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Microsoft Improves Its Licensing Terms
prostoalex writes "Microsoft offers to pick up the legal tab, in case anyone gets pulled to court for using its products. News dot com dot com has a rather informative outline of new policies: Microsoft will cover unlimited expenses on injury and infringement claims, the company quadrupled the warranty on its products to a 12-month length, and the companies audited for licensing compliance will now get a 30-day warning instead of 15-day one."
Where is coverage for security issues?
M.B.
How will anyone be able to prove infringement if it's close source?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I think Microsoft purchased a SCO license purely to feed the fire. A large company like Microsoft purchasing a SCO license will make their claims seem more valid in the public eye. It's more of a PR move than anything else.
With its new contract, Microsoft is effectively promising customers it will insulate them from those kind of messy legal problems.
We all knew that Microsoft considered Linux a threat, but this is the first positive "captilalistic competitiveness" move I've seen on Microsoft's part. It seems that Linux is pushing Microsoft to improve its standards in order to compete more. That's one positive thing through this whole mess, Microsoft is actually forced to compete for our business now.
--Clint
So Microsoft will protect VOLUME licensees. That helps Joe Blow how?
They upped their warranty to 12 months? Why is it only 12 months? Why shouldn't I be able to trust that the software will run correctly on the intended setup five years down the road? It's not like my car, where it degrades over time.
Even the analyst News.com.com interviewed had questions on whether this event is monumental.
Plus, MS is just using this to spread FUD over Linux. "If you get sued for our products, we'll protect you. Linux can't do that."
Now, assume SCO tells us:
Hey, we claim that Windoze contains SCOde, so you gotta pay us $1,500 per license to avoid litigation...
Now, reading this:
In older contracts, Microsoft agreed to pay all legal fees for volume license customers who got sued because of Microsoft, but only up to the value of the software they bought.
But, my Corporate license was offered at a price of $120 per seat. So there's still a loss of $1,300 per seat, even if MS foots the bill!! Very clever, typical MS.
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If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
This is a good way for M$ to get more (like they need it) free publicity and spread FUD at the same time.
In a normal business agreement there is often a clause that indemnifies the parties from lawsuits as a result of the other party's whatever. Only in software licenses where the user generally gets mugged on paper (you have no rights, they all belong to sw company) does this often get neglected. I've seen some licenses where the user agrees to hold the sw maker harmless and pay for ALL sw maker's legal costs in a lawsuit (example, you use product X from company M in a medical device, something goes wrong, patient dies, patient family sues you and company M due to supposed defect in device, you get pay M's legal bills in that case [M does not mean M$, just a letter for an example]).
M$ is just putting some of that standard language back. Most of all, it makes FUD arguments sound more legitimate. "Sure you save money up front on those open source programs, but what happens when SCO or the real authors of what's in that open source program comes knocking on your door demanding payment for your use of what was stolen from them? We are there for you. Our goal is to make you succeed. You don't have to worry about that problem with us, and in the unlikely event someone alleges impropriety and you end up in court with our product, you won't have to spend money on lawyers. We are here to protect you. Just sign right here."
Now here's one for you. It seems I recall that people have pointed out a few GPL code violations, running "strings" on a few M$ Windows DLL and EXEs revealed some amazing things. Now we know they used BSD code, but if they did use GPL or other code that they were not free to "incorporate" into their products, now that M$ is taking this step, maybe it is time to start seeking to proove the thefts and target M$ customers like SCO is targetting Linux customers.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley