Microsoft FrontPage License Prohibits Anti-Microsoft Speech

According to this story running at Info World, the license from FrontPage 2002 contains a clause that says 'You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services ...' An unfortunate clause that will prevent me from my long term plan of migrating Slashdot to Frontpage (cough). There's lots of other nastiness in this article too. Can anyone find that specific clause? Can anyone find the EULA itself? Update: 09/20 18:10 GMT by T : According to reader bteutsch "FWIW, the clause appears only in the EULA agreement for use of the FrontPage Logo, not with the product or server extensions license."

Comments

Maybe a good thing?

[mjh]

IANAL, but isn't there something in contract law that says that if you put a clause in a contract that is illegal, then the contract is null and void on its face. For example, I can't put a clause in a contract that says that you will become my slave if you agree to the contract. Slavery is illegal and no contract is allowed to supercede that (AFAIK).

So the fact that this exists, does it not render the license restrictions that MS is putting into place null and void? In other words, has MS just ceded their rights to control Front Page?

(Please chill on the flames. If I knew what I was talking about I wouldn't have had to ask!)

Re:Maybe a good thing?

[Jerf]

'IANAL, but isn't there something in contract law that says that if you put a clause in a contract that is illegal, then the contract is null and void on its face. For example, I can't put a clause in a contract that says that you will become my slave if you agree to the contract. Slavery is illegal and no contract is allowed to supercede that (AFAIK).'

'So the fact that this exists, does it not render the license restrictions that MS is putting into place null and void? In other words, has MS just ceded their rights to control Front Page?'

IANAL, but you don't need to be a lawyer for this.

First, as one person pointed out, licenses invariably have clauses that say if one part is found invalid, then only that part is invalidated, not the whole thing. Second, even if what you said is true, then what is nullified is the license. That doesn't mean Microsoft has "ceded" their rights to FrontPage, it means that you no longer have the right to use it.

This is why contracts have those clauses. For any non-trivial contract, it would not be good that the whole contract was nullified for obvious reasons, for either side.

Finally, I am surprised this wasn't noticed in a reply, but in states where the UCITA or compatible varient has been passed, this clause is likely to be completely legal, merely a varient on the non-review clause.

Get the state to pass a law

[browser_war_pow]

Get your state to pass a law voiding such contracts. Microsoft relies on contract law, a state legal system. If the state code says: "The liberties established in the US Constitution shall apply in all contractual relationships; no party shall abridge or void these rights. Any contract which does the preceding shall be invalid. In the event of intellectual property contracts violating this statute, the intellectual property shall be covered under the sections of the state code regarding sale of non-intellectual property to consumers and the property shall be regarded as a physical commodity bought and sold rather than a good licensed or leased." then there is nothing MSFT can do about it.

Re:This relates only to Front Page SERVER COMPONEN

[DunbarTheInept]

It merely restricts visible elements (server-side controls and such) from being associated with objectionable content. And that seems pretty reasonable to me.

Not all server-side things are "visible elements" to the user. No, plain and simple MS is saying you can't use MS FOO to communicate something bad about MS. It doesn't matter one iota whether MS FOO is an entire product or a subset of a prodcut (as in this case). The ethical issue is still the same. Here's an analogy: The phone company saying you can't use their three-way calling, caller ID, call waiting, or voice mail to say bad things about the phone company to your friends, but you can still use the more mundane generic phone call to do so. If you can't see what's wrong with that, then your psychology is so different from mine that you might as well be an alien.