Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Slaps Its Most Valuable Professional
Violent Offender writes with a touching story in The Register about Microsoft's awarding of its Most Valuable Professional credential to a British hobbyist, Jamie Cansdale, then turning around and threatening him with a lawsuit for the very software that won him the award. The article links to the amazing correspondence from Microsoft on Cansdale's site.
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/0 6/01/164254
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
What are the odds?
The only explanation for the state of Vista, and this attack on an innocent developer. Software written for Windows "Just Works", no need to waste time testing it.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Developers, developers... lawsuit.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
on-topic of you!
:-)
Really!
But you know it's true. Read the article. The guy got an MVP and a cease and desist for the same freaking program.
Is making a joke that runs parallel to the truth flamebait? If so, what does that say about that truth?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
...apparently Jamie has until 4 PM tomorrow (the 6th) to respond to the lawyers or remove the offending application.
If you read through ALL the correspondence (a boring, lengthy exercise), you'll find out a few interesting facts:
The end result is that Jamie wants to fight it, but if he does, he's gonna lose in court. However, he is very very right in one aspect -- Microsoft deserves a black eye over this, and I don't blame Jamie for wanting to punch them in the face. I don't think Microsoft/Weber was particularly evil, but they were slightly rude and rather stupid. They would not answer Jamie's requests, over and over again. If they had just answered him plainly and clearly, this would have been solved a year ago.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
It appears that they supported him up until they copied his work. After that, he was still free to distribute it as long as they got paid.
This is just MHO. Anyone who hasn't read the emails definitely should both to form their own opinion and to learn how MS operates. (Paraphrased): "What should I tell my customers?" "Just lie to them."
It seems to me that the lawyer made it clear enough why it is illegal. He made it so you can access features that the terms of service clearly say cost money and is not allowed. Just because he used public code to do this doesn't make it OK. MS is asking this guy to stop costing them money by stealing their code and making it available to everyone in addition to making them waste money on lawyers. And they won't even sue if he just takes it down. Blind MS haters, as usual.
Knighted in 1994 for his outstanding services to the British empire, the president of Zimbabwe is now a villain... for failing to continue to act like a puppet; and acting against the 'ethos' of those who gave him the title.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
This is why big corporations suck.
They took the bold step of giving away Visual Studio for free and removing a few features. Now, they've got their panties in a knot because someone has found a way to make add-ins work in the express version, and, they shouldn't. Microsoft made a mistake if they assumed the license agreement would deter people from doing this sort of thing. Besides, they've already given a huge part of the program away, why NOT give the add-in functionality away as well? You'd think add-in creators should be behind Jamie - their potential market opens up quite a bit! Unfortunately, things like this show that Microsoft continually fails to see the value in cultivating a hobbyist community.
Hell, I went to a MSDN talk and watched some goober drag and drop form controls for two hours just so I could get a copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard edition. Somehow I deserve it more than Joe Random, who has to limp along with the crippled Express edition. It doesn't make any sense.
As was pointed out, this is a dupe, though the original posting was a bit more balanced on its accounts. It included a link (http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2007/05/31 /visual-studio-express-and-testdriven-net.aspx) to the other side of the account. I really have no clue who is in the right here -- the M$ side claims that they asked him very nicely several times to not release his product for Visual Studios Express. I haven't read the policies regarding developing for Express, but I can understand that M$ wishes to keep a product differentiation. It seems to be a big problem internally at M$, as the sales people don't like giving the product away free, while the developers would like a free version to exist. So as a compromise, they release the Express version which has limitations. One of those limitations is that plug-ins can't run for it.
So even if he isn't breaking any policies, maybe he should play nice?
Personally I have a strong feeling that compilers in general should be free. I don't mean to get all Mac-Fanboi here (I come from a Linux background), but that's one thing Apple does very nicely. XCode is a very nice development suite that is entirely free (beer, of course).
The reasons for my belief? Well, when I was growing up I didn't have money to buy expensive (or any, for that matter) compilers. I had no choice but to steal a copy of BC++ 3.1 (and TP 6.0). It's true that the DJGPP compiler did exist, but using it and getting a decent editor at that age was difficult (and I had no interweb connection then). I'd probably still not know how to program if I hadn't stolen the compilers.
Which is to say, I think it's important for the ecosystem to have free compilers. It's good that M$ finally agrees with this. It's stupid that they want to put stupid restrictions on it. But given that, I guess it's their product, and they get to decide. And nowadays it's not like there aren't other systems/compilers out there. If M$ wants to ruin their ecosystem, then let them.
your a moron and missing the point - they rewarded him for the very work they are now accusing him of breaking his contract to create. this is dispite that fact he only used publiched api's in the first place, so the fact he has broken any agreement is dubious.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Welp, somebody go grab a copy of his code and mirror it forever on the internets. That'll put an end to that.
