft to insist that you do not publish benchmark results. On the other hand books and other published work, are only covered by copyright laws. If you buy a book, you can do whatever you like, except sell copies. I’m no lawyer, but the distinction seems pretty clear to me. A licence only comes into effect if there is an agreement from both parties. This agreement is sought from the purchaser at the time they open the shrink wrap on the media, or agree to the activation of preinstalled software. If the purchaser does not agree with the terms, they can receive a refund, and the agreement has in effect never been made. Effectively the sale has been nullified, so you cannot use the software. However if you do not agree to the licence terms and there is no refund, then the licence agreement is clearly not made. If you make serious attempts to nullify the sale but microsoft refuses, then you have clearly BOUGHT the software. You have not agreed to the terms. You still have the software, and as long as you don’t sell copies of it, you can do what you like You could review, benchmark, reverse engineer to your hearts content without breaking a licence agreement. You are only limited by legislation Undoutably, microsoft lawyers have a defence prepared for this eventuality, but they would have to make it in court. This would be the place where they would be reminded about the European court ruling that prohibited Microsoft from insisting that a manufacturer sell MS software with all PCs in order to be granted volume discounts. Microsoft cannot have it both ways. Ashley Chapman (www.billabong_services.co.uk)
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