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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.
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.
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!
On the back of the sleeve the first CD is in. I got the same CDs at an event on the same tour.
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.
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:
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.
M1CR0-S0F71-54WU5-5YID1-OT5HA