Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Vs. TestDriven.NET
Erebus writes "Jamie Cansdale released a free addin to Visual Studio back in 2004 to help developers build unit tests. His only problem was, he enable his addin for all versions of VS - including the Express addition which isn't suppose to support addins. After over a year of trying to talk with Microsoft and understand how and why he was in violation of their license agreement, during which they would never explain specifically which clause in the license was being violated, they sent the lawyers after him and pulled his MVP status. To top it all off, Jamie is actually a Java developer by day — his addin was originally developed just as a hobby project. A full account is available on his blog, including all email correspondence he had with Microsoft and the now 3 letters received from Microsoft lawyers. The lead product manager for Visual Studio Express has responded to Jamie's posts."
And once again... in proper english
What is it about Microsoft and reinventing perfectly good tools. First they tried to replace Nant with MsBuild, with limited success. They're trying to reinvent Subversion and Cruisecontrol with the Microsoft Team System. They are the ultimate NIH company. I've started to form the opinion that this is unsustatinable for Microsoft. You can't keep reinventing and supporting tools like this forever, because no matter how many programmers you have there OSS movement has more. They will keep producing high-quality tools faster than you can release competitors.
People used to complain that Sun were control freaks about Java. What did Sun do? They listened and GPLed Java. I think the guys at Sun have come to a similiar conclusion to me. Your products are part of an ecology and the ecology is always bigger than one company. What you want to do is foster a larger ecology for your products and hope that this translates to sales.
I admire Sun for this approach, it's risky but it shows maurity in face of change ushered in at the hands of OSS. Microsoft seems to have no strategy for tackling OSS outside of the United States. Over here, software patents don't exist. They may win the battle but be swamped by the tidal wave from abroad.
I use TestDriven every single day I'm in work and I can tell you that this makes the licensed copy of Visual Studio 2005 (paid at full price) a much more functional piece of software. To me, this is validation of the ecology; the open source product made me feel that I'm getting more value out of the purchase.
It's this affect that Sun hopes GPLing Java will bring to their revenues. I for one think they're right.
Simon.
Don't like microsoft but the same issues apply to any other license like creative commons and gnu.
If you don't agree with the license terms of the software/artwork/music then don't use/extend it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If they said 'no addins' for the free edition, and someone does one, surely they are in the right to get annoyed?
After all, it's not as if people are forced to use visual studio express, they could always use something else if they don't like the terms. If you want to use it, you use it the way they say, that seems obvious to me.
I have an open source project, and I would get mighty pissed if someone broke my terms. Ok mine are the gpl, but it's the same thing.
I prefer mingw studio anyway..
The post from the Visual Studio blog is quite interesting. In the first paragraph, Dan Fernandez says that the add-in "is a direct violation of both the EULA and 'ethos' of the Express product line." Throughout his post, he continually mentions that the add-in is "illegal."
Yet he spends the entire post talking only about the "ethos" part of it (describing their numerous good faith attempts to convince Jamie Cansdale to stop distributing his product), but he never explains what the illegal part is. Clearly the Visual Studio team feels that Jamie is violating the "ethos" of their project (their "business plan," in fact). On the other hand, Jamie probably feels that the Visual Studio team is violating the "ethos" of his project when they try to limit it. So whose "ethos" is more important?
At no point, however, does the blog post mention anything about how the Visual Studio EULA could prohibit the distribution of TestDriven.NET. After all, I can redistribute copies of TestDriven.NET without even owning a copy of Visual Studio--so obviously I'm not bound by the Visual Studio EULA.
I can think of no legal reason to prohibit what Jamie is doing... and apparently, neither can Dan Fernandez. Has anyone found a nugget of legal truth in the other documents?
The MS project manager goes on about working with Jamie to clear up the Express situation, but doesn't explain their reasoning beyond calling what he did "illegal."
First, that's not the way to treat your community. Either explain to him and to us exactly what he did that was wrong, beyond the vague wording at the beginning of not being in the "spirit" of Express editions. Second, when can Microsoft unilaterally declare breach of contract "illegal?"
I use DevC++ for all my hobby needs and teaching the kiddo. After this, I would never switch to MS C++ Express or VB Express, even if it was a vastly superior product. I just need some syntax highlighting and compiler integration. I don't want to dance around legal threats over what Microsoft's "spirit" is this week.
I've often wondered how much one can get away with in licenses. Of course they cannot override any consitutional or local laws, but say a developer is rather religious. Can s/he then stipulate that the software cannot be run on Sundays? Or that the user must be wearing underwear or shoes and shirt while using $PRODUCT ?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Hmm, I know where the MS lawyers found them too. They stole the following: "Jamie Cansdale released a free addin to Visual Studio back in 2004 to help developers build unit tests. His only problem was, he enabled his addin for all versions of VS - including the Express addition which isn't supposed to support addins. After over a year of trying to talk with Microsoft and understand how and why he was in violation of their license agreement, during which they would never explain specifically which clause in the license was being violated, they sent the lawyers after him and pulled his MVP status. To top it all off, Jamie is actually a Java developer by day, his addin was originally developed just as a hobby project. A full account is available on his blog, including all email correspondence he had with Microsoft and the now 3 letters received from Microsoft lawyers. The lead product manager for Visual Studio Express has responded to Jamie's posts."
From the Express lead's blog:
"As for Jamie, we've been asking him in multiple emails and conference calls to stop extending (just Express) since before Visual Studio 2005 even shipped. We even got the General Manager of Visual Studio to personally talk to him on the phone to plead with him to remove Express extensibility. Closely following that, Jamie took the violations to heart and removed Visual Studio Express extensibility for several months. Only recently did he decide to add Express support back to TestDriven.NET and only after another round of conversations and close to two years of trying to avoid escalating this situation, we felt compelled to deliver our message in a different form."
Something's rotten in the state of Denmark...
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Translation: "Jamie is interfering with our attempt to devalue various Free Software tools."
Translation: "Microsoft legal doesn't understand the value of giving away software"
Translation: "Our code base is such an encumbered mess that disabling features was an arduous task."
Translation: "The only way people will buy our crap is if the one feature they need can't be had for free, and their whole product is already implemented using our IDE, making it harder to switch to some other product, perhaps a Free one."
Translation: "We decided upon a truly stupid licensing model, and now our customers who paid good money to be able to create extensions are pissed off that we did a shitty job of preventing unlicensed ones from working on a free product."
(No translation needed - it just doesn't make sense! If the extension fits, you must acquit!)
Translation: "Yet almost every time, he has been logical and reasonable, instead of knuckling under."
Translation: "But we thought we had him nailed down when we threatened to sow his ground with salt, burn his houses, rape his cattle, and ride off on his women."
Translation: "He finally came to his senses and just released the damned thing, so we decided to point more guns at him."
Translation: "Most people who download this software aren't pros who would pay for our software anyway. In spite of this, I'm so angry I forgot my apostrophe."
"They're just people who needed a VS IDE to compile some jackass' project."
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think the correct phrase here is, "English, motherfucker. Do you speak it?"
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What's going on here? What is MS using the EULA to tell users they can't use functionality that MS developers put into the software?
Is there a reason they can't just take out (or never put in) the feature of VS Express they don't want anyone to use?
ObBadAutoAnalogy: Rather than post speed limits, why not pass a law that cars coming off the assembly line must be restricted to 55 mph? (I told you it was a bad analogy.)
But seriously, the VS Express guy makes it sound like this is some stand alone project. If that is so, why does it do these things they explicitly don't want it to do? My guess is, VS Express is 99% the same code as VS Super Premium, with that 1% being switches to turn off the stuff MS wants you to pay for.
It sounds like the daily wear/long wear contact lense hub bub from a few years back. In that case, the company sold cheap daily wear contact lenses. The directions were to wear for one week then throw them away. They also sold more expensive long term lenses with directions to remove and clean each night.
Turned out, the only difference was the directions. You could buy the cheap lenses and just use and clean them as you would the expensive lenses.
I say, if you don't want people getting expensive contact lenses for a cheap price, don't put a cheap price on your expensive lenses. If you don't want people overclocking your CPUs, don't underclock faster CPUs. And if you don't want people developing extensions for the free express edition, don't release the extensible version wrapped in the express version EULA.
"they would never explain specifically which clause in the license was being violate"
It's a classic example of the differences between the Open Source and the closed sourced licensing model. I think it's perfectly clear, they provide a limited version of the product for free, the license forbids extending the functionality of Express. TestDriven extends the functionality, therefore it violates the license:
'You may not work around any technical limitations in the software'
davecb5620@gmail.com
if Third-Party extensions are "not allowed" in the Express editions, why then do they have the capability to be loaded? You would think that Microsoft would code something into the extensions loader that would check whether or not its a Microsoft official extension or not. Wouldn't that have prevented this in the first place?
-Ryan
Digging into the email exchange I found Jamie saying:
1) You said that by using Intellisense I may be in breach of the
dissasembly clause in the VS SDK license.
2) You said that by working out how to use an API by looking at the
public type and method names I may be in breach of the reverse
engineering clause in the VS SDK license.
3) You said that by adding a button to the Express SKU interface I may
be in breach of Microsoft's copyright.
#3 is particularly funny
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Because on the one hand if the developer is actually violating something he agreed to (barring the discussion about how much of the fine print in a click through EULA can actually be enforced in court...) then there's not a lot of wiggle romm. If ton the other hand this is just M$ being jerks -- like it looks like they are being -- then maybe the EFF ought to take a look at protecting this developer from big-time bullying.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
How did this guy pull it off? The e-mails make it look like removing support for Express was a matter of flipping a switch. Did Microsoft seriously just cut and paste Visual Studio 2005 into 5 different language-specific projects and call those the express editions or something?
In the past, when Microsoft didn't want something to work, like say, Lotus 123, they would release an upgrade that would run all their stuff, but not Lotus 123.
What's stopping them from doing the same here? Can't they just release a new upgraded version of Visual Studio Express that won't run his stuff?
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
According to TestDriven.NET's EULA,
...
Except as expressly permitted in this Agreement, Licensee shall not, and shall not permit others to:
(ii) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reduce the Software to source code form;
Now what did one of the emails from Microsoft say?
Thank you for not registering your project extender during installation and turning off your hacks by default. It appears that by setting a registry key your hacks can still be enabled. When do you plan to remove the Visual Studio express hacks, including your addin activator, from your product.
How did they find out about this, except from reverse engineering TD.NET?
Also, if my product was continuously being called a hack, I'd be seriously pissed off. The MS guy is an asshole, full of himself.
Amazing that so people assume that Microsoft was correct in saying there was in fact a EULA violation, when the best they could come up with after a year was a poorly worded phrase in the EULA: You may not work around any technical limitations in the software. And that team leader wank at Microsoft Dan had no worthy arguments against what Jamie did either other than claim without proof that the EULA was violated, and that Jamie never acted correctly in response to their vague claim and beating around the bush, and that "Ethos" of project was violated. "Ethos" meaning "you did what I think was bad ; you must think like me", what a load of tripe. This is just more of Microsoft's current mode of threating customers without any real proof to back claims, same as the patent violation claims without patent numbers to back it up.
Slashdot "editors" do not "edit" submissions. This makes Slashdot "more real", according to CmdrTaco.
o ld=0&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=14502339#145024
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174297&thresh
...You may not work around technical limitations in the software... This is also in Microsoft's other agreements. I would like to see this particular onerous line challenged in court. It is very vague, and probably impossible to judge or enforce. Lots of things have technical limitations, and people work around them all the time. I don't like EULAs in general, and this is a good place to start challenging them.From the EULA: You may not work around any technical limitations in the software
So if it crashes we can't restart it? And if it hangs we can't kill it? That's working around technical limitations in the software, isn't it?
All the manager had to do was say the EULA says "xyz," and is therefore in breach of our license. He never does that (and it looks like nobody else really has either). He says the EULA is violated, but then goes on to explain how the plugin goes against what Microsoft wants. And? I don't care that you sell software, give it away, or wear it around on a fashionable necklace, your business case isn't MY business. If you can't make money doing what you are doing, then nobody should defend you, really.
It really just looks like Microsoft was caught with it's pants down, and they are scrambling to obfuscate their screw-up.
'Read "ethos" as "business case".'
u s/default.mspx) server. Most IT departments can easily roll their own patch update scripts using the patches once they are downloaded, yet Microsoft makes downloading each patch a manually tedious process instead of simply adding a "Download Now" button.
Microsoft does this all the time. What really tests my patience with Microsoft is when they deliberately break their own products to limit their useful application in an IT environment that has the sole purpose of actually helping to install and further the case for Microsoft's own products!
We see this with Windows PE, the mini kernel'ed XP with networking, that allows us to install XP remotely (please don't comment back about BART here, we know all about BART). There are many useful applications for an open and extensible Windows PE that would allow internal IT operations to enhance operations. What Microsoft does is break this usefulness to the point where you almost must use it with something else you must buy from Microsoft. In this case yet another server for RIS, etc.
The Windows XP web update is another case in point. Have you ever wondered why the Express update deliberately leaves off a "Download Patches Now" button, and instead just provides the "Install Now" button? It's to deliberately push you into buying another Windows 2003 server just to run WUS (Windows Update Services http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/ws
Believe me, Linux is getting easier to mold a cohesive IT architecture around than Windows because of all the wrenches Microsoft has thrown into the works. Because of Microsoft's own business practices, local IT total-cost-of-ownership is very high, as well as the personal frustration that goes along with it.
Microsoft in essence wants you to buy into their environment, and then buy into it again and again by deliberately preventing you from developing your own automation practices. Why automate anything when Microsoft can sell you another automation "solution"!
My general point is that Microsoft can never provide a "one solution fits all" product line. Every IT department is different, and needs to develop its own internal automation practices. Microsoft, by being mischevious about its business practices, serves to interfere with in-house automation to the point of asking the question "why are we using Microsofts' products?"
Even if Microsoft could provide a "one solution fits all" architecture, then that wouldn't serve the need of most businesses in general because most businesses actually need to differentiate themselves from other businesses in most ways that matter. If your internal operations are the same as everyone elses, then you don't gain a competitive advantage by streamlining operations for your company's product line.
Microsoft simply needs to stop this foolishness of "vendor lock-in" and allow people to interoperate with their products and services more openly. Otherwise, I don't see a future for Microsoft in the light of an Open Source world.
...Microsoft has always been pretty strightforward in saying no plugins for the Express products, its not a hidden fact.
So the guys fight is sort of a principle of the thing, be a pest fight. He's pretty clearly in the wrong. Sorry of thats a bad opinion on the matter.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Wrong. It will be in the next version of VS. Right now, it is a pretty awful implementation for TDDers (very slow, but some cool integration features), but they are working on making that better.
Not that I agree with what is going on with Jamie. All he ever asked for was the clause he was violating and he would happily remove it. They haven't provided that yet.
Random Musings
Is he attempting to steer the discussion (and basis of MS's actions) away from ground that may not be as firm as MS would like to pretend it is? "Our ickle novice programmers don't want or need TestDriven.NET". Then they won't use it, Dan. As you may remember from my previous posts, Visual Studio Express was a labor of love. MS would not have permitted the release of Express if it had not been to their benefit; in this case, giving low-end programmers the chance to use, learn and be steered towards their product without cannibalising sales of the full Visual Studio.
If it really was a "labor of love" for Dan, then I'd question why he's pouring his heart and soul into products for a company like Microsoft, and consider him somewhat deluded. On the other hand, he's a manager, not a low-level Bill-Gates-is-God-Kool-Aid-drinking peon, so you'll excuse my scepticism if I consider this to be an attempt to play the "I'm one of you and really enthusiastic about this" sympathy card.
The tone of such comments as It's unfortunate that this happened, but as you can see, we have been very patient with Jamie and it's our hope he will remain in compliance of the Visual Studio Express Editions license agreement. smacks of PR. It's the weaselly attempt to come over as firm-but-friendly whilst underneath making clear what they expect to be done and the veiled threat if it isn't. Either he or someone else has consciously worked on this.
I also notice that he states here: Back in 1975, Microsoft started out as *the* hobbyist company for a nascient software industry. While many things have changed since then, we always had a special place in our hearts for hobbyists. Yeah, MS has always been the hobbyist's friend, ever since Bill Gates' friendly letter to them in 1975. They've always been open and let people play around with their stuff.
Lying corporate fuck.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Breaking the EULA might be illegal. But the EULA does not ban addons. Therefore TestDriven.NET has not broken the law. If Microsoft wanted to ban addons from the free version, they should have said so in writing.
