---- Original Message ----
From: "Wirt Atmar" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Dell and Lexmark
> Jeff writes:
>
>> "I've even heard of a proposed software license
>> that expires on every third motherboard, NIC or something like
>> that."
>
> I've heard that too, but the three-PC copy scheme seems very generous
> to me. The Microsoft EULA has always been "desktop O/S licenses can
> never, ever be transferred to another machine. Desktop O/S licenses
> are tied to the machine on which they were first installed and can
> never be transferred" (see: www.microsoft.com/usa/presentations/
> May_2002_Licensing_Briefing.ppt).
The exact, actual, quotation in the presentation is:
"OEM Desktop O/S licenses/software can NEVER, EVER, EVER be transferred to a
different machine
Desktop O/S (i.e. Windows 9x, Windows NT Workstation and Windows Pro 2000) VL
upgrade licenses are NOT transferable
and are tied to the machine on which they are first installed"
followed by:
"Upgrades cannot be transferred to a new or replacement PC if that upgrade was
used to upgrade a license on the
existing PC"
I found the cut and paste required to get this to be a non-trivial task, and
perhaps Wirt's transcription was manual, and so prone to error.
Or perhaps he thought the omission of the acronyms OEM and VL would be
inconsequential. I find them quite significant; but maybe that's just me.
Certainly, I'm relieved to find that the full retail Win95 I bought to upgrade
the machine I bought with an OEM Win 3.1 on it was something I could legally
give to my son when I scrapped that machine. (Though an upgrade Win95 wouldn't
have been, of course. Though I don't see why I couldn't have given him my
'old' Upgrade 95, when I scrapped that machine, if he, in turn, had been
upgrading a Win 3.x machine, and not, as he was, scratch-building).
> If you've been ignoring that restriction because you've found that
> you could, it's difficult to know what to say, although I can
> understand your irritation that Microsoft is now trying to enforce
> the rules that everyone agrees to when they use their products. But
> it seems so blessedly unfair. See:
> http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2819063,00.html
I see Wirt's being ironic here, of course. And none of us, I hope, condone
software piracy.
OTOH, I might balk at a EULA from Microsoft that blithely announced that once
I'd put M$ Office on a given PC, it was there for keeps, and the deal was 'new
PC, new M$ Office'. Even though I was planning to de-install Office from the
old PC, or even scrap it.
But I think that if Wirt's software were shipped with a PC that I bought, and
included in the sticker price, and that the component of that sticker price
was not full retail but an OEM deal, I wouldn't have a moment's qualm against
letting it die with that PC.
(BTW - and purely in the interests of the requested feedback that Wirt wanted
about his proposed licensing scheme - if I'm really compliant with the scheme,
and *always* break out a new license from my block when setting up a new PC -
and I want to dispose of an old PC with the software on, outside my
organisation - will I be able to do that? It seems pointless to delete the
software, when my organisation can derive no benefit from that. But if I leave
it on there, who is it licensed to? The new owner of the PC? My organisation
still?
Or am I expected to delete it before the new owner takes delivery, so if he
wants a copy, he needs to buy a new license from AICS for that same PC?
Obviously, I hope the latter, to make Wirt as rich and successful as possible,
even at (potentially) small extra expense to me. But I'm sure the question
will be asked.....
--
Roy Brown
Posting with the OEnemy, tamed by OE-QuoteFix 1.17.6
http://jump.to/oe-quotefix
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
|