To one of the MSFT managers who's threatening this developer:
Subject: TestDriven.net
Jason,
Regarding your issues with the developer of the unit-testing framework which your product sorely lacks, I would suggest that you run this up the chain to the monkey-boy himself, *immediately*, and see to it that your lawyers send him an apology by the end of business on Monday.
Charging for development tools is a bloody stupid idea in the first place. That's a lesson that Apple learned from you, ironically. When did MSFT forget it? Hassling someone whose product fills a gaping hole in your own offering is not merely stupid, it's arguably a breach of your fiduciary duty to your shareholders.
But hey, you don't have to take my advice. I'm just someone who spent three and a half years working in Apple Worldwide Developer Relations, and is currently the head of engineering for exactly the kind of start-up that's been leaving Microsoft and going to Apple in droves over the last five years.
Oh, and let me add that as an AAPL shareholder, I really hope you *don't* take my advice. Every developer you piss off helps to push up the value of my portfolio.
There has of course, been no reply.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
What's stopping people from downloading the version that still works and distributing that?
If anyone actually cared, it could be the next 09 F9... Err, well, actually there's already the 45 5F key, but no one seems to care about it yet because I haven't heard about any mass C&D notices and a few stories passed quietly through Digg.
> Perhaps you can explain to me exactly how he violated Microsoft's contract by using the published APIs?
Because, uhhh, they said so and they will hire expensive lawyers if he doesn't cave!
(Well, that's what *Microsoft* said, more or less... If I have to read any more crap like that, I'm going to SKU their ecosystem.)
MVS Express. Once the code is out, do what any monopolist does.
Bully your way to where you want to be. Screw the developers, hobbyists and users.
The mountain of money must be manipulated, massaged and manicured into a megalith worthy of B.G.
"your a moron and missing the point - they rewarded him for the very work they are now accusing him of breaking his contract to create. this is dispite that fact he only used publiched api's in the first place, so the fact he has broken any agreement is dubious."
that is a blatant misrepresentation, they awarded him for making the product for the licensed visual studio product, all good and proper. He then made the plug in work for the express free edition which is blatantly against MS's product licensing for Visual studio. These are 2 seperate issues. They are not saying his product is wrong or bad or illegal if used within the bounds of the licensing of those products, he is refusing to stay in those bounds.
But facts will be facts. Corruption and rigging is everywhere.... from Wolfowitz to where-you-know. Hardly any point picking on a particular leader.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
No one tells me what I can and cannot code on my Linux machine and or software. I have always said
programming on a windows box is like programming with one hand tied behind your back. Nothing but artificial barriers to getting things done. I sure don't miss the days when I had to program on windows.
Got Code?
If these ( publically documented ) APIs exist in the express products, then isnt tacit permission being given for other developers to use them in products that implement the API? Its like having a door on a building, then saying "you cant go through this" in a eula. If you dont want people to use it, dont implement it in the first place.
http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/
Simple solution: abandon the product. Drop support not just for the Expression Edition, but for all editions of Visual Studio. Develop something equivalently cool and useful for Eclipse, where there are no worries of this happening.
Alternately, remove all the features that Microsoft has requested to be removed. Then add as many features as you can legally add. Then change the license so that your plugin can be used with Express Edition but so that it is a violation of your product's license to use the code with the non-free versions of VS.
We don't need Linux. We need OLPC (One Lawyer Per Coder). :)
This is like Microsoft huffing and puffing about its 240 Linux patents. They're full of shit here too, not being able to point out where the guy violated the license agreement, or how he used secret, non-publicly available information. They're like the RIAA. They don't have a case, and don't know when to shut up!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
One of Microsoft's greatest strengths, competitively, has been strong support for third party developers. They would do well to remember that that is a strategic advantage, and should not be squandered lightly.
It's pretty silly to have a free, "watered down" IDE/compiler for their product, and a paid-for Pro version in the first place. They only benefit by making world class development free for everyone. The money that they make on IDE licenses must be pretty marginal to the amount of Windows licenses they sell through strong third-party dev support.
It's even worse to have a pissing match with someone that made one of their products better, and was recognized by Microsoft for doing so.
I hope student developers everywhere take note.
--
$tar -xvf
I just read through all those emails, I have a real hard time feeling sorry for this guy. MS went way out of their way to try to work things out with him. Multiple conference calls, a jillion pages of emails, etc. In the end its pretty simple, he was enabling access to a feature that isnt available in the free version. Hes trying to confuse the issue by claiming that the API is public, which it is for the pay version. Its pretty obvious that he is violating the license. You can harp about how all software should be free and the pay features should be available in the free version I guess. If you want that you should not use MS's products. You should respect the license you agree to, whether it be the GPL or one of MS's EULAs.
I kind of feel bad for this MS manager, he really went out of his way to be nice to this guy who was clearly violating the license. Now people on slashdot are going to say all kinds of nasty stuff about him without actually looking closely at the issue and seeing that he was pretty clearly in the right.
In one early version of slashcode, you could create a "hidden sid". I think you created it by just going to the URL, kind of like a wiki, but I am not sure. Then you started posting comments to it.
Trolling in those days was cool and mostly actually funny, and usually more insightful and thoughtful than the normal posts. It was also more vigorously suppressed. There were a lot more immaginative trolls going on. On-topic rewrites of popular songs, Weird Al style, were common. Some guy named Gnarphelgager or something posted long fantasies, a chapter per post, into articles over the course of weeks -- they were pretty good but homosexual rape was involved disturbingly often. You could impersonate famous people, such as Bruce Perens, by selecting a username that looked similar, such as with the period at the end. They started displaying the userid to expose that, and the song parody guys wrote "Will Real Bruce Perens Please Stand Up". Look up the user OGG_THE_CAVEMAN for some quality shit. People actually got angry about the *BSD is dying post. Goatse, ascii goatse, and etc became more popular as trolling started go down hill. This guy named Klerk kept figuring out how to make posts that made the page very wide, so their was a scroll bar at the bottom of your browser, and he could basically kill any thread with a PWP (page widening post).
The trolls were so good you had to browse at -1, otherwise you saw just shit. It was a lot of to filter though. Trolls started posting links to their work in a hidden sid called k223320inchfan, but I found out about it just as a bunch of other loosers did, and they moved to sid=10gramspoppylatex and sid=3dollarcrackho and other places. The sids were mostly ruined by a guy named Scott Lockwood, AKA Vladinator, by incessently posting links to posts of his that weren't trolls, or at least, weren't funny and worth reading like all the other trolls.
Trolling those days was high class. OGG_THE_CAVEMAN was a physics undergrad at Harvard. This chick Peridia was actually Esther Sussman, a real-life Jew, a reporter, who you would occasionally see on TV asking a question at some press conference in DC, and most improbably of all, a female. The trolls I met in real life were an eclect bunch of scattered and smart people, some owned their own companies, several were homeless, OGG like I said was at Harvard, Perida was on TV, I was . . . I'm not telling you who I am. Even Vladinator at least owned his own business. Physically it seemed like a lot of trolls were in Austin and Dallas, Texas or Kansas City, but they were mostly spread all over pretty evenly. Surprisingly, I know of no non-American trolls. There is one dude who is a Mexican immigrant, but he's here now so it doesn't count.
There was (is ?) a Troll High Council the handed out some smack down occasionally. I think before the hidden sid thing, they maintained a secret mailing list to exchange troll links on and co-ordinate efforts. They apointed some guy named George who tried to install BSD to be "King of Trolltalk" to keep order, and that worked for a while.
I'm not sure when it totally became crap. Vladinator was targeted by a committee of sid safety known as "AV3" or "Anti Vlad Triad" but there were actually 4 of them, and he set up his own blog site about guppies or sporks or something and his fan club followed him, and the sid was cool again for a while. I think the breaking point was when Klerk blew his brains out with a shotgun. After getting over the shock of that mind-widening news, I was refered to the blogspot posting of his boyfriend, and had to comprehend that he actually was gay. Then I had to deal with the fact that a lot of these gay shit the trolls were talking about might actually be real, not just homephobic locker room type shit, and that some of these guys spewing out the gay rape fantasies might know way too much about my physical location -- and they have guns. Shotguns were purchased and I started using proxies to communicate.
I am skiping over a lo
IANAL, but I just read the whole EULA that comes with VS Express and it said nothing like "you are not allowed to develop add-ins or extensions to this software". The closest part is something about "not taking advantadge of the software technical limitations". Does anyone has a reference of where it is written that you cannot develop add-ins for the Express?
In essence, MS is taking the position that developers can use their APIs however they like - unless MS objects, at which point they get to withdraw the offending code without compensation, unless you count not being sued as compensartion.
Given that this could in principle happen to anyone extending MS software, this ought to be a chilling effect on use of MS APIs without a $10,000 annual partnership license. That sets a pretty high bar to participation. Let's say MS developers fall into four categories:
a. Smart and a partner. These will continue to contribute. They always did. (If you accept that they're not an oxymoron.)
b. Smart and not a partner. These will stop contributing because of the legal risk.
c. Dumb and a partner. These will continue contributing, but their contributions will be worthless.
d. Dumb and not a partner. These poor saps will continue contributing, because they're too stupid to realise they're in the gun.
All I can say is that if you screw with the bull, you get the horns. This developer would have had no problems if he'd been working in free software. That's the real lesson.
L
1. Weber just seriously damaged Microsoft's relationship with the community.
2. Weber was way, way out of line.
3. Weber should be dismissed.
4. This incident has made me doublethink our decision of going to ASP.NET for in-house app development.
5. Yet another reason not to get locked into proprietary software.
He waffles back and forth, first cooperating, then not, then cooperating, then not. The Microsoft guy has the patience of the Buddha..! By the end of it, the dev is actually threatening to re-enable the Express support if Microsoft doesn't keep corresponding with him.
Whew.
Yes, I've read the entire exchange. And honestly it looks a lot like the dev is being a dick about it.
Tomorrow is special. It's the deadline M$ gave him to remove Express support.
Thanks for pointing to the old article. The Dan Fernande's letter is priceless entertainment parodied in the following Power Point Slide:
Please Don't Help Express Users
by Dan Fernandez
Why do they try? There's no way for them to win this.
Let's see what happens next! Will they stop issuing Express, remotely disable it and then sue Jamie? Do they leave him alone and let it keep working with ... the appropriate apology? Ha!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Would be interesting if this restriction of the licence is valid in Europe (or in England especially).
In Germany we have something called "Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen" which limit the stuff a company can write into it's licences, maybe England has something similar.
What's better is that when I viewed this story the ad was for Microsoft Visual Studio. Irony makes itself.
Wait a few more weeks till the GPL3 is released then open source it and relicense under it. If MS was not mad before that ought to do it.
Got Code?
Now that lawyers are involved, it's pretty clear how Jamie violated their terms.
If that were so, don't you think his lawyer would have told him to take it down?
The only lawyers new to this game are those Jamie Cansdale got. It's safe to assume that Weber and Craig Symonds were bullying, I mean talking to, the M$ staff lawyers from the beginning.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I know that most slashdotters don't even want to hear Microsoft's side of the story, but for the few that might, read these two blog entries by Dan Fernandez:
/ visual-studio-express-and-testdriven-net.aspx
/ testdriven-net-and-express-technical-information.a spx
This gives MS's side of the story, including the two-year history of this issue:
http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2007/05/31
This follow-up blog entry gives technical details on the hacking required to get TestDriven.NET to run in VS Express:
http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2007/06/01
You might want to weigh both sides of the story before choosing one side or the other.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
You can tell from my sig I work for a commercial enterprise; I'm painfully familiar with how the law can get in the way of things. But this guy has a simple choice if he wants to maintain some form of principle:
First, be open source if you want to be truly principled in all of this. Just walk away - clearly you don't like the way Microsoft operates. Have some sympathy for people in M$ who spent one helluva long time trying to avoid bringing lawyers into the mix, tell them you think their business stinks, and walk away (and get the story out there on the web).
Or, work in the spirit of Microsoft's business model. It's what a decent business person does. It seems that far from being a hobbyist you are in fact selling this tool on your website. If you want to make money out of the Microsoft ecosystem, and they're willing to invest something like a year in explaining their point of view, don't get the lawyers involved. Work with them, respect their intent.
Trying to paint M$ as the bad guys here is wrong - if things are bad, they're bad on both sides. So the license wasn't clear, but M$ spent a lot of time explaining their point of view. But no, this guy Jamie wants to get his lawyer involved. He wants to force a guy running a development team to talk about law, not about the spirit of what they're trying to achieve. That's bullshit. Jamie never discloses the content of the conference calls, he just sticks to his "let's talk legal specifics" - and then bitches when M$ does indeed come at him with lawyers.
He might be making the mistake of many programmers, of course, who think that the law operates like code. Well, just like all code has bugs, so do all legal arrangements. And when you force things to go legal instead of having principles, you might just find that the justice system allows a bug fix to be applied before it comes to a legal conclusion. For example, the courts may find that the intent of the Express edition is clear, and that in the course of a year's worth of dialogue between the two parties any confusion was clearly resolved. They might agree with Microsoft's lawyers that Jamie's own offering of different commercial editions of the TestDriven product indicates a good understanding of Microsoft's commercial model. They might express sympathy for M$'s efforts to get a free version out for hobbyists, and forgive them for not having a 100% airtight technical and legal solution to prevent it from being extended. After all, it seems reasonable to expect that people can act in accordance to the spirit of an arrangement, without needing otherwise pointless effort being spent on perfectly restrictive measures, doesn't it?
The courts may therefore conclude that although Jamie has not committed such a blatant breach of contract that M$ can claim damages, he has violated the clear intent of the Express edition and must therefore restrain from offering TestDriven for Visual Studio Express.
Work to open source principles, work to business principles - both of those I can understand. Work to a principle something like, "it's your fault if I can get *my* lawyer to prove that *your* lawyers didn't put a sufficiently airtight contract in place", and you're just another weasel making the world a worse place for everyone.
MS will simply alter its Express tool to make it not possible to use the "offending" features in the next version of it. It will thus render this dude's tool obsolete.
Table-ized A.I.
<rant>
So you develop components for closed software with proprietary languages on commercial operating systems, and you're surprised when the powers that be want to control what your components do?
If you lock yourself to a vendor, and that vendor acts against your interests, you're screwed. If the vendor acts against its own interests, as is the case here, you may also get screwed. By locking yourself to that vendor, you've locked yourself to their decisions, as misguided as they may be.
It's obvious that control is more valuable to Microsoft than the developers who work with its systems. Tough. Either deal with it, or get out.
</rant>
Apologies for ranting, but although I understand that some people must develop on the MS platform, I simply cannot understand those who choose to voluntarily. The rant is directed at the latter.
*blinking cursor*
Weber blanked him
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Oh, the humanity.
It's the only post I've seen so far that actually understands the way businesses and lawyers work.
~96MB Here is ALL previous generations of TestDriven.NET plus a crawled copy of the Testdriven.net site.
he actually threatened to re-enable the Express support if Microsoft didn't clarify where his software violated the license agreement.
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
... if he's right or wrong if in the end he's bankrupted by legal fees? Inviting financial ruin just to support cheapskates does not sound like a creditable strategy in the world we live in.
This is a typical case where a small-minded employee works for a big company. The reason why this is so typical of big companies is that they screw up in one of two extremes. Either the employee becomes a complete obstructionist tool to compensate for their lack of self worth, or the company bestows a sense of we're-god-you're-nobody hubris. In either case, the partners get treated like sh*t. Microsoft has entered middle age, and is now burdened with a huge population of small-minded bitches who have no sense of what's actually good for the company and industry.
Actually I think the developer was pretty reasonable, considering that Microsoft never did two simple things:
1. Tell him exactly what in the license agreement he was violating.
2. Explain Microsoft's position to his users.
What's ironic is that the dev's users are MICROSOFT CUSTOMERS. So essentially, Microsoft is refusing to communicate with their customers.
Vote Libertarian
Does anyone else find the name of the legal firm (or is it the laywer as well?) "Olswang" rather amusing? or is it just my immature sense of humor?
TBH, i really dont care that much. I dont use VS or VSEE and am unlikely to in the future.
The thing that kinda bugs me about all of this is that he managed to get the add-on to work in the express edition without "hacking it" in anyway. Now, sure he's in violation of the EULA, but translate that to the OSS world -
"We've implemented a new piece of software we call Mutt Express Edition, with Mutt express your not allowed to attach binary files". Only the mutt keys to attach the files still work so you dont even realise your doing something wrong. One day, a Mutt rep knock's on your door and says "hi, we hear you've been attaching files in emails with Mutt against our license".
Bizare.
If you sleep with dogs you will get up with fleas. If he wants to be altruistic, if he wants to share and even make money with what he shares he should look into open source software where this is a part of the design.
If you try this with closed source software of an international quasi-monopolistic mega-corporation you should not be surprised if you get slapped should you do something they do not like or is against their rules.
We are used to much nastier stuff from MS than just threatening or ruining a single little programmer.
Thanks.
To summarize: MS is protecting the poor Express customers from the evils of complexity, because providing an addon that allows unit testing would overwhelm them ("The vast majority of our customer base, now with 14 million downloads, isn't even professional developers, its non-professionals").
Think of the poor customers -- they might download something they normally wouldn't even know it existed.
Neat.
Serves the guy right when he messes with idiots of that caliber.
It seems that there is no improvement or add on that MS could not claim was an evasion of a "technical limitation." The term is loosely defined and a number of companies release old versions for free because they are less technically capable--thus their bugs or general lack of features could be considered "technical limitations" compared to the current flagship product. Under such a circumstance a MS could claim that any improvement is a work around of a technical limitation--silly but legally defensible. I'd say the ELUA was tremendously over-broad.
... Linus calls a kernel developer "stupid".
> Apart from this, the legal status of EULAs is doubtsome in most of Europe.
... the software is protected by copyright law. Without a license agreement, nothing else gives you the right to use that software. ... without agreeing to the GPL's terms, you have no right to use the software.
... then you are forbidden to use that software ;)
> Some say the EULA is a contract. I ask, where is the signature ?
> Can I negotiate the contract with my local reseller ?
> The EULA is probably not valid in many countries.
You're missing an important point
That's why the GPL works for example
So if the EULA is invalid in your country, but the copyright laws are
While the express edition of Visual Studio is aimed at students. Surely if a student learns how to test software and write unit test then the whole industry will benefit? code quality will improve as it will be tested as it is developed.
Microsoft really are idiots at times when it comes to how they treat their customers and developers.
It seems Microsoft have this idea that because VS Express does not have a particular feature which a more expensive version does have, users shouldn't be allowed to add an equivalent feature to Express. This makes about as much sense as saying that because Windows XP Pro has a web server, it should be illegal to write a web server compatible with XP Home.
So, the Jamie guy extends Express. Which has a license forbiddeng extension, and extensibility features removed. He works around this removal of the features to create something which, while useful, is in violation of the license.
And it falls to Jason Weber to grapple with this even though he's really a dev -- poor guy.
So Jason Weber sends mail after mail and even arranges 30 mins with someone really pretty important. And Jamie just keeps on changing his mind and seeking advice and saying he'll remove the feature and then again that he won't remove it. And Weber never really runs out of patience.
I would have run out of patience around month 4 or thereabouts.
You may say that MS's license terms are silly -- but they are a for-profit company and they do have to sell some copies of the actual full price product. Even if MS's license terms are silly, the article is certainly being both disingenuous and depressingly immature in depicting Weber and the other MS staff involved as arrogant and condescending.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
At my company we have been going back and forth for the last 2 months trying to pick a platform for our next gen product. It is already decided it is going to be a total re-write, the old code is just too crufty. I've been advocating either Python or Java (preferrably python, but we've got a couple guys with more java experience, so that gets me a couple votes). Basically its a 50/50 split right now between python and .net (I showed off some django love, created something in 2 hours that took the .NET boys 4 days to create). But the microsofties have their love of... crashing? less speed? I dunno... Anyway, with this argument in hand I am 100% sure I can get the COO to sign off on Python, and I can get at least one of the Microsofties who is on the fence to convert over, and I'll take the day :)
Of course, we're a pretty small shop, but MS just lost at least 10 licenses of the highest end VS. Plus licenses for 15-20 MS SQL server licenses, plus server licenses, plus cals.... All in all, about $450,000. If you can't even be a MS VIP and not get sued, and not be allowed to extend or improve products, how are we going to get away with writing code and integrating with their APIs?
Yeah, I'm spreading a little FUD here (there really isn't anything we are doing technically that could get us in the same boat as this guy, but who knows, maybe next year there will be, and by then its too late), but alls fair in love and war... and this is love
in there very beginning, there was the glorious MEEEPT, I seem to remember.
the "express" editions are just a free IDE.
You'be been able to get the windows SDK for free from microsoft's site pretty much forever. The SDK has all of the command line tools, the compiler, the linker, etc, that the IDE sits on top of. It's perfectly usable if you're willing to use make files, batch scripts, and some editor that doesn't automatically compile for you.
It's about equivalent to the tools available for GCC, except not open source. That said, express is a lot better learning environment, since dealing with the command line tools and make files is a nuisance for anything but the smallest projects. Modern IDE's are just a better way of doing things, and definitely a lot easier to learn in.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Sue.. Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. ... Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers.
Sue
(Grit teeth, pound hands) Sue.. Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers!
thank you.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
...uses sentences like:
"Do you have a specific ask of Microsoft?"Er, that would be a question or request, you tosser.
And:
I would much prefer that we reached an amicable solution, but I don't feel that we're trending in that direction.Hateful. Just hateful. The guy probably spends most of the day synergising his potentials.
Q. What do you call 100 dead language lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
A. Microsoft UK
This is the crux of the matter: Microsoft doesn't want its free Express line to become too useful because then it will start competing with its non-free brethren.
On the other hand, the developer presumably wants to be able to sell his plugin to Express users because that increases the potential market for his product.
sigs are hazardous to your health
That basically was it. You should have left a note about Signal 11, imo, one of the greatest among us.
I was so fucking sad when trolltalk died.
Surprisingly, I found that the quality of the comments on the stories are now just average at best. I used to troll on stories that deserved it, and to provide real insider knowledge on other stories. It seems like if the existence of trolls created the existence of real insight, almost by reaction.
While I wasn't in the insider circle, I was quite an active anonymous troll. And wasn't in the US (english isn't ever my language).
Cheers,
--fred
You might want to weigh both sides of the story before choosing one side or the other.
l ook-microsoft-is-working-hard-on-building-a-commun ity.aspx
t hou-shall-not-work-around-technical-limitations-wh atever-they-are.aspx
Check out this blog by another MVP:
1) Look! Microsoft is working hard on building a community! - http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2007/06/01/
2) Thou Shall Not Work Around Technical Limitations! (whatever they are) - http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2007/06/02/
It's nice to see other MVP's showing concern to both sides of the story.
a tie with lots of bugs/critters on it and said, "yeah I wore this because windows is full of bugs and im tring to fit in"
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Have you been reading the same exchange I have? Jamie has been very clear about what he wants to know: in what way has he violated the license? Instead, he gets emails, conference calls and what not, but no answer to this very simple yet central question. He's made it clear that he wants to cooperate, even removing the support before he got the answer, but in the end, MS gave him nothing except insults and threats.
It's not the dev that's being the dick, it's the microsoft guy. He keeps wasting everybody's time without actually helping in any way.
Well, we all know trolls are hopelessly stupid and can only read Slashdot at 800 x 600, so to him, it must look much bigger.
u-bend
How about a moratorium on MS-oriented slashvertisements here at regular intervals? One day a week or one week a month would do it. Day after day, there are content-free articles posted just to keep MS in the headlines. Let's get back to technology and leave political parties like MS on the sideline.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
We can point out how vague the EULA is, and how EULAs are all bullcrap unenforceable, non-binding legalese anyway.
I don't see how that has much to do with it, though. This guy is distributing his own software, not Microsoft's. It merely happens to work with MS's software. That's Microsoft's problem, not his. It sounds like Ford complaining to me because I make some kind of add-on part that competes with their own factory parts.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
I don't know where the meme started that copyright tells you what you can *use*. It's purely about distribution (which puts the "copy" in "copyright").
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
I hope you're kidding, but it doesn't look like it. He's mocking everyone who takes their Microsoft hate seriously.
He even gave an example to the MS drone in his email correspondence, which is still up on his webserver.
http://www.mutantdesign.co.uk/downloads/ProjectRe
While I agree that it's technically possible, it's using an extension point which was not intended to provide full add-in access. Yes, no secret APIs were abused, no reverse engineering necessary. It violates the spirit of the agreement rather than the letter (which is that technical measures to prevent add-in use should not be circumvented). They removed the add-in manager and loader, which they figured should be enough. Mr Cansdale has effectively written his own add-in loader and used an alternate technical means (otherwise known as "hack") to get it executed. The fact that the "technical measures" used to prevent add-ins from loading were not implemented in a bullet-proof manner does not change the fact that they are present, and that they have been circumvented.
Yes, I think Microsoft are being dumb - being able to run the software you want is the sales driver for any OS, and being able to develop your own is the one sure way of getting exactly the software you want. Artificially restricting the features of your development tools so your IDE team can be a profit centre is of questionable value. Removing the ability of hobbyists to use professional testing features is fostering yet another generation of sloppy programmers who will have to adjust to become professionals.
But Mr Cansdale is in the wrong, IMHO. MS agreed to "play nice" by releasing a slick, functional, professional IDE for free, despite the risks of attracting antitrust attention. Mr Cansdale has responded by thumbing his nose at the spirit of that bargain. If he really wanted a version of his product that runs in a free IDE, he could have written a version for SharpDevelop without treading on the 300-lb gorillas toes. Or he could have just kept his hack to himself (he wrote it because he was using the Express edition to develop TestDriven.NET
By the way - the rumour that you cannot use Express to develop a commercial product is not true. There would be no point in imposing such a condition, simply because the compiler is free (beer) available. You have no means of proving that any
Point 4 in the following :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support
Yes, there are no licensing restrictions for applications built using the Express Editions.
-- but wait, we already have that stuff on eclipse. Still, he could do it for Mono.....
Rob Enderle's excellent new book: Everything I needed to know about Computer Science I learned in Marketing School
That's because money can afford transport.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
No, the whole EULA thing came about because of a court ruling that before software was used, it had to be copied from the distribution media into your computer. It is this act of copying which is subject to the EULA - so long as the software stays on the CD you can do whatever you like with it.
Stinks, but there you are - what you buy is the CD, but in order to use it in a computer you have to copy it into aid computer, and a massive raft of conditions is attached to this act of copying.
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
Weber should patent "A Method for Patching Technical Limitations in Microsoft Software". Then sue Microsoft for violating his patent in the full version of Visual Studio.
Wait... what are they doing to Bill? Oh wait... he dropped school... right.
I believe they left out the part where Weber says "I find your lack of faith disturbing."
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Take the job, but don't do it very well. I mean, do it less well than you would have done anyway.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
If Microsoft won't improve its software, Microsoft fanboys should help out --
Start by using Visual Studio Express to improve Microsoft Works to be a viable competitor to Office, with full support for all Office formats (this might entail gutting Works and then stuffing it with OpenOffice), then move on to strengthening Outlook Express, fixing all the bug-ridden security holes.
Yeah, THAT's the ticket!
What's interesting is your fond recollection, that trolltalk was noble and glorious council, that the sublime art of trolling was a magnificent contribution to Slashdot and Internet culture. To everyone else here, the trolls - regardless of education or social standing or media visibility - were a bunch of asshat punks dead set on ruining a good thing for everyone.
You laughed at the PWP hacks. We sighed at the interesting stories that were made unreadable.
You liked all the homosexual rape serials. We learned not to read anything more than a couple of paragraphs long.
You waxed nostalgic about goatse. We cringed and trained ourselves not to click links.
