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Microsoft Blocking Wine Users From Downloads Site
IamTheRealMike writes "In January, Microsoft announced a new anti-piracy initiative called
Genuine Advantage. From this summer onwards all users of Microsoft Downloads will be required to validate using either an ActiveX control or a standalone tool. Yesterday Ivan Leo Puoti, a Wine developer, discovered that the validation tool checks directly for Wine and bails out with a generic error when found. This is significant as it's not only the first time Microsoft has actively discriminated against users running their programs via Wine, but it's also the first time they've broken radio silence on the project."
I agree, they have a perfect right to do this. It is interesting news, however.
A valid and working code is returned if the version is set to xp.
So it doesn't even really stop you.
- Jax
Yahoo! has been known to block Trillian users too, as well as AOL.
The license for any non-OS product from Microsoft says nothing about having to run it on Windows. They assume you will, but WINE breaks that assumption. They are just pissed off about it... they may actually get themselves in trouble by not allowing people who paid for their products to update them. Just because somebody can run microsoft office on Linux doesn't mean it was pirated.
I agree with your points, but MS are treading on dangerous ground if they actually plan to enforce the EULA clause that prevent you from using MS apps on non-MS operating systems.
They made that change so the login was more secure (ssl instead of md5 hashes)
I'm inclined to agree with this assessment.
EveryDNS. Use it. It works.
AC's need not reply
Trillan can still connect, but it cannot use the HTTP protocol to get through firewalls as the M$ version of the client does. In a corporate environment it would force the user to go and download M$ Messenger.
From what I read of the Office '03 licence, I didn't see that sort of clause there.
What planet are you from? These updates are not for wine, they are for MS products. Just because the product in question is running on wine doesn't mean it should not have access to updates.
If you look on the Microsoft Genuine Advantage site, the focus isn't nerds stealing single copies; would you validate your Windows if you were the one that hacked it? It's the chop shops and small sellers that are cheating their customers by loading illegal copies of MS software but still charging the user as if it's legal. A non-techie consumer that got ripped off was the victim of a crime by the business that sold them the computer and misrepresented the installed software.
I was at Novell also and worked in the same department as the guy who was tasked to figure out why Win 3.1 wouldn't load on DR-DOS. They didn't use a very sophisticated method to determine if MS-DOS or DR-DOS was running. The fix was simple. Just lie. Perhaps the WINE folk can do the same.
microsoft has used "generic error" messages to discriminate against users of software it doesn't like.
After winning awards and besting MS-DOS in virtually every comparison, DR-DOS had the rug pulled out from under it when Microsoft released a beta version of Windows 3.0 that detected DR-DOS and gave bogus error messages.
print the article while you can. now that the records from the caldera trial have been destroyed (along with the copy of the beta they managed to find for the trial, no doubt), microsoft will undoubted resume claiming it's an urban legend, if they have't already, and all mention of this little bit of history is rapidly vanishing from the virtual world as well. pathetic.
the destruction of the caldera trial documents has been mentioned on slashdot once or twice, and i commented on it both times. pity nobody cared. oh well. history repeats itself again.
Microsoft has every right to block someone from updating Office when it's being run from a Non-Microsoft Operating System...
8 ba0-3d24-4f00-aab1-dd9ff4aacfc9/en_client_eula.pdf
No, they don't. Read the EULA and it says NOTHING of the kind.
I quote from the MS Word 2003 EULA found at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/2/5/1253
"Installation and use. You may:
(a) install and use a copy of the Software on one personal computer or other device; and
(b) install an additional copy of the Software on a second, portable device for the exclusive use of the primary
user of the first copy of the Software."
If you can point out in the EULA where I missed it and there is a statement saying I have to run this software under MS Windows, I'd appreciate it.
Until such time, I have the right to run the software under any OS I want.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The Office 2003 Standard Edition EULA (Original PDF, View as HTML) doesn't seem to say that.