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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."
Maybe they've just decided to give out illegal copies of their software to everyone they can and then sue them over it. It's easier than getting them to trudge all the way down to the store and fork out a hundred bucks willingly.
lysergically yours
start uploading those things!!! It is in writing that there is no license for those. Your typical license says, among a bunch of other stuff, no copying, distributing... Hence, no license, distribute all you want! Free as in beer!!!
It's totally up to Microsoft to determine how to license their software, and whom to license it to.
What's the fuss? They could license it for free use to recovering crack addicts that live on the 3000 block of 1st street that wear green pants if they wanted to.
As long as some marketing monkey at MS has the OK from the higher-ups, then it's all good.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Check out the email address of the MS rep: v-sashak@microsoft.com. The 'v-' at the beginning is, IIRC, Microspeak for 'not a Microsoft employee'. It's probably a contractor or agency temp that works events who has been given an MS mail account. Which would explain the less-than-clueful answers (and why (s)he has to speak to his/her manager).
Thats an EULA (End User Liscence Agreement) not the actuall liscence itself, which is a piece of paper with the equivalent of a serial number and some leagal jargon.
What happens if the student installs it on his (or the universitie's or their workplace) PC, and the BSA shows up?
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.
And Linux is going to make a credible challenge as a desktop operating system.
And my Mom will eventually know that FreeBSD is not Unix.
And Hillary Rosen will be discovered with a 10,000 song library on a Kazaa SuperNode in her basement and get sued for ten trillin quadrillion dollars.
Then there will finally be peace on Slashdot, and it will be converted into hotornot2.com
We can only pray.
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Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
in my district, i had proposed several linux based solutions, from turning old p120's into thin X clients, to file servers, yada yada. all were shot down like a duck on opening day. so, i get to talking to our site district technidiot. turns out he goes to some microsoft seminars and they throw out VS, 2K pro, office pro, everything. in fact he laughed because he had a "no reg. key" copy cd. so next time you wonder why there is not the movement you would think towards FOSS, this is why. why would our district want to use FOSS, when the microsoft reps throw out cd's like halloween candy. the reps know full well that the schools have to pay, and they know how to get "the right people on board". it is so easy and cheap for them.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
The dude who posted the article should have had the common decency to obscure the name of the person at Microsoft that he was corresonding with. I have had my name posted on the internet with correspondance I made on behalf of my employer and it always makes me uncomfortable.
Further, the guy is probably some frontline peon who really has no control over anything there and has only been given the vaguest of guidelines on how to operate. No sense sticking his name out on the net for future harassment or embarassment.
I really think doing that was a bad move and anyone in the tech industry should have the common decency not to do that to a colleague.
Some guy in my dorm must work for microsoft too. He gives out copies of everything that microsoft makes on CD for free. All the programs have names like Verbatim, Memorex, and CenDyne.
I've never heard of those programs, but they work for typing up term papers really well!
I work for a major retail computer chain. We used to have training events with all kinds of software vendors (microsoft, mcafee, mgi, datavis, roxio, etc.) and they used to give out all kinds of free software so that we could try thier products in hopes that if we used them we would reccommend the software to our customers. Now, due to the current economy a lot of these training events have stopped, but even at the ones that still do occur (microsoft included) we dont get NEARLY the amount of handouts that we used to. Again, it could probably be argued that this is due to economic conditions, and I would agree if they were handing out keyboards or processors, but for the cost of them to manufacture a CD they dont lose money as compared to what they will make on our reccomendations to customers.
Anyway, back to my point. It seems to me that this guy is just trying to cause trouble for troubles sake, OR is trying to prove a point with regards to liscencing laws. While I agree with the sentiments, I DO NOT agree with the ammunition he is using for his fight.
All he is effectively doing is making these companies more gunshy to hand out free software to resellers like myself, or anyone else who attends training events like the one he did to get his software. The companies wont want to deal with a deluge of email like this, or go throught the trouble of making special key sets for promotional NFR (not for resale) software, etc. Actually, we USED to get software that was stamped NFR all over it, but they stopped this and started handing out "real" versions under volume lisences because there were more costs involved with producing NFR sets rather than using existing stock.
Youre looking a gift horse in the mouth and will end up ruining things for yourself and everyone else just to prove a point!
On the back of the sleeve the first CD is in. I got the same CDs at an event on the same tour.
This guy could make a hundred copies of that CD, hand them and the key out to his friends, but if there was a license, only one would have that legal document proving ownership. A CD and a key number don't prove legal ownership.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Absolutely. Now Microsoft has a list of people who they can audit and definately find that they are using illegal unlicencesed software. A claim that someone at M$ told you that pirating was OK is hardly going to be a defense.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
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.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I'm unemployed, you insensitive clod!
No, really. I'd install it all day on lots computers. Later, if they paid me enough, I might even support the IDE for it.
Get off my launchpad!
What was that key, by the way? I lost the sleeve of my copy that I, uh, also got from one of those events...yeah, that's it. (c:
That's pedantic. Sorry. Didn't mean to nitpick or anything.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
sometime in early March last year. I had the same concern and I didn't install any of the stuff I got until some time later I read on MS's site that the software was licensed. They also gave out Visual Studio .NET Academic t-shirts, a free full copy of WinXP Pro (using it on my gaming machine), some mints in a strange tin that you have to press on the top to open and squeeze the sides to lock (mmmm... mints), a Visual Studio .NET pen and I can't remember what else. In short, this story is a false alarm, MS does a lot of evil stuff, but this isn't a case of it.
/.
Wow, I never thought I'd be defending MS, especially on
Microsoft isn't at fault here. Good grief, all everyone here does is complain about Microsoft's draconian licensing system, then when they try and give something away they get jumped all over.
I mean, geeze. In that e-mail exchange the story linked to, one participant wasn't making sense, and it certainly wasn't Microsoft. 'Here, have this software' 'There's no license' 'Well you can use it for non-commercial use' 'Just this software?'. That last one kills me; he knows perfectly well that 'for that single piece of software we gave you you don't need a license' doesn't imply in any way that he doesn't need a license for ANY Microsoft software ever again. Don't try to make it sound like MS is being all contradictory.
Although it was wise for the submitter to check whether he was on solid legal grounds, it seems most uncivil of him to bring all this attention to the employee over such a relatively minor matter as this. Sasha seemed to be handling the problem with all expediency, and I imagine the issue would have been resolved had submitter merely waited and continued to correspond with him. Now tens of thousands of people know about this and Sasha risks getting in trouble with his superiors.
Submitting the site to slashdot was unjustified in light of how the problem was being handled, and it was a breach of trust on the part of the submitter.
Sasha's last response went like this:
Hi Lance
I am going to forward your request to my managers. Please stay tuned, I will get back at you ASAP.
Sounds like he's gonna sic the ms lawyers on you for messing with him. =)
M1CR0-S0F71-54WU5-5YID1-OT5HA
Think about it.
Spammers usually define spamming as "That which they do not do."
Here, we have a case where Microsoft is simply redefining software piracy as "That which we do not do."
Since Microsoft has also been known to spam, and has tried to weaken anti-spam laws in their favor, it comes as no surprise to me that the left hand has no idea of what the right is doing when it comes to handing out software.
Spammer logic. Amazing -- and kind of frightening -- how contagious it is.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies