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Microsoft: You Need Permission to Sell Our Software
IEEEmember writes "Microsoft has objected to the sale of bankrupt KMart's Bluelight.com Internet unit to United Online. Microsoft's objection to the sale is based on the non-transferability of software licenses protected by copyright law according to the Reuters story on Yahoo! News. This action by Microsoft should serve as a warning to any corporation that has a significant investment in Microsoft licenses. Dependency on Microsoft licenses may grant Microsoft the ability to veto your business decisions."
s'true
nig
Get your own!!!
yeah
Motherfuckers
Sons a bitches
I like to fuck
Old gray witches.
Beotch you
Beotch me
Beotch my big fat dick
Ahhh yeah.
Motherfucker.
You so cool.
It is a common clause in most licenses. Though, it seems that MS is just being a real dick of a corporation for putting up a fight. What would they prefer? BlueLight go to Solaris? Sheesh. (Having said that, they'll probably pay up for all new copies on Windows.)
Anti-Trust
Maybe the dumb dicks shouldn't have signed the license agreement then? Slashdot points out more and more obvious things everyday.
There isn't much to argue about here - it is an unfortunate fact but the fine print makes it so. Some companies do allow the transfer of software licenses but it is often so expensive it is easier to obtain new licenses and update the software in the process. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes..
Sure, pick on the company with no money to fight you in court. Why don't you dunk them in salt and kick 'em in the bleeding, festering wounds while you're at it?
I thought that it had been determined that first-sale applied to software. Is that only for home users?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Would this really be enforceable? AFAIK, no legal precedent has been set regarding the EULA's where this provision is. Maybe this will provide a good test case with lots of money on both sides.
what in the holy hell happened to the first sale doctrine?First Sale
So if you sell your PC with the windows license to another person, say, your next door neighbour, it becomes an illegal copy of windows? or Am I way off here?
F$ck off.
Therefore, are licences no longer an asset, and instead a liability?
How can one work around such pitfalls when selling, not a company per se, but instead a laptop or a used computer?
Are they able to tell us that we cannot transfer our licenses to the people purchasing our equipment?
Feh!
I know a place you can get them cheap.. real cheap!! Yes, you too can own a Microsoft License for that "copy" of Microsoft Windows you have secretly installed on your second computer.
To gain a Cheap Microsoft Windows License, just find ANY company in bankrupcy and offer 10 bucks a license. You too can have the joy of cheap MS products.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
Let's say I've got a 500 person company, we've got a couple NT servers, workstations for the employees, etc etc...
If some company buys us, or we merge, do we have to replace all those? Even though we aren't a web operation, we use computers in our day-to-day activities....
IANAL, and IANAB (I am not a businessman)
Yet another reason to use free software...
Does MS have a say in whether or not I can give my lil bro my old PC?
Hmmm...another issue about Microsoft licensing. It seems to me that Microsoft has more interest in sneaky business than making a good product.
The more I am sold on the value and ease of Windows, the less and less I want to patronize this company.
If this stands, Microsoft has successfully become the deciding party in all major corporate mergers and aquisitions. Who is going to buy another sizable company knowing that they'll be forced to relicense all of their software?
Talk about extending your monopoly.
IMO, nobody at Microsoft believes that they will lose in the long run, and that's made them both overcomfortable and vulnerable. The more they tighten their graip, the more syste^H^H^H companies will slip through their fingers.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Sorry attempt at FUD. It is Microsoft and other companies. The story relates something to the effect that the objection was over not only software licensing, but tax issues. Whenever a big public corporation sells part or all of itself, there is always someone who objects. The story just stated that Microsoft opposed it because KMart hadn't made clear what licenses were to be transferred to the buyer. Its just a bunch of companies looking to make some money off the transaction, and it just happens to include Microsoft.
Surely if the business unit owns the licenses, and the *entire* business unit is sold (transferring the business unit to a new owner), the licenses are still valid, as they still belong to the (now renamed) business unit?
From the story:
"The licenses that debtors (Kmart) have of Microsoft's products are licenses of copyrighted materials and, therefore, may not be assumed or assigned with Microsoft's consent," said Microsoft.
That statment is confusing as hell to me. It's got to be "without" doesn't it?
So according to this if the company I work for is bought by another company, then do the Licences that are on my computer beocme OSB, Does the new company have to buy New licences.
Something to think about?
A good warning to people to actually pay attention to what these travesties actually say.
When my former employer went belly-up they sold licenses as they were assets of the company. What Microsoft is, in act, doing is making their software a non-asset, consumed immediately and utterly worthless beyond that. That's a pretty piss-poor business plan, for both parties.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Seems like they can't win. First they have aggressive tactics from Wal-Mart, basically putting them out of business in many cities.
Now Target's making a bid for power, and Wal-Mart is scurrying. KMart is left in the dust. (By the way, at Target, I notice an unusually large proportion of highly attractive women. Could Target be hiring cute 'mystery shoppers' kind of like the 'leaners' hawking cellphones at bars?)
So now Microsoft gets in on the beating. It's just dismal.
...
Microsoft Tells Apple they won't stand new product line. Microsofts reply: "Because... uh... our licenses told us to" Apples reply: Kevin, you've got the whole world in your hands.
It presumes that any monies you have paid towards such a product is forfeit even if the circumstances dictating the business change are entirely outside your control.
I think this is a positive move in its effects; this will make a greater number of business consumers start reading EULAs very carefully indeed, and I expect very many won't like what they find in there. We may see some changes on the horizon.
Like the infamous we-reserve-the-right-to-inspect-your-business clause that found itself into a licence I won't name [because I'm not sure I remember exactly which] :-) meant to be Open Source some time ago.
-- MG
Here's what AOL has to say about these bloodsucking crooks
Are you legally allowed to sell your copy of Windows 2K to a third party?
If you are, then they should be able to add the "price" of the licenses to the price of the company and list it as an asset.
If you're not, then this makes more sense.
A search for "Microsoft Windows" on ebay returns 1040 results.
According to the OEM EULA with Windows, the copy of Windows must remain with the hardware. The license is forever married to the box it came with. Microsoft caused a big stink about this a month or two ago, warning schools about accepting donated hardware.
Now Microsoft is saying that normal licenses can't be transfered because the software is copyrighted?
It was my understanding that a license was an asset. You owned it and you could transfer it. Something isn't sitting right with me here. There must be more to the story that's being left out. (Yea, I know, Microsoft is the Evil Empire. However, I still think there's more than meets the eye going on here.)
I was not touched there by an angel.
The article really doesn't provide enough information to make the assumption that Microsoft is making an unfair business decision on this point. It's entirely possible that Microsoft sold licenses based upon support contracts or a subscription-based service offered only to K-Mart, or possibly even custom code to drive the site. Without this knowledge it's difficult to make a valid assumption as to whether or not Microsoft is being unfair with this particular dispute.
This is probably the same reason Microsoft is objecting, with a business that large it's hard to keep track of all of your clients and what exactly they have from you. Would you allow a company to sell 10,000 licenses for software that you had given them on the basis that they were maintaining a multi-million dollar support contract with you? I don't think so, and though it would be up to the company to make sure the support contracts were upheld, this would only be the case if they were notified of this dependency and paperwork was filed, etc.
Microsoft may very well be in the right in saying "Hey, you should tell us what of our intellectual property you're selling before you sell it."
If there is a God, you are an authorized representative. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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is certainly not uncommon in the enterprise level software world. Many vendors want some sort of say-so in terms of mergers, etc. especially if they are giving you some soft of "deal" on the price. The reasons are numerous, but this is not a case where you necessarily need to single out MS. Any time you want to transfer a license, the vendor may want to get involved and renegotiate. It is up to you as a CIO to read the fine print and decide if it is something you can live with. These things are often negotiable.
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So M$ is balking about KMart trying to sell off some assets due to licensing issues. What does M$ expect to get out of it? KMart is out! I've got a solution, but if you feel the ground freeze under you, you'll know Hell froze over first. If M$ keeps KMart afloat, then they won't have to worry about their prescious license being broken.
In truth, all M$ has to do is sell the purchasing company a license for the software. I'm sure that would be far more cost effective than pulling out the gaggle of lawyers to stop the sale.
First of all, that article absolutely sucked, where are the details? Next, perhaps KMart bought some custom made software from MS that MS just licenced to them, remember Windows and Office are not the only software MS has. So perhaps this is what MS is fighting, they are fighting the sale of software made specifically for kmart. Then again, I could be on crack and I have no idea what I am talking about since I have no information.
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They're selling the business unit, not the computers themselves alone. They're selling the owner of the license. If i were a slave and had a license for Windows, and I were sold but the PC was still considered in some contrived manner to be mine and came with me, would I have to relicense? no. Because I'm licensed. How should that work any different for a business unit?
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I'm not sure what the arguments to this article will be. It's a matter of contract law.
Aggrivating, perhaps, but hope lies predominantly in MSoft's competitors; MS will not reign forever. Nobody can.
Goodbye dear, blue, Kmart.
Go Target. They have a man in Senate (Dayton-MN). Maybe he would execute a transition to Linux. Would have to train those employees, wouldn't you?
Think about it.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
First sale doctrine.
:)
GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!
That was easy.
At first I thought this was uncompetitive action (but I'm sure someone else will scream monopoly), then I thought 'oh, but there are other choices in the market, kmart can go with them instead, so it is just weird' and then I read the article.
:-) and Intel said that Via didn't have the rights to manufacture them, and that the licenses were non-transferrable.
It is pretty weird, if you ask me. Some creditors (and Microsoft) are opposed to the sale of the internet unit because the licenses were made with kmart, and therefore can't be transferred. This sounds to me like when Via bought another company (was it a division of SiS or Acer or something?) that had license to make Pentium 4 busses (bussen?
I still find it odd that non-Microsoft entities are getting involved against the sale, but that seems more like a tax- and payment-avoidance issue than something directly Microsoftian.
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First post.
Your asshole + microsoft = goatse.cx
1. Get people to buy your product.
2. Make sure they can't actually use it.
3. ???
4. Profit!
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Imagine a beowolf cluster of bluelight.com PCs. It might just give my C64 a run for its money.
Slashdot senior member 1 blows and mounts slashdot senior member 2 in kinky a.s.s fashion.
Last post.
*ducks*
I've been trying to figure it out for YEARS!!!!
Bill Gates isn't Borg trying to assimilate everything, he's the Riddler.
Think about it: he always does things that don't seem to make sense, often contradicting himself. He has his enemies, keeps all his secrets to himself, and everything that happens seems to fall into his plan perfectly. He also makes statements that are half-truths that are confusing and enigmatic, but in the end come out making some sense.
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The liscense said that you have permission to put windows on your computer, not on your neighbor's computer.
g to the oatse
c to the izzex
Wow! I never thought that Microsoft would so carelessly sign it's own death warrant! When it comes to business, don't rock the boat. Microsoft is meddling in the business affairs of corporations. It's one thing to piss of the mob. Worse case scenario is they kill you. Piss of a corporation... damn I don't even want to think about it... endless litigations and court appearances so you can keep a job, blacklisting, starving, no home... jeez what a living hell....
!!!!!!!WARNING!!!!!!!
Sorry this post has ended due to the fact it's author is now rocking himself back and forth sucking on the collar of his shirt mumbling
"Ticky Tack, Ticky Tack, Lawyers Coming, Give Me That! Got No Job, Got No Life, Got no Money, got No Wife!"
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
This business decision was denied by a Swarm of Microsoft Circus Mummies for BlueLight.com.
?
I know more than you drink.
They'll let this one lie.. This isn't about software licenses, it's about commerce...
The Govt. already believes they're one big dick of a corporation....Messing about in bankrupcies is kicking someone when they're down and out.
You have a lousy P.R. Dept., Ball(buster)mer.
Better fire them and get one that KNOWS how to make a good image for M$.
Is this what America has come to in order to enrich their business? What ever happen to one business helping out another?
Of course the agreements have all been signed and such, but for god's sake, K-Mart isn't going to suddenly pull a competitive new OS out of their ass and throw it on the market.
From what I gather, this isn't specifically a EULA issue in that the 'end user' agreement wouldn't necessarily state anything about this. I'm going out on a limb to guess that - as with most big companies - Kmart negotiated a blanket licensing deal with MS. THOSE terms most likely dictate that in consideration for 'less than market rates' for the software, certain terms apply. If Kmart actually paid 100% 'retail' price for each desktop, each SQL server, and everything else, they could probably simply abide by the 'transfer' clause in the standard EULA (you can transfer, but remove the original copy on first machine). I don't think anything's that cut and dried when you're talking millions of dollars and MS (or any other sufficiently large software house - could you easily transfer millions of dollars of Norton AV from one company to another? Or Adobe stuff?)
creation science book
Whoa! Umm that title was supposed to be the END IS NEAR.. Don't ask where NEW came from... Must have dozed off...
Posted Anon cuz it's soooo off topic.. I guess
in the band
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You (as a private person) may sell your license to your neighbour (first sale doctrine). However, as a commercial business, you do not have the same rights, and need to get the copyright holder's permission.
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IANAL so I've always wondered about the following: Let's say I have a company and I build a bunch of for-internal-use-only custom modifications of GPL software. That seems fine by GPL standards.
But...
What if I decide to sell my company? The software I've developed is certainly an integral part of the value of my company. Would GPL require me to publish all of the modified source code if I sell the company?
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Although the article is light on details, I would guess these are not regular boxed copies of microsoft software.
:)
Many people are asking if this means that they can not sell their copy of windows. These are completly different situations. Kmart probably didn't buy a truck load of boxed copies of windows. They licensed the software at a significant discount (a discount because of the quantity they were buying AND because of the restrictive agreement).
I work in the California State University system (CSU Chico specifically). Due to budget cuts the state had to discontinue the site license they had with Microsoft, fortunetly part of the contract was that any computer that already has the software on it when the contract ends, gets to keep it. Needless to say, we upgraded all of our computer labs from win98 to win2k and from office2k to officeXP over the summer
I mean, if the licenses were to the Bluelight.com entity, then just reselling them shouldn't be a violation of the agreement, should it? On the other hand, if the licenses are marked as Kmart's, then it would be.
A big bottle of semantic joy.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
When my former employer went belly-up they sold licenses as they were assets of the company. What Microsoft is, in act, doing is making their software a non-asset
This could throw off the meaning of financial reports. One of the reported items is the total value of all assets. This helps an investor make decisions such as, "If the company belly's up, then how much can be raised from selling assets to compensate primary investors like (potentially) me?"
It sounds like they will have to make a new accounting category: "Non-sellable assets". Which you are right about: it makes it essentially a non-asset.
It may still be something for *mergers*, but not bankruptcy. Thus, 3 categories may even be needed. (At that point they are attributes, not categories.) Just what the world needs: more complex financial reports.
Table-ized A.I.
Unless the new company has pretty comprehensive site licenses for the software. Basically, all MS software we have that isn't covered by our new parent company's site license but was covered by our old one must be deleted from all company computers ASAP.
For us, that means we can keep all Office components (We have a site license for them) except for Access (Which the new company doesn't).
As far as I can tell, our licenses for most other software (Matlab, Microwave Office, various CAD/ECAD tools, etc.) were not a problem to transfer.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If this was just a matter of click-wrap licensing, M$ wouldn't be able to get away with what they're doing here, which is basically saying "We have a lien on your business because you're in a contract with us." BlueLight probably had engaged in a so-called "Open|Select License Agreement" with Microsoft, which is their form of site licensing. I'm pretty certain that to get such a license agreement, you have to physically sign a contract and give Bill a sizeable check each time you renew your license.
If this is the case, and it probably is... what Microsoft is doing here is scary and legal. It's no different than you leasing a multifunction copier from Xerox and then making plans to sell your business and Xerox asking a court to enjoin you from doing so due to their unsecured interest in your company.
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Dear World,
IMHO...Microsoft wouldn't be pushing this if Bluelight.com and United Online were textile companies. They are Internet Service Providers and as such, direct competitors of MSN. Microsoft is on a 300M push of MSN now, so they need to disrupt its competition.
Companies change hands all of the time. Have you heard about this happening before? I haven't and suspect that you haven't as well. So, what's he real motivation? I say it is to help MSN by preventing the sale.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Orange overalls with random numbers stenciled on the back, and black-and-white striped pajamas...
This sure looks like "Tortious Interference in a Business Relationship" to me..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I loaded this page and got a MS Visual .Net ad! Take their money /., take it. . .
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
If you purchase a retail copy in a box ( not an upgrade ) can you not transfer/sell this?
It wasn't attached to a pc.. nor was it purchased as part of the borderline extortive MOLP.
Doesn't help those already enslaved, but perhaps a way out for others just starting out?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Miscrosoft is the great Satan that Nostradamus predicted would rise to power in the 80's. ;-P
*Believe it or not*
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So, you need Microsoft's permission to sell their software.
:) )
But selling Microsoft software to someone is an act of evil and cruelty.
Therefore, the only ones who would do this are evil villains (preferably cartoonish supervillains).
Evil villains aren't known for getting permission to perpetrate their evil acts.
So, I don't really see a problem here... except maybe that selling software is a kind of wussy villainous act, compared to, say, blocking out the sun.
(I'm taking bets on how many moderators miss the joke and mark this as a "troll" or "flamebait".
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
So we have telecoms like Cisco and Nortel selling far too much equipment like routers and switches a few years ago to hundreds of companies that didn't survive the dot bomb. Now they can't move new equipment out into the market because the equipment has been sold off to clearing houses at ridiculously small fractions of their purchase price, then being sold again by these clearing houses to companies still standing for a considerable profit (but still far less expensive than new from Cisco or Nortel).
I'm sure the telcos would just LOVE to include a "cannot resell" clause to equipment purchases, but they can't (can you just imagine some of the other clauses they'd eventually have to put in, "this router cannot be used in the illegal transfer of data, as defined by the DCMA"). Why should MS (or any other software company for that matter) be able to restrict the sale and transfer of licenses, so long as the original owners have no copies remaining? They're no more deserving of assured profit via new product purchases than the telcos are.
Does this mean that MS software is viral in that its licensing terms attach to your property in a viral like manner and you are not free to use your property in the proprietary interest you see fit?
Oh wait, that is only for free software, excuse me.
Also, how this move from 'M$' is the only thing screwing KMart since it's clear that everyone and their mother wants a piece of the sale.
Otherwise, please create a new /. section called "Gratuitous FUD" and post this there instead. k? thx.
The licenses are owned by the business (bluelight online) therefore when the business is sold the licenses are still owned by that business so no transfer has taken place.
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MS LICENSING AGENT [on phone, reviewing a file]:
I zee...this is all well and good, but I do not zee your PAPERS. You must have the proper papers! Vere are your papers!? Don't wait for ze phone delay--answer me now!!!
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Microsoft can't have their software being used by competitors now, can they?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The Enemy Within Gore Vidal is America's most controversial writer and a ferocious, often isolated, critic of the Bush administration. Here, against a backdrop of spreading unease about America's response to the events of 11 September 2001 and their aftermath, we publish Vidal's remarkable personal polemic urging a shocking new interpretation of who was to blame. On 24 August, 1814, things looked very dark for freedom's land. That was the day the British captured Washington DC and set fire to the Capitol and the White House. President Madison took refuge in the nearby Virginia woods where he waited patiently for the notoriously short attention span of the Brits to kick in, which it did. They moved on and what might have been a Day of Utter Darkness turned out to be something of a bonanza for the DC building trades and up-market realtors. One year after 9/11, we still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil-libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected president with the oil and gas Cheney/Bush junta. Meanwhile, our more and more unaccountable government is pursuing all sorts of games around the world that we the spear carriers (formerly the people) will never learn of. Even so, we have been getting some answers to the question: why weren't we warned in advance of 9/11? Apparently, we were, repeatedly; for the better part of a year, we were told there would be unfriendly visitors to our skies some time in September 2001, but the government neither informed nor protected us despite Mayday warnings from Presidents Putin and Mubarak, from Mossad and even from elements of our own FBI. A joint panel of congressional intelligence committees reported (19 September 2002, New York Times) that as early as 1996, Pakistani terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad confessed to federal agents that he was 'learning to fly in order to crash a plane into CIA HQ'. Only CIA director George Tenet seemed to take the various threats seriously. In December 1998, he wrote to his deputies that 'we are at war' with Osama bin Laden. So impressed was the FBI by his warnings that by 20 September 2001, 'the FBI still had only one analyst assigned full time to al-Qaeda'. From a briefing prepared for Bush at the beginning of July 2001: 'We believe that OBL [Osama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.' And so it came to pass; yet Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, says she never suspected that this meant anything more than the kidnapping of planes. Happily, somewhere over the Beltway, there is Europe - recently declared anti-Semitic by the US media because most of Europe wants no war with Iraq and the junta does, for reasons we may now begin to understand thanks to European and Asian investigators with their relatively free media. On the subject 'How and Why America was Attacked on 11 September, 2001', the best, most balanced report, thus far, is by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed ... Yes, yes, I know he is one of Them. But they often know things that we don't -
particularly about what we are up to. A political scientist, Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and
Development 'a think-tank dedicated to the promotion of human rights, justice and peace' in Brighton. His book, 'The War on
Freedom', has just been published in the US by a small but reputable publisher.
Ashmed provides a background for our ongoing war against Afghanistan, a view that in no way coincides with what the
administration has told us. He has drawn on many sources, most tellingly on American whistleblowers who are beginning to
come forth and hear witness - like those FBI agents who warned their supervisors that al-Qaeda was planning a kamikaze
strike against New York and Washington only to be told that if they went public with these warnings they would suffer under the
National Security Act. Several of these agents have engaged David P. Schippers, chief investigative counsel for the US House
Judiciary Committee, to represent them in court. The majestic Schippers managed the successful impeachment of President
Clinton in the House of Representatives. He may, if the Iraqi war should go wrong, be obliged to perform the same high service
for Bush, who allowed the American people to go unwarned about an imminent attack upon two of our cities as pre-emption of
a planned military strike by the US against the Taliban.
The Guardian (26 September 2001) reported that in July 2001, a group of interested parties met in a Berlin hotel to
listen to a former State Department official, Lee Coldren, as he passed on a message from the Bush administration that 'the
United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action ... the chilling quality of this
private warning was that it came - according to one of those present, the Pakistani diplomat Niaz Naik - accompanied by
specific details of how Bush would succeed ...' Four days earlier, the Guardian had reported that 'Osama bin Laden and the
Taliban received threats of possible American military action against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New
York and Washington ... [which] raises the possibility that bin Laden was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he
saw as US threats.' A replay of the 'day of infamy' in the Pacific 62 years earlier?
Why the US needed a Eurasian adventure
On 9 September 2001, Bush was presented with a draft of a national security presidential directive outlining a global campaign
of military, diplomatic and intelligence action targeting al-Qaeda, buttressed by the threat of war. According to NBC News:
'President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaeda ... but did not have the chance
before the terrorist attacks ... The directive, as described to NBC News, was essentially the same war plan as the one put into
action after 11 September. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly ... because it simply had to pull the
plans "off the shelf".'
Finally, BBC News, 18 September 2001: 'Niak Naik, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior
American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. It was Naik's
view that Washington would not drop its war for Afghanistan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the
Taliban.'
Was Afghanistan then turned to rubble in order to avenge the 3,000 Americans slaughtered by Osama? Hardly. The
administration is convinced that Americans are so simple-minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the
venerable lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he hates us, 'cause we're
rich 'n free 'n he's not. Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the most frightening logo for our long contemplated
invasion and conquest of Afghanistan, planning for which had been 'contingency' some years before 9/11 and, again, from 20
December, 2000, when Clinton's out-going team devised a plan to strike at al-Qaeda in retaliation for the assault on the warship
Cole. Clinton's National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, personally briefed his successor on the plan but Rice, still very much
in her role as director of Chevron-Texaco, with special duties regarding Pakistan and Uzbekistan, now denies any such briefing.
A year and a half later (12 August, 2002), fearless Time magazine reported this odd memory lapse.
Osama, if it was he and not a nation, simply provided the necessary shock to put in train a war of conquest. But
conquest of what? What is there in dismal dry sandy Afghanistan worth conquering? Zbigniew Brzezinski tells us exactly what in
a 1997 Council on Foreign Relations study called 'The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives'.
The Polish-born Brzezinski was the hawkish National Security Advisor to President Carter. In 'The Grand
Chessboard', Brzezinski gives a little history lesson. 'Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some 500 years ago,
Eurasia has been the centre of world power.' Eurasia is all the territory east of Germany. This means Russia, the Middle East,
China and parts of India. Brzezinski acknowledges that Russia and China, bordering oil-rich central Asia, are the two main
powers threatening US hegemony in that area.
He takes it for granted that the US must exert control over the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, known to those
who love them as 'the Stans': Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan and Kyrgyzstan all 'of importance from the standpoint of
security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and most powerful neighbours - Russia, Turkey and
Iran, with China signaling'. Brzezinski notes how the world's energy consumption keeps increasing; hence, who controls Caspian
oil/gas will control the world economy. Brzezinski then, reflexively, goes into the standard American rationalization for empire;.
We want nothing, ever, for ourselves, only to keep bad people from getting good things with which to hurt good people. 'It
follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single [other] power comes to control the geopolitical space and
that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.'
Brzezinski is quite aware that American leaders are wonderfully ignorant of history and geography so he really lays it on,
stopping just short of invoking politically incorrect 'manifest destiny'. He reminds the Council just how big Eurasia is.
Seventy-five percent of the world's population is Eurasian. If I have done the sums right, that means that we've only got control,
to date, of a mere 25 percent of the world's folks. More! 'Eurasia accounts for 60-per cent of the world's GNP and
three-fourths of the world's known energy resources.'
Brzezinski's master plan for 'our' globe has obviously been accepted by the Cheney-Bush junta. Corporate America,
long over-excited by Eurasian mineral wealth, has been aboard from the beginning.
Ahmed sums up: 'Brzezinski clearly envisaged that the establishment, consolidation and expansion of US military
hegemony over Eurasia through Central Asia would require the unprecedented, open-ended militarisation of foreign policy,
coupled with an unprecedented manufacture of domestic support and consensus on this militarisation campaign.'
Afghanistan is the gateway to all these riches. Will we fight to seize them? It should never be forgotten that the American
people did not want to fight in either of the twentieth century's world wars, but President Wilson maneuvered us into the First
while President Roosevelt maneuvered the Japanese into striking the first blow at Pearl Harbor, causing us to enter the Second
as the result of a massive external attack. Brzezinski understands all this and, in 1997, he is thinking ahead - as well as
backward. 'Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a
consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.'
Thus was the symbolic gun produced that belched black smoke over Manhattan and the Pentagon.
Since the Iran-Iraq wars, Islam has been demonized as a Satanic terrorist cult that encourages suicide attacks -
contrary, it should be noted, to the Islamic religion. Osama has been portrayed, accurately, it would seem, as an Islamic zealot.
In order to bring this evil-doer to justice ('dead or alive'), Afghanistan, the object of the exercise was made safe not only for
democracy but for Union Oil of California whose proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan to Pakistan and the
Indian Ocean port of Karachi, had been abandoned under the Taliban's chaotic regime. Currently, the pipeline is a go-project
thanks to the junta's installation of a Unocal employee (John J Maresca) as US envoy to the newly born democracy whose
president, Hamid Karzai, is also, according to Le Monde, a former employee of a Unocal subsidiary. Conspiracy?
Coincidence!
Once Afghanistan looked to be within the fold, the junta, which had managed to pull off a complex diplomatic-military
caper, - abruptly replaced Osama, the personification of evil, with Saddam. This has been hard to explain since there is nothing
to connect Iraq with 9/11. Happily, 'evidence' is now being invented. But it is uphill work, not helped by stories in the press
about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must - for the sake of the free world - be reassigned to US and European consortiums.
As Brzezinski foretold, 'a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat' made it possible for the President to
dance a war dance before Congress. 'A long war!' he shouted with glee. Then he named an incoherent Axis of Evil to be fought.
Although Congress did not give him the FDR Special - a declaration of war - he did get permission to go after Osama who may
now be skulking in Iraq.
Bush and the dog that did not bark
Post-9/11, the American media were filled with pre-emptory denunciations of unpatriotic 'conspiracy theorists', who not only
are always with us but are usually easy for the media to discredit since it is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in
American life. Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that most of corporate America had been conspiring with
accountants to cook their books since - well, at least the bright days of Reagan and deregulation. Ironically, less than a year
after the massive danger from without, we were confronted with an even greater enemy from within: Golden Calf capitalism.
Transparency? One fears that greater transparency will only reveal armies of maggots at work beneath the skin of a culture that
needs a bit of a lie-down in order to collect itself before taking its next giant step which is to conquer Eurasia, a potentially fatal
adventure not only for our frazzled institutions but for us the presently living.
