Impossible for it to be legally enforceable surely?
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Alcibiades Feb 04, 2007 12:05 AM EDT |
Whatever the EULA says, I believe that in the EC the acquisition of a copy of the OS is a sale, not a license. And that post-sales restrictions on use are unenforceable - more than that, they are actually in violation of competition law. And that it is possible, no more, possible that in the UK a EULA provision which tells the buyer the contrary may be contrary to consumer protection law, as it may misrepresent the legal situation and attempt to deceive the buyer on what his legal rights actually are. A car manufacturer cannot, for example, make a buyer by a post sale restriction on use, refrain from using an ordinary saloon car for hire. Or to only use one particular brand of stereo, or tires, or spare parts. Nor can he supply the buyer at purchase with a document which tells him that by buying this car he has agreed to refrain from using it for hire. Nor can he claim that it has not really been bought, only licensed. Nor can he hand out documentation which pretends that other consumer protection law doesn't apply to this sale. Microsoft can prevent buyers running two copies of the OS. That would be violation of copyright. So they can perfectly well insist that if you run multiple copies in VMs, each and every one must be bought fresh. But I don't believe they can tell you not to run your legally purchased copy in a VM. They can't stop you running Office under Wine. And Apple can't stop you running your retail copy of Leopard, when it comes out, on a Dell. Assuming you can do either of these without other sorts of illegal hacking. Caution: Not a lawyer. Get legal advice if proposing to act on this. |
| tracyanne Feb 04, 2007 12:32 AM EDT |
I think I'm beginning to fall in love with Microsoft, they should do much much more of this. |
| jsusanka Feb 04, 2007 12:32 PM EDT |
"Microsoft can prevent buyers running two copies of the OS. That would be violation of copyright. So they can perfectly well insist that if you run multiple copies in VMs, each and every one must be bought fresh. But I don't believe they can tell you not to run your legally purchased copy in a VM." microsoft can do whatever they want. haven't they proved they are untouchable - even the doj slapped their hand and did nothing when we had them over the fire. the only solution left is to just not give them your money and don't pirate their software. if someone insists on upgrading their windows 2000 or 2003 or windows me or 98 and insist on windows I tell them to run linux and then run their old version of windows in a virtual machine - I just tell them don't access the internet with windows use linux and firefox, konqueror, or opera or any of the other thousand browsers that are open source. if their windows becomes infected somehow with virus, spyware just have them rebuild their virtual machine or have two running one backup and one primary. vista licensing, drm and anything else they (oops I mean innovations) built into vista was a direct statement to linux. and anybody who thinks it isn't doesn't know bill g and microsoft. they can't compete with linux so they will try to outlaw it by legislation and eulas. says a lot about the company when it has to resort to such tactics. |
| swbrown Feb 04, 2007 5:41 PM EDT |
Even with the ones they say they allow virtualization for, they still don't allow you to use many features of the OS[1]. Anything that takes a protected path (DRM) or your own use of drive encryption (huh?), for example. I think it's either legally bogus, or should be. The 'no drive encryption' will scare people off using Vista for shared hosting, which is ok by me. :) Of course, they can't tell that you're virtualizing it with VT-x/Pacifica, which leads us to what Microsoft's end game is: special privileges for Microsoft on the chip itself. Signed/encrypted executables and a tunnel through virtualization. Absolute and total control that you aren't getting around without an electron microscope. [1] http://weblog.infoworld.com/virtualization/archives/2006/10/... |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!