Microsoft Pirating Their Own Software?

14ghz writes "Microsoft gave out copies of .NET Visual Studio Pro to attendees of the Microsoft .NET Student Tour. Despite the discs saying "UNLICENSED SOFTWARE -- Illegal without separate license from Microsoft", the freebie didn't contain any license document, and one guy decided to ask the MS conference rep about it. Read the in-progress story."

Comments

Attendees were students -- MSDNAA is their license

[kalgen]

Presumably since this was part of a MSDNAA (Academic Alliance) Student event, all of the attendees are covered under their school's MSDNAA agreement and thus have a separate license.

Nothing to see here, please drive by.

Separately Licensed Software

[DragonHawk]

You can obtain a media kit for just about any Microsoft product by calling your local Microsoft Product Fulfillment sales office. Most of the kits cost $24.95. That includes things like Windows 2000 Server, Exchange 2000 Server, etc. Any software media you get this way will be marked "Unlicensed Software -- Illegal Without Separate License From Microsoft".

The general idea here is that software -- all software -- is licensed independently of the media it comes on. For example, if you lose or damage your Windows install CD, you can order a replacement for a small fee. The license that you purchased originally is still valid, and is what counts.

These CDs are also used with the various volume licensing programs (Open, Select, and so on) that Microsoft offers. Basically, you order licenses for your organization separately, and then order however many media kits you want or need. You can find more information on these programs at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/.

Now, as far as these discs go: Without a separate license agreement, they are not legal to use. It sure sounds to me that no such license agreement was distributed. I would be very careful about using such media unless I received an agreement.

The fact that some marketing dweeb at Microsoft handled them out is not enough. The fact that the same dweeb said it was okay is not enough, either. A dweeb is not a legal license agreement. Those facts would give you plausible denial in court, and likely decide the case in your favor, but it would have to go to court.

Finally, I doubt Microsoft has any nefarious intentions here. I suspect that Microsoft is just like any other large company, and that as such, they employ people (like this marketing dweeb) who don't understand that software licensing is a legal contract. I'm sure it never occurred to him that he was doing something wrong. Most people don't think before they pirate software. Heck, far too many people don't think, period.

The fact that Microsoft's own people have this problem is certainly ironic, and highlights just how crazy the world of software licensing is.

Zealots, please note: Free/Open Source Software is still licensed. You need to very carefully understand your rights and obligations under a software license, be it a Microsoft EULA, the BSD license, or the GPL. Failure to do so may open you up to legal problems, regardless. (Go ahead and incorporate some GPL code into a closed product, and see how the FSF reacts.)