Complicity. The behavior of President George W. Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to all sorts of not unnatural
suspicions. I can think of no other modern chief of state who would continue to pose for 'warm' pictures of himself listening to a
young girl telling stories about her pet goat while hijacked planes were into three buildings.
Constitutionally, Bush is not only chief of state, he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Normally, a commander
in such a crisis would go straight to headquarters and direct operations while receiving the latest intelligence.
This is what Bush actually did - or did not do - according to Stan Goff, a retired US Army veteran who has taught
military science and doctrine at West Point. Goff writes, in 'The So-called Evidence is a Farce': 'I have no idea why people
aren't asking some very specific questions about the actions of Bush and company on the day of the attacks. Four planes get
hijacked and deviate from their flight plan, all the while on FAA radar.'
Goff, incidentally, like the other astonished military experts, cannot fathom why the government's automatic 'standard
order of procedure in the event of a hijacking' was not followed. Once a plane has deviated from its flight-plan, fighter planes
are sent up to find out why. That is law and does not require presidential approval, which only needs to be given if there is a
decision to shoot down a plane. Goff spells it out: 'The planes were hijacked between 7:45 and 8:10am. Who is notified? This is
an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified and going to a Florida elementary school to hear
children read.
'By around 8:15am it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handling teachers.
By 8:45am, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower, Bush is settling in with children for his photo op.
Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously and one has just dived into the twin towers, and still no one notifies
the nominal Commander-in-Chief.
'No one has apparently scrambled [sent aloft] Air Force interceptors either. At 9:03, Flight 175 crashes into the South
Tower. At 9:05 Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff whispers to Bush [who] "briefly turns somber" according to reporters. Does
he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No. He resumes listening to second-graders ... and continues the
banality even as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of
Washington DC.
'Has he instructed Card to scramble the Air Force? No. An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a
public statement telling the United States what they have already figured out - that there's been an attack on the World Trade
Centre. There's a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been scrambled to defend anything yet? No.
'At 9:35, this plane conducts another turn, 360 [degrees] over the Pentagon, all the while being tracked by radar, and
the Pentagon is not evacuated, and there are still no fast-movers from the Air Force in the sky over Alexandria and DC. Now
the real kicker: a pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school for Piper Cubs and Cessnas,
conducts a well-controlled downward spiral descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, brings the plane in so low
and flat that it clips the electrical wires across the street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the side of the
building at 460 knots.
'When the theory about learning to fly this well at the puddle-jumper school began to lose ground, it was added that
they received further training on a flight simulator. This is like saying you prepared your teenager for her first drive on the
freeway at rush hour by buying her a video driving game ... There is a story being constructed about these events.'
There is indeed, and the more it is added to the darker it becomes. The nonchalance of General Richard B. Myers,
acting Joint Chief of Staff, is as puzzling as the President's campaigning-as-usual act. Myers was at the Capitol chatting with
Senator Max Cleland. A sergeant, writing later in the AFPS (American Forces Press Service) describes Myers at the Capitol.
'While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television report that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre. "They thought it was a
small plane or something like that," Myers said. So the two men went ahead with the office call.'
Whatever Myers and Cleland had to say to each other (more funds for the military?) must have been riveting because,
during their chat, the AFPS reports, 'the second tower was hit by another jet. "Nobody informed us of that," Myers said. "But
when we came out, that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit."' Finally, somebody
'thrust a cellphone in Myers' hand' and, as if by magic, the commanding general of Norad - our Airspace Command - was on
the line just as the hijackers mission had been successfully completed except for the failed one in Pennsylvania. In later testimony
to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Myers said he thinks that, as of his cellphone talk with Norad, 'the decision was at that
point to start launching aircraft'. It was 9:40am. One hour and 20 minutes after air controllers knew that Flight 11 had been
hijacked; 50 minutes after the North Tower was struck.
This statement would have been quite enough in our old serious army/air force to launch a number of courts martial with
an impeachment or two thrown in. First, Myers claims to be uninformed until the third strike. But the Pentagon had been
overseeing the hijacked planes from at least the moment of the strike at the first tower: yet not until the third strike, at the
Pentagon, was the decision made to get the fighter planes up. Finally, this one is the dog that did not bark. By law, the fighters
should have been up at around 8:15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted or shot down. I don't think
that Goff is being unduly picky when he wonders who and what kept the Air Force from following its normal procedure instead
of waiting an hour and 20 minutes until the damage was done and only then launching the fighters. Obviously, somebody had
ordered the Air Force to make no move to intercept those hijackings until ... what?
On 21 January 2002, the Canadian media analyst Barry Zwicker summed up on CBC-TV: 'That morning no
interceptors responded in a timely fashion to the highest alert situation. This includes the Andrews squadrons which ... are 12
miles from the White House ... Whatever the explanation for the huge failure, there have been no reports, to my knowledge, of
reprimands. This further weakens the "Incompetence Theory". Incompetence usually earns reprimands. This causes me to ask
whether there were "stand down" orders.'?? On 29 August 2002, the BBC reports that on 9/11 there were 'only four fighters
on ready status in the north-eastern US'. Conspiracy? Coincidence? Error?
It is interesting how often in our history, when disaster strikes, incompetence is considered a better alibi than ... well,
yes, there are worse things. After Pearl Harbor, Congress moved to find out why Hawaii's two military commanders, General
Short and Admiral Kimmel, had not anticipated the Japanese attack. But President Roosevelt pre-empted that investigation with
one of his own. Short and Kimmel were broken for incompetence. The 'truth' is still obscure to this day.
The media's weapons of mass distraction
But Pearl Harbor has been much studied. 11 September, it is plain, is never going to be investigated if Bush has anything to say
about it. In January 2002, CNN reported that 'Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit the
Congressional investigation into the events of 11 September ... The request was made at a private meeting with Congressional
leaders ... Sources said Bush initiated the conversation ... He asked that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look
into the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a
broader inquiry .. Tuesday's discussion followed a rare call from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same
request ...'
The excuse given, according to Daschle, was that 'resources and personnel would be taken' away from the war on
terrorism in the event of a wider inquiry. So for reasons that we must never know, those 'breakdowns' are to be the goat. That
they were more likely to be not break - but 'stand-downs' is not for us to pry. Certainly the one-hour 20 minute failure to put
fighter planes in the air could not have been due to a breakdown throughout the entire Air Force along the East Coast.
Mandatory standard operational procedure had been told to cease and desist.
Meanwhile, the media were assigned their familiar task of inciting public opinion against bin Laden, still not the proven
mastermind. These media blitzes often resemble the magicians classic gesture of distraction: as you watch the rippling bright
colours of his silk handkerchief in one hand, he is planting the rabbit in your pocket with the other. We were quickly assured
that Osama's enormous family with its enormous wealth had broken with him, as had the royal family of his native Saudi Arabia.
The CIA swore, hand on heart, that Osama had not worked for them in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Finally, the rumour that Bush family had in any way profited by its long involvement with the bin Laden family was - what else? -
simply partisan bad taste.
But Bush Jr's involvement goes back at least to 1979 when his first failed attempt to become a player in the big Texas
oil league brought him together with one James Bath of Houston, a family friend, who have Bush Jr. $50,000 for a 5 per cent
stake in Bush's firm Arbusto Energy. At this time, according to Wayne Madsen ('In These Times' - Institute for Public Affairs
No. 25), Bath was 'the sole US business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the family and a brother (one of 17) to
Osama bin Laden... In a statement issued shortly after the 11 September attacks, the White House vehemently denied the
connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden's, in Arbusto. In conflicting statements, Bush at first
denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests ...
after several reincarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation.'
Behind the Junior Bush is the senior Bush, gainfully employed by the Carlyle Group which has ownership in at least 164
companies worldwide, inspiring admiration in that staunch friend to the wealthy, the Wall Street Journal, which noted, as early
as 27 September 2001, 'If the US boosts defence spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Laden's alleged terrorist activities,
there may be one unexpected beneficiary: bin Laden's family ... is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a
well-connected Washington merchant bank specialising in buyouts of defence and aerospace companies ... Osama is one of
more than 50 children of Mohammed bin Laden, who built the family's $5 billion business.'
But Bush pere et fils, in pursuit of wealth and office, are beyond shame or, one cannot help but think, good sense.
There is a suggestion that they are blocking investigation of the bin Laden connection with terrorism. Agent France Press
reported on 4 November 2001: 'FBI agents probing relatives of Saudi-born terror suspect Osama ... were told to back off
soon after George W. Bush became president ...' According to BBC TV's Newsnight (6 Nov 2001), '... just days after the
hijackers took off from Boston aiming for the Twin Towers, a special charter flight out of the same airport whisked 11 members
of Osama's family off to Saudi Arabia. That did not concern the White House, whose official line is that the bin Ladens are
above suspicion.' 'Above the Law' (Green Press, 14 February 2002) sums up: 'We had what looked like the biggest failure of
the intelligence community since Pearl Harbor but what we are learning now is it wasn't a failure, it was a directive.' True?
False? Bush Jr will be under oath during the impeachment interrogation. Will we hear 'What is a directive? What is is?'
Although the US had, for some years, fingered Osama as a mastermind terrorist, no serious attempt had been made
pre-9/11 to 'bring him to justice dead or alive, innocent or guilty', as Texan law of the jungle requires. Clinton's plan to act was
given to Condeleezza Rice by Sandy Berger, you will recall, but she says she does not.
As far back as March 1996 when Osama was in Sudan, Major General Elfatih Erwa, Sudanese Minister for Defence,
offered to extradite him. According to the Washington Post (3 October 2001), 'Erwa said he would happily keep close watch
on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand
him over ... [US officials] said, "just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia", where he had once been
given credit for the successful al-Qaeda attack on American forces that in '93 that killed 18 Rangers.' Erwa said in an interview,
'We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials] said, "Let him."'
