The Open Software License, Version 3.0

Posted Aug 25, 2005 11:35 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525)
In reply to: The Open Software License, Version 3.0 by giraffedata
Parent article: The Open Software License, Version 3.0

Have you ever removed the Windows XP-Home registry entry that limits the
functionality of XP-Home? An alert box pops up and tells you "by removing
this item, you violate the license". Afterwards, you can log in as admin
in normal mode, create "normal" users, and thus do the most basic things
to make XP-Home a bit more secure than as delivered. But you violate the
license.

Copyright, on the other hand, allows exactly this sort of patching. Well,
it's not even a patch, it's just removing a registry entry, it's use. It
does not touch copyright at all.

Microsoft considders licenses as contracts. They try to prevent
publication of benchmarks. They had wordings like "you aren't allowed to
speek badly of this piece of shit^Wsoftware" in some of their EULAs. They
even put some ban of free software into some of their licenses. They
actually think that copyright is too generous, and want their license to
restrict you further.

The fact that you usually don't buy Windows, but a piece of hardware,
unavoidable bundled with it, renders this "contract" unenforcible. But
that's IMHO and IANAL.

The Open Software License, Version 3.0

Posted Aug 25, 2005 15:33 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

That sounds like another example of the same misnomer, then. I'm sure what Microsoft means is "you violate the end user license agreement." That's a contract wherein Microsoft gives you a copyright license in exchange for your promise to do (or not to do) some stuff. If you break that promise, you're no longer entitled to the license. Under ordinary contract law, you'd still have the license but would owe Microsoft money. But there may be some special provision for copyright license sales that says the license becomes automatically revoked.

Copyright licenses in the commercial world are typically tied to a contract of sale like this; it's special to the open source world that we give them out unilaterally (albeit with conditions attached).

In this case, I'm not entirely sure there's even a relevant copyright license. I think what you get in exchange for your promise not to check that box is the copy of Windows that you physically received.

The fact that you usually don't buy Windows, but a piece of hardware, unavoidably bundled with it, renders this "contract" unenforcible. But that's IMHO and IANAL.

That's the first I've heard of that theory, and I can't see any substance to it. I think if the hardware is unavoidably bundled with the software, then you're buying the bundle -- both the hardware and the software. Why would that one component of the computer system be considered not part of the merchandise?