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Windows XP EULA Compared to GPL
cranos writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is running an article comparing the XP EULA to the GPL. Basically it's just reinforcing what we already knew but it could be a nice little piece to show your PHB next time."
Here's a mirror of the pdf file.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
You're confusing GPL for the BSD license. The GPL is "1) Do what you want with it, 2) as long as derivative works are GPL as well (see 1)".
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Just do a little searching on Sam Varghese and see what an idiot this supposed journalist is. His articles are little more than the whining of an ill-informed, angst-ridden gadget-geek.
His "article" on Mono, for instance.
What will they compare next?
How about Max OSX vs. a bicycle?
Or perhaps a puppy vs. lear jet?
The GPL is not an EULA - it's a distribution license. Maybe if the MS EULA dictated terms under which you can distribute WinXP, then you might be able to compare them.
I just have to ask - what's the point?
WinXP EULA doesn't say...
"cannot be used as a webserver or fileserver"
but
"shouldn't be ever used as a webserver or fileserver"
You are not in voilation.
They are comparing the XP Home edition EULA.
The professional version which you are using doesn't have that clause.
The study itself seems to be unaccessable, but you can find a html version in Google's cache.
In this context, it means "discredits".
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Well, there is a huge difference in a fileserver and MS file sharing. I do believe that they mean a dedicated file server, dedicated to serving files over a network, whereas normal file sharing for home users would just include the odd file transported over the network, while the main use of the computer is home/office use. Thus cramming a load of 200gB HDs in a case, installing WinXP on it and chucking it in a corner to chew away on serving files indefinitely would be illegal, while using windows file sharing on your game PC would be allowed.
As for the actual reason behind it: Win2k (soon Win2k3) Server will most likely DOES allow being set up as a file server and webserver and what not. And you WILL pay for the ability to do that, while it's basically exactly the same as the WinXP abilities. It's nothing but cold hard cash; if you want a file server, cough up the $999 required for Microsoft Windows 2000 Server compared to the $299 of Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Hate me!
Here is the specific item from my copy of XP Pro. The limit is on the number of connections not on usage.
1.3 Device Connections. You may permit a maximum of ten (10)
computers or other electronic devices (each a "Device") to
connect to the Workstation Computer to utilize one or more of
the following services of the Software: File Services, Print
Services, Internet Information Services, and remote access
(including connection sharing and telephony services). The
ten connection maximum includes any indirect connections made
through "multiplexing" or other software or hardware which
pools or aggregates connections. This ten connection maximum
does not apply to any other uses of the Software.
As I understand it, if you're not REDISTRIBUTING your software, you don't have to release any source code. So you could grab Apache (is that GPL? assuming it is), use all of it for your OWN INTERNAL Web Server, but adding some proprietary customizations for your web store, and not release your final source.
Now, if you tried to sell that new webserver software to other web stores, THEN you'd have to release your code, and then yes, IMHO, it is viral in a sense, but you didn't start from the ground up with your software either...
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
If you keep the derivative work in house, you don't have to GPL it.
Not entirely fair. Even if simply running software did count as modify/copy (which I doubt), the restriction is that you make available the source just as the binaries. Since you are the one doing whatever you are doing, you have the source.
The only thing you can't do is break the link between source and binary by making the binaries available in some way that the source isn't.
So you can modify GPL software to your heart's delight in-house and never release the changes you made, just as long as you don't release the binaries either.
Interestingly, I've come across a lot of installers since moving to Mac OS X written by people who apparently don't "get" the licence they've adopted and force users to agree to the GPL as an EULA. Annoying, but as the GPL doesn't remove any rights, I don't see it as a problem in any sense except politically.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The GPL says "do what you want - BUT if you decide to distribute it, you must follow these rules...."
More accuratly copyright law says "you cannot distribute a copyright work without permission from the copyright holder". The GPL says "you have permission to distribute this copyrighted work subject to the following conditions".
As I understand the LGPL, there are two situations:
I am going to assume based on the phrase "utilize the services of the Product" that the clause refers to network connections rather than the physical attachment of other devices to your computer. So, file-sharing and print-sharing and connection-sharing are okay, but only to ten other computers. It would be fairly easy to violate this term. Suppose you hold a LAN party and 14 of your friends come over. There's a recent patch for one of the games you plan to play, and you use a FileZilla FTP server to share it across the LAN so everybody can get it without mucking about with Network Neighborhood. Boom, you've violated the license.
One of the other posters has suggested that the restriction only applies to the number of computers accessing yours at any given time -- so you could give access to thousands of different computers, so long as there were never more than ten connected at one moment. I don't have XP, so I couldn't say -- does Network Neighborhood have a built-in connection limit in WinXP? Anyway, that would only apply to Network Neighborhood. Using Apache or any of a whole slew of other server-type programs could invalidate your license pretty quick.
Btw, I lifted that bit of license clause from the original report, not the summary that Slashdot has linked to. Another poster supplied a mirror of the PDF file. It's lengthy, but worth reading.
OK, lets reply to both this and parent in one post:
That's OK. I dont expect Windows XP to be a webserver. Just install Apache and use Apache as a webserver.
There's a license limit of how many connections you can have at any given time. This license limit is part of XP for any app. I extremely doubt any non-MS software checks whether or not their on XP Home or XP Pro and throttles the connections, but its there in the license. If Slashdotters can complain about people violating the GPL then what will they say about people violating this? Probably nothing. I don't agree with MS's decision either, but if you respect one license do you respect the other...
That limit was probably put in there as a defense against the RIAA's fanatical anti-Kazaa/Napster/%FILESHARING position
It was put in long before that, before Fanning ever thought of Napster, back when NT 4 just came out. It's a way to force people to use NT Server vs. NT Workstation. NT Server has no client limit, and you pay for that.
2) The GPL issue you raise is misleading. We were talking about the license for usage, not for distribution. The GPL is not concerned with how you run the programs under it on your computer. MS can (and has) altered EULAs about usage.
3) If you've paid for MS products with your own money, then you've already gotten it. That's why you're walking funny. If you're a user on someone elses dime, then they have been and you've watched.