Changa hates change.
Jason clearly states he is not a lawer. Then isn't he provided with legal advise? All it takes is a legal department he can call and ask them to explain to Jamie (and/or his legal representive) what it is Microsoft thinks they are in violation of, and hear the counter argument.
If the counter arguments are good, Microsoft's lawer would know they would loose in court and say "you are right, sorry for the inconvinience. Please be adviced we will most likely change the license agreement to specifically disallow this for future releases as it was never our intention this should have been allowed in the first place".
If the Microsoft lawyer can counter the counter arguments, then Jamie (and/or legal advise) could simply say "you are right, sorry for the inconvinience, the feature will be removed".
If they do not agree, then they will go to court as this is the obvious place for resolving something like this if the parts can't agree.
But apparently Jason only has access to "layer attack dogs" who are unable to help resolve issues and respond to anything with C&D letters. I am just happy I am not Jason, it must really suck to work for a company who can't provide even basic legal advice to it's employees dealing with outside contacts.
/Lars
Microsoft has "ethos"? When did this happen? I figure that would have been big news.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Deleted
If only people would stop and dig through the facts, you'll see that Jamie Cansdale not only acted in bad faith by first agreeing to withdraw support for the VS.NET plugin, then turning around only one day later and re-offering support for it in the betas of Visual Studio.NET Orcas. Let us for the moment concede that perhaps Jamie has some sort of valid legal case for continuing to offer his Add-in. Even if that were so, let's read the text of his letter to MS's lawyers, shall we?
" ...we the undersigned hereby jointly and severally: ... undertake ... never again in future (whether acting by ourselves, though agents or third parties, ... etc etc... to make such or any other similar offending products available for sale or otherwise on that or any website, or through any other medium ... We understand that our undertakings in this letter are undertakings to the Court and we are aware that any breach of them may be treated as a *contempt of court*. [Emphasis added by me]"
Wow. That's a pretty strong statement. That means that by re-offering the plugin for Orcas after shipping this letter, Jamie has said that he's willing to go to jail. Perhaps he'll learn some sense of ethics there.
Jamie Quells Dissent on his Blog
You probably won't hear me paraphrase Chuck D much on this blog, but don't believe the hype. Why not? Well, I as well as others (see Eric's post) have tried to write entries in his blog telling him that he's in the wrong on this issue. Somehow our posts never made it to his blog! Surprise! I wonder if it's a bug in his blogging engine. Or perhaps Jamie doesn't want to have a backlash against him start on his own weblog.
TestDriven.NET is not Free Software
If you read most of the responses to this story in Slashdot, or (believe it or not) Jamie's blog, you'll probably be led to believe that TestDriven.NET is free, open-source software, and that Jamie Cansdale is a lone developer, toiling away for the sake of the community, and being bullied by the 800 pound Gorilla that is Microsoft. Nothing could be further from the truth. TestDriven.NET costs$95 per user. Want an enterprise license? That'll be $10,500, please. Some have made the patently ludicrous claim that Jamie does give the software away for free. Not if you're using it professionally, he doesn't! His licensing terms are... wait... that's the next section! Stay with me here, this is the best part!
Jamie's License is Just as Bad
It's time to play a little game, boys and girls. The game is, "let's guess whose license agreement this is":
" ...you may use the software only as expressly permitted int his agreement. In doing so you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways... You may not work around any technical limitations in the software..."
versus:
" ...Licensee shall not, and shall not permit others to ... use the Software in any manner not expressly authorised by this Agreement."
Sound pretty familiar, don't they. The same clause that Jamie complains is vague, irrelevant, and unenforceable in the MS license is pretty much exactly the same in the TestDriven.NET license. Jamie Cansdale is a hypocrite, and he deserves to be exposed as such, and punished.
TestDriven.NET's Real Functionality comes from Software that is Free
For those of you unfamiliar with the product, TestDriven.Net is basically a plug-in for Visual Studio that allows developers to run NUnit, MBUnit, and NCover tests with a click of the mouse, or a quick keystroke. It performs a few other functions, but that's about it. These products are all open-source and free. Others have labored long and hard to generate these tools, and Jamie ships them with his non-free product. All of the heavy lifting is done by these utilities -- TestDr