In 1996 Sudan expelled Osama and 3,000 of his associates. Two years later the Clinton administration, in the great
American tradition of never having to say thank you for Sudan's offer to hand over Osama, proceeded to missile-attack Sudan's
al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory on the grounds that Sudan was harboring bin Laden terrorists who were making chemical and
biological weapons when the factory was simply making vaccines for the UN.
Four years later, John O'Neill, a much admired FBI agent, complained in the Irish Times a month before the attacks,
'The US State Department - and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage - blocked attempts to prove
bin Laden's guilt. The US ambassador to Yemen forbade O'Neill (and his FBI team) ... from entering Yemen in August 2001.
O'Neill resigned in frustration and took on a new job as head of security at the World Trade Centre. He died in the 11
September attack.' Obviously, Osama has enjoyed bipartisan American support since his enlistment in the CIA's war to drive
the Soviets out of Afghanistan. But by 9/11 there was no Soviet occupation of Afghan
It is painfully obvious that about 1 out of every 10 posts here is well reasoned and presents evidence, and the other 9 are morons with wild misunderstandings or blatant anti-Microsoft rhetoric that can't stand on its own two legs. Bravo to those making claims and derisions without using the thought processes that logically connect A and B! Bravo I say!
evil adrian
I don't want your steenking old weenndoze box. Mom's getting me a Dell (and a Slackware CD).
Sorry guys, this is a no brainer. Just ignore it. If more people would start doing this then EULA would become useless. Software patents would be null and void, stupid concepts like software licenses would become a mute point.
Here is how it works in my world. If I buy it I own it and that is the end of it. I pay you money for say office xp then it's mine. No some stupid licenses, not some some piece of platic with dimples in it. Office XP is mine. Mine to do with as I please and that is excatly how I operate.
...and redesign the site too.
The look is getting long in the tooth...
Slashcode programmers: Please make it impossible to put a re-direct in a comment.
Is the nerve that they have to say this. Basically, what they're claiming is that even thought Kmart paid for the licenses, it can't resell them without Microsoft's consent. This has nothing to do with a EULA - Kmart is not the end user. What Microsoft is asserting is that buying something from Microsoft no longer entitles you to the rights of ownership.
The real reason why this is important is because this was a software sale, not a license. Microsoft sold Kmart the licenses. Unlike most users of Windows, which merely license the code, KMart bought licenses with the explicit purpose of redestribution, and now Microsoft is claiming that Kmart cannot sell what it legally owns, because of copyright restrictions. But Microsoft didn't license the software, they sold it as a commodity. So copyright shouldn't apply.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
nuff said
The state blocking a sale for tax reasons isn't news relevant to this site. MS blocking it due to software licensing is. FUD yourself.
Only now, when it's too late do they realize the power of the dark side...
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Its nice to have a BSA audit, and take them out back, open up a big cardboard box, and show them the boxes[...]
It's nice to get fucked up the ass by some private organization, acting as though it has the authority to execute a search warrant without probable cause, in order to determine if you have "boxes" (and licenses) to all your copies of Microsoft software? That's your idea of fun? When the BSA knocks on my office door, demanding their audit, I'll slam the door in their face. And when they buy a search warrant from some pliant judge, I'll gladly show them Linux installed on hundreds of desktops and servers. Seriously.
Frankly, given the management hassle involved with MS licensing, never mind the potential risks even if you're legit, you'd have to be an idiot to deploy Windows en masse given Microsoft's current licensing crackdown. I know many organizations who are ripping their MS server infrastructure out in preparation for a potential migration to desktop Linux should the situation get worse. MS is walking on thin ice here. JMO!
--Maynard
...is, is Microsoft basing it on a license the KMart customers sign, or on a license KMart signed?
If it's the customer's license, then, hot damn, we've got a smoking gun for monopolistic practices.
If it's a license KMart signed, well, then Microsoft is perfectly within their right.
What's this Submit thingy do?
in 2-3 years when the court settlement finally gets hammered out, the machines in question will be outdated, obsolete, and depreciated.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Some companies have decent systems in place so that you can purchase the liceses and install from a intranet server, but you still have to worry about all the software the users bring in to install on their systems. So it just never ends.
Everyone knows this, so does Microsoft. Hell, even M$ has PCs in their company will illegal software on it. But every now and then they have to flex their muscles to show the power and control they have over their users. So they go after high profile cases and hope that this serves as a warning and reminder to others.
"I bet I'll get blamed for this." --Mayor Quimby
Are you saying the GPL does not restrict business decisions? Or is it only a bad thing when it's Microsoft?
This is not the sale of a company in an ordinary business deal, this is a disposition of an asset in bankruptcy court. The court has great
discretion in approving changes to contracts and other pre-bankruptcy agreements (e.g., labor contracts, leases), since the main focus of bankruptcy law is to protect the creditors of the bankrupt party. IANAL, but I would expect the court to consider the licenses to be an asset of K-Mart and allow their transfer.
It's very odd that first sale seems to be overshadowed by the EULA. Granted we have a license, but the same could be said for a book. I bought a physical copy of the book and therefore I can sell _that_ copy. I should be able to sell the copy of software I purchased. If I recall, there was a case where a company was breaking up bundles of Adobe software and reselling them. This was deemd legal under the first sale doctrine. This may be because the company never installed, and thus agreed to the EULA (if someone has the case, please post), but it should not matter. EULA became a big item in the 80s when the idea of software being copyrightable was untested. Now the courts ahve ruled that it is copyrightable, so why should they be able to trump copyright, fair use and first sale doctrine by the EULA?
"There's only 3 certainties in the world, my Son: Death, Taxes, and Microsoft; and Microsoft makes the first two worse."
Table-ized A.I.
This is potent ammunition for the fight for FOSS and Linux in general.
Am I the only gettting popups covering the damn story? I just got thorugh updating and running ad-aware before this post so I dont have spyware. I am wondering is this a new slashdot annoy...er i mean feature?
Ben
Microsoft is not the first, and will not be the last to try this... Does anyone remember Digital? I hear that it was more difficult to understand their licensing then it was to program one of these beasts... A google groups search confirms:
usenet post
-jerdenn
It seems that selling the assets does not allow you to get the licences. However, if someone buys the whole company, wouldn't the licences go over? Because the new entity subsumes the old, and is bound to all its obligations and contracts, which include the right to use the software.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
CIO:We should pass on this acquisition; they run Windows on everything.
CEO:What? So?
CIO:Well, we'll have to buy licenses for all the servers, client access licenses for every connection, and licenses for all the other software they have installed when we acquire them. We're talking several millon dollars.
CEO:Can't we just go to Linux?
CIO:Sure, but it'll take months to migrate, we'll have to port and test our applications, and we'll still have to pay the licensing fees if we acquire them before the migration is complete...
way to fuck over kmart. good going you dopes. watchout for suse, they're comin!
This is my attempt to show that it is possible to create a system for Licensing price-camparison. It is probably obvious that I'm a high school student and have no h4xx0r skills. But hey, at least I tried. Resistans is not futile, we will NOT be assimilated!
Her bill that she introduced near the end of this legislative session (the companion bill to Boucher's) would formally extend the doctrine of first sale to cover this sort of situation (i.e. once you've purchased a license, you can transfer your rights to another person or entity without the permission of the copyright owner). Then we wouldn't even be talking about all this.
Tuck
Tuck's Journal.
Why does Microsoft have a problem with this? Is it because United Online would get the software for free? I would think that would be able to negotiate new terms with the company. This just seems way out of line.
- the most current os
- the most current office version
- sql server CALs
- Win2k CALs
- etc.
In order to do this, the company signs a legal contract with Microsoft, and pays either a lower rate per desktop, or a yearly fee.So in this case, being that K-Mart used it's large size to get better deals for their software, they simply can't resell those (especially if they are on a subscription) at the price they get for their huge quantity discount.
If they could, that would open a whole new market for a large company: but tons of extra licenses at your super-cheap price and resell them at retail. If you owned the software company, would you let that happen?
Well that makes it all right then.
/. ers, actively defending Microsoft licensing issues.
Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
Such non-transferable license agreements will never stand up in court.
Reselling licensed software is no different than transfering ownership of a legally purchased music CD.
Last time I looked, second-hand record shops have been alive and well for decades.
US Court says buyers can unbundle EULA-covered software.
Also take a look at this very well argued thesis on the same issue. Same paper in HTML format
"Get Microsoft behind your business"
So they can royally screw you over licensing most probably.
Yes, that is a common misconception.
When you distribute GPL code, you must make the source available to those you distribute the code to, not anyone else.
If you sell the company, and the software being critical is part of that company, you are required to give THEM the source. However you don't have to give the source or binaries to anyone else.
The GPL was crafted with this exact situation in mind, you don't have to share with others, but if you do, you must do so under the terms of the GPL.
Does this remind anyone else of of ToySmart.com?
/. story
They sold stuff that they where under a contracted not to sell.
As other posters have noted, this isn't uncommon; Oracle comes immediately to mind, for example.
But more surprising is Network Appliance's used equipment policy. You can resell your netapp equipment, but you can't transfer the license. Instead the buyer mustalso buy a new license...which coincidentally costs the same as a whole new machine!
I bet there wasn't a peep from Microsoft when these two merged. So is merging different than purchasing or is MS just not stupid enough to attack the biggest pocket pc creators?
Property is property, as far as I'm concerned. You can't have it both ways.
How many cars are sold at a discount with the caveat that you cannot resell this car to another party? TVs? Books?
Someday somebody will look back on these days and wonder how we all let ourselves agree to abide by these arbitrary, unfair, solely-for-profit license rules. Amazing.
So, they're holding up an $8.4 million dollar transaction over a transfer of licenses worth, what, $10,000? Less?? Someone's priorities are screwed up here - KMart should just throw those licenses on the floor.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Quick everyone! If we slashdot bluelight.com (reducing the server to a pile of putrid slag), the whole case will become moot since bluelight.com will be worthless!
Oh wait it already was, nevermind.
Symbol Last Trade Change Volume
TGT 4:01pm $31.53 +0.21 +0.67% 4,080,400
--
E_NOSIG
"All your license are belong to us!"
This comment was generated by a squadron of trained super elite albino ninja chickens for you.
[insert microsoft bashing or joke]
[auto-mod to +5: Insightful]
Kmart asked the court to overrule Microsoft's objection, saying the licenses the software maker referred to were not part of the sale. Kmart said the sale included one server license and 25 desktop licenses it bought from Microsoft.
It sounds like Kmart and Microsoft agree about what Kmart can or cannot do with the licenses and that it was merely a case of KMart not specifying that the licenses being talked about were not part of the sale.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now your code should compile correctly.
Unix is a standard, DOS is a standard, windows XX is not.
In fact, I gather that the spokesperson from Microsoft has claimed that they can block the transfer of these licenses because of copyright ownership rather than simply claiming commercial contract law.
This is very interesting, because commercial contract law is of course subject to local interpretation, and in fact is often far weeker than it may appear. Contracts that are adhesive, or where the buyer had no choice but to enter, may be expediatically nullified in full or in part by an honest judge. When a monopoly is involved, and hence where there is no alternative choice available, courts can interpret any agreements engaged in as potential agreements of adhesion, depending on the broad mindedness of the judge.
To stake a claim on copyright, however, has other dangers, or similarly to claim that copyright and commercial contract law can be mixed together to form restrictions that neither provide seperatelym or to deliberately and fraudulently take away fair use rights and commercial right to second sale. This is often referred to as misuse of copyright. In fact, the one means by which a commercial entity can be stripped of it's existing copyrights is through a successful persuit of a misuse of copyright case against it.
Of course, it doesn't take much courage for a bully to pick on a bankrupt company. Nor does it seem to take much courage for Microsoft to try and use terror tactics to convince other's that Microsoft's incorrect and invalid interpretation of copyright and contract law are somehow valid.
Overall, I am simply disgusted.
Just a little reality check; there is plenty to argue about here. What almost everyone in this thread seems to have ignored (and what makes the case interesting, despite the tiny dollars apparently involved) is that this is a bankruptcy proceeding. The question is not whether you or I can resell our MS products under the EULA, it's whether a bankruptcy court chooses to ignore the alleged "license" and deem the software an asset of the estate.
It is important to remember that Bankruptcy Courts, unlike ordinary courts, are not required to attempt to enforce the will of the parties to a given contract. Rather, they are supposed to look through the contract and determine whether the terms, as written, create a fraudulent (or otherwise voidable) conveyance. Consider the following: I know I am going bankrupt, but I want to save my Ferrari. I agree to sell it to you for a dollar. You agree not to sell it to anyone else for a year and to sell it back to me in one year for 100 dollars. In return you get the use of the Ferrari. We sign the contract, title passes to you and I declare bankruptcy. A year later I have discharged my debts, I'm free and clear and I enforce my contractual right to buy back my Ferrari for $100. Right?
Wrong. Such a contract would be voided by a Bankruptcy Court and you'd have to give up the car. You'd probably even lose the dollar you paid. The car would become part of estate and would be sold. The money would be used to pay creditors. This is called fraudulent conveyance. It's pretty complicated (and dull) and I can't begin to give all necessary details here but what is interesting about this case is that a court will decide whether the material effect of a purchase of software if to transfer ownership or merely to create a license right, regardless of the language in the EULA.
IAAL, and my guess is the Court will punt on it and come up with other reasons to permit the transfer.
"The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government." - George Washington
Remember when Adobe sued that guy for breaking up the Adobe packaged software and sold them individually. Adobe sued for voilating the license. The judge ruled that the seller had the "Right of First Sale" and was permitted to sell the software.
The same holds for K-Mart. They own the software licenses, they have the right to sell their license to anyone, and I am confident the court will hold as such.
Some one like redhat should come in and give then the linux equiv. just to show good PR.
Micro$oft may or may not have a contractual basis for obstructing the sale, but it is strictly a contractual matter; US copyright law includes the "first sale" doctrine, which allows reselling of copyrighted material.
I wonder what affect bankruptcy law has on the license terms?
Company A buys 1000 PC's from say HP. The systems come loaded with a Windows operating system. The company however reinstalls Windows with their license that they now have to pay for yearly/monthly, etc...Why not keep the license on the desktop they bought? Am I missing something? WHen you buy a PC does the EULA say 'You can't use this for commercial use?'
Do you recall a MS FUD campaign having to do with donating PCs telling recipients not to accept the PCs without the software licenses that go with it? Aren't these licenses ALSO non-transferable or am I missing something?
For MS to warn people against accepting free hardware without the software would seem to be encouraging piracy somehow wouldn't it? After all, MS clearly does not respect license transfers. So in the end, MS has been telling people to require non-transferable licenses and to operate these donated PCs illegally.
Makes ya wonder doesn't it?
Oh, they knew about it. They'd already hired Martha Stewart.
Microsoft has hereby succeeded in defining software as a service instead of an asset, which is what they've been trying to move towards all along because it represents a more lucrative revenue model than selling something that can be used and used and used until you get decide you want something more.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the long term.
Fundamentally there's no reason why a bunch of instructions on a hard disk cannot be used a whole heckuva a lot more than till the next upgrade cycle. Neither is there any good reason I can see why it can't simply sold outright to someone else that wants to use it. Of course, when Palladium and hardware locking becomes tighter, time-bombed software will make it easier for this model to be enforced. Meanwhile, there's growing quantities and quality of free software that can be run AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE!This will mean that many current businesses may be severely overvalued. Their true worth in sale will be much less if critical parts of their infrastructure are not transferable.
You think Qwest's recent $4e10 write-down of its networks is large? How much have businesses invested in Microsoft software?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Obviously it depends on if K-Mart management had agreed in writing with a Microsoft sales representative to a specific license which explicitly removed the right of transfer for a reduced price. This is possible, in which case they should, under normal circumstances, have the right to license their copyrighted work with this restriction. However, if the set of licenses are OEM and bundled with each individual machine (the hardware as a product purchased from a vendor) on purchase, and further they were purchased without a clear and written contract signed by both consenting parties, then I think MS doesn't have a leg to stand on. Finally, I think it's very fishy that a convicted monopolist is invoking restraint-of-trade clauses in their shrink-wrap and bundled licensing deals as an impediment toward transferring a software asset legally purchased. Any contract lacking reciprocity or a misrepresentation of terms is null and void even if signed by both parties.
All this said without a law degree or any experience practicing law. Correction(s) by real lawyers encouraged.
--Maynard
More importantly, it is a capital expense, similar to the purchase of computer equipment, automobiles, and other property necessary to run the business. Unlike coffee filters, light bulbs, and rent which are merely expenses, the software and the computer equipment on which it runs may be liquidated. This makes computers and software assets, albeit the quickly depreciating sort.
If KMart purchased the software under restrictions that prohibit resale, then yes, they are stuffed. Otherwise, the First Sale rules, and they can sell it as easily as any other capital they have on hand.
-Hope
Listen, any time there is a transfer of property, the government and business tries to take their piece.
A fee to transfer the licenses to a new company is just as common as the fee paid to transfer a automobile or a realestate.
From a Software Sales Rep's point of view, MS probably gave them an option to pay a transfer fee, and said company said no. MS said WHAT? do you know who we are? BAM vito'd merger.
- Yo Grark
"Canadian Bred with American Buttering"
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Who knows how much Kmart owes MS? In bankruptcy situations, often suppliers have little room to negotiate for their money. Effective day 1 of bankruptcy, Kmart no longer had any obligation to continue to pay their suppliers.
Perhaps this is MS way of garnering some attention in the Chapter 11 proceedings -- to make sure they get paid.
From the Article:
"Lenders led by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Inc. (NYSE:JPM - News) also filed an objection, saying the proceeds from any sale should be reserved for the creditors and not go directly to Kmart.
However, Kmart said it had a roughly $18 million administrative claim against Bluelight.com, which would have to be paid in full before unsecured creditors -- including lenders -- received anything. "
?sp
I'm a bit confused as to what MS is complaining about. The company I used to work for did the consulting, design and implementation for bluelight.com -- we used a farm of linux servers -- not a single license of Microsoft software is being used in the production server environment.
Hmm... so could they be complaining about the individual MS Office and MS Windows licenses that are sitting on the desktops of the front-office employees?
If so... YEESH -- that'd be REALLY picky and cheap of MS to do so (although, I guess I wouldn't be too surprised).
http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/021029/1445000813_1.html
" While the parties' agreements do allow the licenses to be transferred under certain conditions, this includes obtaining a legal proof of the license. Microsoft said while legal proofs have been paid for some of the licenses, no such proofs have been issued for others."
Do I have to relicense?
You're still an assclown.
So do you and Jon Katz still do the group jerk thing? It looks like you do, because censorware.org is still in such a sorry state.
bound by the paper contracts that you signed with Microsoft when you set up your enterprise agreements with them as a major purchaser of softwarek, and THOSE are legally binding without question.
Do you think an enterprise like K-mart just buys it's software of the shelf at best-buy?
Microsoft is saying that according to the contracts that K-mart signed in good faith, they DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to transfer the license on that software to anyone else.
This is very common in large enterprise software, by the way.. it is not 'trampling on their rights'. I'm sure their lawyers looked at it and agreed to it way back when.
--actually, the great unwashed have been faked into this 'driving is a privelege" noise for everyday NON commercial driving. This includes cops and low level judges. It's a revenue generating scam perpetuated for generations now, roughly similar on how they scammed (most) people into using some private bank's perpetual debt "note"* in place of lawful US coined money, which still exists by the way although most people don't use it.
Is Is driving a right or a privelege?
* If you are curious, lookup what a "bank note" is, you'll be surprised-maybe. For those that don't know, the cliff notes version, it's a DEBT INSTRUMENT,a named "official" legal document that YOU agree to a DEBT, that you "owe" them. It's one of those little known issues that most people don't care about, until every other or third generation or so the ponzi scheme crashes and steals their wealth. THEN they care and do a little research into it, AFTER the fact of needing to educate themselves.
I know these are two separate issues, both of which are sideways to this microsoft EULA selling, but law is law is a law,and "commonly understood" illusions aren't real, even if millions "believe in them". And the supreme Court is notably absent on a host of constitutional issues, for several generations now. they pick and chose the easy stuff and constantly dodge the bread and butter isues,most notably the first, the second amendment, the fourth, the fifth, the tenth. The black robed wonders are ALL WITHOUT EXCEPTION paid off appointed political hacks of one of either of the two controlling criminal gangs that seized the government of the united States and now run it as a for-profit criminal enterprise for their members,and that's about it.
How is this different than any other license? Here is a snipet from the article:
"According to court documents, Microsoft said Kmart had not specifically identified which Microsoft software licenses it planned to transfer to United Online as part of the sale."
Since bluelight.com was the licensee then doesn't it make sense that when you sell the asset (software license) to someone else (United Online), that you should let the entity you licensed the software from (Micro$oft) know that the license has changed owners? Lacking more specific information than the article provides, I guess that I just don't see the problem here. The article doesn't really say that they have to ask M$ for permission to sell the license. It's probably just me...
Sue the fuckin' piss out of them for wasting your time. Seriously, since a BSA audit shuts down your company while their thugs go crawling through your machines bill 'em. Creatively.
A couple of years ago I was outfitting an office with Office 2000.
We needed about 60 copies.
I first called Microsoft; they told me there was no real discount to be had unless we had more copies (or more other microsoft products in the same class in the same purchase). We weren't large enough to get a discount.
Okay.. fine. So I called my favorite var.
They gave us a nice price.. better than what MS offered us on bulk licensing. Then they came back with an even better deal:
"Well, if you buy 50 copies of Microsoft Works, and then 50 copies of Office 2000 Upgrade, you end up saving about $150 off each copy".
Now. think about this for a second.
Going to a retail outlet and buying a truckload of software I'm never even going to use along with the product I want was actually way cheaper than simply asking microsoft for bulk licensing (which doesn't require them to ship a truckload of boxes).
That's messed up.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mike
For those times when I need to explain the advantages of Open Source software.
The cost of licenses, activation nonsense, BSA audits, and "software assurance" make open source look better by the minute. Add in this latest example of vendor's granting themselves the right to meddle in corporate affairs, and I'm ready to [figuratively] open fire on the next enemy sales droid that crosses my path.
Or has MS decided that being a cancer is okay, too, now.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Back about 10 years ago, the New York Times did a piece on a firm of lawyers in Texas that was particularly (ie vicious and nasty) respected because they could put anyone away with their particularly hard-hitting tactics, like depositioning the executives of a software firn to death while their business went to hell. The firm's initials were B & B. They developed these tactics about transfers of software to other firms in various deals. A certain insurance company had licensed software from a big software company. The insurance company got into financial trouble, divested some subsidiaries, and then outsourced its data center to a firm that was not the author of the insurance system running in the data center. B & B showed up representing the company that marketed the system and sued. During the trial, the people who had 'written' the system testified that they had copied it directly from a system put into the public domain by IBM, but B&B managed to 'win' the case by forcing both the insurance company and their data center outsourcer to surrender under the legal onslaught.
Kmart said the sale included one server license and 25 desktop licenses it bought from Microsoft.
All this over 25 licenses? Who cares about 25 licenses? This isn't even worth the "evil lawyers" fees?
There has got to be more to this story. Maybe Microsoft legal just sends out a boilerplate document and objects to any and all Chapter 11 filings. I'd like to know more about this story if anyone has more details.
Stories like this are great to save in my file and drag out for the next Open Source vs. Proprietary Software license debate.
The way this reads, stories on Reuters define copyright law!
Microsoft's objection to the sale is based on the non-transferability of software licenses protected by copyright law according to the Reuters story on Yahoo! News.
What would happen if people and companies simply gave away their extra or unused copies of Microsoft licenses rather than selling them?
Microsoft was running that ad where the computers all get along during the merger even if the humans don't because it's all happy work-together Microsoft deals. Now they have shot that.
Watch some serious back-pedaling. Of course they wouldn't have to backpedal if they weren't constantly looking to shark someone.
You know, this was probably some VP trying to justify cash bonuses in a downward-trending stock option world. Almost any company has those, but few companies can screwover so many mergers as Microsoft can.
The arrogance knows no bounds.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
So for extra credit, what's the legal obligations of Bluelight.com to United Online if Bluelight.com uses GPL code and modifications to thoose GPL apps, since this is a sale?
"Kmart said the sale included one server license and 25 desktop licenses it bought from Microsoft." Wow ... is it just me, or is there something wrong with this?
1) Bluelight.com only having one server?
2) M$ making a big fuss over about $3k of software?
I'm confused. What is the problem with using a GPL'd binary? If I'm looking for an alternative to Word, I can use AbiWord or OpenOffice.org Writer. I don't to worry about licensing issues because I don't intend to modify the source.
The real strength in these products is when you can use the product WITHOUT needing the source. You get the 'free as in beer' part and you don't need to worry about the 'viral nature of the license' because you're not writing any code for it.
My father is a blogger.
Copyright holders want the right to transfer their IP to another party at any time for any reason (including their own death) but they won't let us have the right to transfer our purchased physical property?!?!?!
--Joey
1. get a tax write off for the value of the software
2. Dump the software, boxes, manuals, etc. on MS corporate hq.
3. (optional). have a bonfire.
When travelling, it's ok if the airlines lose your emotional baggage.
Yes I know that the current laws say quite the opposite but this was never truly thought through.
The reason is simple binary software is not a copyrightable product - it does not confrom the fundamental rule with regard to copyright - it applies to human understandable material.
Think about it, binary software CANNOT by any reasonable means be understood (''read'') by a human being. Every other copyrightable work can - music, movies, books, paintings - every one of these things have MEANING. Even music without words have meaning - I doubt anybody would argue against that.
But binary software have no meaning - it is not a copyrightable work. Source code IS copyrightable - because it is a form of speech. It has MEANING, it can be understood.
Open source is like a book - a written work understandable by people.
A binary software program is not unless the sources come with it. Selling only binary versions of a program can be compared to an author who writes a book - the book is obviously copyrighted. Now imagine the author meticulously paints black over every written page. The book is still a product of potential value (don't ask me for what) but it is deffinitely not copyrighted anymore. Not unless an unpainted version is available to the consumer.
I know this is not law, but can anybody give me a good reason why it shouldn't be ?
A windows CD is just that - a flat piece of plastic you buy which because it has the potential to increase the abillities of your computer.
You can no more copyright that than you can copyright a frisbee (which by the way is a far more viable application for this particular piece of plastic).
Furthermore, by denying you the source, a company should lose out on AL the advantages of copyright.
Microsoft should not be able to touch you for copying and distributing there CD's anymore than FORD can sue VOLVO for building an equally shitty car.
Which one of you bright American's want to forward this to your congressman ? I will gladly relinguish my copyright to you, in order that it may be the opinion of actual american voters.
It will be worth it for the entertainment value.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
Why, YES! Yes it could!
Get OpenSource and the problem goes away! Gee, wasn't it Mr. Balmer who was bad-mouthing OpenSource? Small wonder, now we see the evil plan unfurl like a roll of used toilet paper.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought M$ wanted assumed the right to automate your business decisions in the latest version of the EULA?
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
This may very well be an Internet urban legend, I can't really be sure as I wasn't even thought of at the time but...
Didn't a judge once rule that you couldn't copyright software because it was just a bunch of generic instructions?
Obviously that idea has changed a lot since then, if it ever really happened.
Also, let me pose another question... I'm a minor. If I agree to an EULA, am I really bound by it? After all, I can't even write a check.
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
I purchased a COA from buymstar.com. Which to my knowledge was perfectly legit. Well they 'accidentally' sold me two(2) and refused to refund my money on one of them because I'd already seen the product key. So I head on over to ebay to auction the other Certificate of Authenticity (the product key has never been registered, etc.) and my auction gets cancelled because I'm not selling a EULA along with the COA or the software. I tell Microsoft, "wait a minute! I bought it this way, why can't I sell it this way?" Here is their answer: "Hello, First, I have forwarded buymstar.com to our investigators for further review. They could not sell the license without the EULA, because the EULA (End User License Agreement) is the license. It appears they have sold you the COA or COAL which is not the license. These cannot be distributed without the software. The COA is a security certificate that accompanies all Microsoft OEM products. The COA label (COAL) is a security label that accompanies all Retail products and can be found on the spine of the retail box. The COAL may also be found on the cable cord of OEM hardware products such as the Natural Keyboard, Mouse and IntelliMouse. The COA is used to assure the end user that the software program is not counterfeit. For instance, if you purchased a computer system from a computer store and it came with Windows 95 operating system software preinstalled on its hard drive, the COA should also be included. See below link for examples of both the OEM and Retail COAs. Additionally, the COA contains anti-counterfeiting devices, such as a latent image, to prevent the production of counterfeit Microsoft products. If you have not received a COA with your OEM or retail product, or if your COA appears to be counterfeit or distributed through unauthorized channels, please call 1-800-RU-LEGIT or e-mail piracy@microsoft.com or contact your local Microsoft sales office or subsidiary. Basically, I copied the last two paragraphs from the following link. This link may also help in my explanation. http://www.microsoft.com/education/license/eula.as p#8
I would suggest you return the COAs for a full refund and report
buymstar.com to the above anti-piracy sites.
If you have any further question, please contact us.
Thanks again,
Daren
Internet Auction Monitoring Team"
They haven't answered my question regarding the EULA that you have to answer (by hitting F8) when installing XP...
Money not found! A)bort, R)etry, D)eclare Bankruptcy
I've been selling technology for a while and four things really have bothered me about software:
1) It's almost always overpriced.
2) It generally is oversold and doesn't deliver.
3) There's no consumer recourse if it doesn't work.
4) The license "agreement" is usually total unfair to the customer.
Say what you will, but why do I want to pay too much for broken software that doesn't do what it's supposed to do that ties me up with strings like Gulliver? This is just another example where KMART/BLUELIGHT/Whoever:
1) Paid too much for their software
2) It was oversold
3) It underdelivered
4) The license is hosing the buyer
Enough already. Don't these people know the number one rule for a parasite is not to kill the host!?
$G
-- $G
The more licensing becomes a pain the more it will make other companies weak up and realize that openness is important. Microsoft is doing us a favor. Tough luck for Kmart. Maybe next time they will think harder when they decide to implement a technology into their infrastructure.
C) PROFIT!
and the lesson is: don't ever use any Microsoft products. They are not good, cost a lot of money, and you can't sell them either. Did I mention that you have to buy them again every third year? This whole thing is worse than being married to the mob.
How could driving be a mere "privelege"?
Where I live, rural Maine, and in other places like it, if you can't get around in a car you starve - or live off the charity of neighbors. You've *got* to have a car to live. It makes my blood boil to hear people talk about our necessary right to transportation as a "privelege."
Tyrants. Probably urban tyrants.
This is cute. So the basic point is that they bought a non-transferrable license to use Microsoft software and they are now looking to sell it as an item. Well, the license was for their company usage, and as they are selling a division of their company, they cannot ignore the terms of the agreement. Why is this titled as: Microsoft interferes with company?
The licensing agreement isn't transferable. Too bad. These are not people we are talking about, this is not retail we are talking about.
Wookies don't live on Endor so feel free to moderate my posts +6, bite of reality.
I do licensing stuff for the Free Software Foundation.
Twice in the last few months, I've received notices from companies being sold that they're transfering their copies of Bash, etc. Often, they fuck up and claim that we own Perl (simply because one of Perl's two licenses has our name on it).
I laugh and recycle the notices.
I wonder if Microsoft laughs and files suit?
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
With lots of other highly priced licensed software it's not the actual company that purchases and hold the licenses but rather a 'holding company' that purchases and hold the licenses. When times dictate it's not the licenses that are then sold but the holding company that is sold.
On the licensing level the licensee has not changed but the 'owner of the licensee' changes.
IANAL - but this does work.
Be sure to check the expiration date on the software!
The truth shall set you free!
Your post highlights another problem with Intellectual Property: the issue of transferability.
As you stated, "A license is a *right* to do something. You can't sell a right."
Actually, there are two possible cases: either a particular right is transferrable [say, using the property on which your house rests] or it is not transferrable [an inherent right]. If it is transferrable, it may be partially transferrable [a lein] or only transferrable as a unit [that piece of gum you're chewing].
Those are all the logical possibilities that I can see.
Now, the question is, is an IP license inherently transferrable or not? If not, then you can't sell it, period. Typically, that is because there is something inherent about it that makes it impossible to sell (right to life: nobody else can live my life for me. Right to speech: nobody else can move my mouth.)
Here's one that isn't transferrable: the Hewlett Packard printer driver. It won't work, as a unit, on any other printer. It isn't designed to work on any other printer; its algorithms are specific to the HP hardware. Oh, pieces of the algorithms may work elsewhere, but you can also get those pieces elsewhere. As a result, although they had (previously) a clause that it could only be used on HP printers, they quickly saw that they didn't need such a clause -- the right was inherently non-transferrable. So they removed it, and made it open source.
But if there is nothing inherent about it that is non-transferrable, then it can be sold.
When laws try to say that a dog has five legs, they just make a fool of the law. In this case, a license is easily transferrable. Since the law is upholding the idea that it is not transferrable, then the law is essentially upholding a form of robbery. That being the case, business becomes riskier for businesses in countries that do this, and the economies head south, and some other country eventually will become dominant. Eventually, for example, America may become no more than the puppet-dictatorship that Iraq (once the shining star of the Western World) is today.
Something to think about, eh? The best that the law can do is to mimic real life, and provide false, non-damaging barriers for people before they hit real, damaging barriers.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Do that in Freenet, that stops worries about NDAs or other legalese.
How seriously can the courts take EULAs? Clickthoughs are already a joke. People will click on anything, include a worm with a EULA.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Ought to sit up and pay very close attention here. Build a company...base it on .Net or other MS technology. The board decides to sell the company. When MS steps in to *block* the sale...someone's head is on the chopping block -- in a big way. Remember, corporate politics is all about CYA .
Another reason for OS solutions.
(off-topic, so sue me...)
Fraid not.
You have a right to travel on the highway. However, bear in mind the often-quoted maxim of "your right to swing your fist about ends at my nose". An untrained or just plain bad driver is a hazard to everyone around them, and everyone else's right to continue living trumps your right to travel however you like. This brings up another maxim, that "the Constition is not a suicide pact".
At the time the US Constitution was written, the fastest mode of transport was a horse. It's difficult to crash two horses into each other, and it doesn't cause major problems for other road users also travelling on horses. Just because George Washington didn't foresee the possibility of 10 lanes of cars travelling at 70mph, it doesn't mean everyone forever onwards is limited by that.
Grab.
Like we are talking K-Mart for christ sake !
Good I say throw the shit is the trash maybe the next company will run Linux instead and won't go bankrupt.
I cannot believe that Microsoft apologists trying to excuse this with double speak.
Kmart are selling the company (Bluelight.com) not software that Bluelight.com licenced.
What next ?
Microsoft approving every stock/share trade ?
Unless you are a prisoner, a minor or an incompetent, you have a choice over where you live.
You can't drive? You don't want to drive? Move to the city, where you can walk to the shops to buy your food. Find a job within walking distance.
When you don't know anything about the way people lived just fifty years ago, you don't realise how easy
life generally is for the vast majority of people in Japan, Europe and America these days.
Just fifty years ago it was quite common, where I'm from, for a man to get up at four in the morning, walk six kilometres to get to the factory, work a twelve hour shift, then walk home again. Some would walk eight or ten kilometres from the village to the edge of town, then catch the tram or bus to the factory. <cue voice of Michael Palin>
Be sure to check the expiration date on the software!
Good point.
I don't always trust the printed expiration date, though.
A more reliable way is to sniff your software and see if it smells bad.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
You must be one dirty, inbred, white trash son of a bitch to want women from walmart!
Did you take them back to your trailer!
All this over 25 licenses? Who cares about 25 licenses? This isn't even worth the "evil lawyers" fees?
Microsoft is supporting what they believe in. They obviously think expending the resources over small-time licensing issues helps them sleep at night. Money isn't a factor, here, nor does it matter that BlueLight is an MSN competitor. Yeah, that's it.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
(nt)
They must be having a cash flow problem to even bother about this.
Why are both sides making such a big stink over so few licenses? The licenses cost far less than their lawyer's fees. Oh, wait, the lawyers are ones who are behind the whole show...
A very good example, but you fail to mention the main point here: this case would be between you and the court only. Whatever company that have manefactured the car is completely irrelevant, and that company is not a part in the case.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
IANAL--well, duh. Lawyers get paid more than I do.
My dog tore up the software box, and only the CD remained, whilst I was installing it a screen came up but my cat jumped on the keyboard and pressed the Enter key.
The courts (which is where the applicability of all contracts are inevitably settled) in the USA are based on a "resonable man" standard for a lot of things. I suspect this is the same in the UK, considering that our contractual legal systems were identical up until about 225 years ago.
It would be rather farcical to try and claim that you did not know that Microsoft uses EULAs to sell a license to make copies of their software for use. It's written on the box, talked about on slashdot, and even mentioned in the "about" box of every single MS windows app; some even include the EULA online.
However, if we assume that you've got enough proof that you didn't know that MS sells their software this way, and that you unintentionally hit the "I agree" button without reading (or even seeing) the window, you'd probably wind up in a position to reverse the sale of the license--instead of being forced to pay the license costs + extra, you'd be given the option of "buy a license or delete the software."
(Oh, and violating an EULA isn't breaking a law, so it isn't illegal. It's the breach of a contract. The COPYRIGHT VIOLATION you'd probably commit is probably a crime, but it'd probably be on the scale of stealing pens when you're breaking your employment contract.)
IANAL/A (Last A is an Accountant)
Is fairly common in business for bankrupcy to void contracts (and a licence can be considered as a contract). Loan agreements, even things like energy purchase contracts become void.
I was just in a discussion today about credit management - companies can be quite worried about defaulting on certain contracts because it causes a domino effect on others.
+#if defined(__alpha__) && defined(CONFIG_PCI) /*
+
+ * The meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Plus
+ * this makes the year come out right.
+ */
+ year -= 42;
+#endif
-- From the patch for 1.3.2: (kernel/time.c), submitted by Marcus Meissner
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