I'm sure that somewhere out there, a couple of guys are kicking back and talking about the time they lit a cat on fine - you know, the good old days. To the rest of the world, they're not a couple of new-millenium James Deans. They're just a couple of sociopathic misfits that don't care what they ruin for their own entertainment. Well, enjoy your happy memories of those halcyon days, but don't be surprised that no one outside your clique has the same take on events.
Slashdot is older and more mature and a little more boring these days. And to be honest, that's just fine.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
How can we as developers know when we are working around an intended limitation and when we are simply adding "value add" to a product?
If I create a multi-segment downloader extension for Internet Explorer, am I then working around an intended limitation in IE and will I get sued or is it perceived as something which enhances IE and thus avoid a lawsuit from Microsoft?
With this action they've really shown that developing for their platform (they own all the base components) is a very risky business for any developer except their own.
In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
Actually, one of Microsoft's strengths has been bullying and strong-arming anyone and anything that they perceive as a threat. Look at the recent patent fiasco--just another example where Microsoft made accusations in the broadest terms and then was not willing to back them up with specifics.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
its all so simple really:
.NET
1. People stop making extensions for microsoft studio
2. ???
3. No Profit!
You seem to have missed out on a lot of it. Klerck came around a good couple of years after the start of sid=trolltalk, which was started by osm and 80md and soon joined by Gnarphlager, Craig McPherson, 70%, jsm, dmg (both English BTW) and some Asian female poster whose name I can't remember. Crapflooding forced the move to sid=k22320inchfan which is where things really took off, and the mailing list started for things like meetups in real life and so on after crapflooders started posting a lot. By the time Klerck and co had pretty much crapflooded trolls out of the game, we'd all moved on to running Adequacy anyway.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Eventually they start focusing on quantity of products not quality. And by a "quality product" I mean a product that a consumer would want. It doesn't have to be the best, maybe just the best marketed.
Yeah; on a 21-inch monitor at 800x600, it might look like a massive *inch* long. :-/
Fuck you. My dick is huge.
wooooo
You may be an [ex]troll, but you can sure write interesting, funny stuff
you make it sound l33t...
Good on you for posting and you must have fun baack in the golden days.....(before i was around)
He does have a nice chip to cash in. The MVP award. Imagine going before a judge and saying "Yes they're suing me for Testdrive.net, but if it's so illegal why did they give me the MVP award"
Stick to using and developing plugins for Open Source developing environments. I used to program in VB. Got Burned. CodeBlocks is nice though. And the applications are portable.
was the incredible number of stories that became tagged with "haha." Maybe I'm not in the majority with this opinion, but it came off as childish, and it annoyed me that any time a story about something marginally bad happening to any of the slashdot appointed evils ran, I could always count on it being tagged "haha." It just put images in my mind of a bunch of 12 years going "LOL FAGS," and I hated that, of course, because to some degree I come here for the maturity of the discussion. Maybe I totally misinterpreted the sense of that haha, but either way, that is one tag I'm not sad to see go.
Cheers.
Relax I just want some peanuts.
And funny... (Maybe a bit trollish too.)
Rethinking email
Microsoft provided a good service by offering the express edition of visual studio. It would not make since to strip away features they have already developed in a package, while offering it for free, if a third party could come forward and develop the same features; creating a package that rivals Microsoft's.
Technically and legally Microsoft is right.
However, ethically Microsoft is wrong. If somehow this case does get to court, it may become another McLibel case, where the big Goliath facing David. They will win the case in court, but will probably loose in the long term. Microsoft knows that and that's why this case won't get to court.
One especially annoying thing in those emails is that this self-proclaimed "just a developer" Jason Weber kept calling this guy's work a "hack," and not in a good way. And it doesn't appear that old Jason spends very much time at all doing any actual developing.
The issue isn't about patience or cooperation or waffle or being a dick - it's about legalities and business.
Webber wrote "What makes this especially puzzling is that you are undermining the economic model that you rely on for your own products"
i.e. "play the game Jamie, play the game....don't rock the cute little scam we've set up"
Vote Libertarian
After RTFA'ing, RTFE(mails) and msdn blog, well neither party looks that bright.
TD.net guy: Where's the problem?
VS.net guy: You're using "hacks".
On and on, back and forth, until...
VS.dev.PR: You're an MVP...I take it back, sorry.
These two went back and forth for so long being dense, I'm ashamed to ask for that 20 minutes of
my life back for *reading* it.
But it comes down to TD being wrong (for the most part) and VS.net not saying "You're doing X, here is the
relevant part of the EULA forbidding X".
(Sarcasm mode = on)
He's using a code injection technique to make a Microsoft product usable?
INCONCIEVALBE!!!
(/sm = off)
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Is there a real difference between the Visual Studio Standard and Express APIs? Can this guy easily break the Express edition without also breaking the VS Standard functionality? (*This is not rhetorical*)
How much effort did Microsoft put into the Express edition? If Microsoft just crippled their VS Standard program, then it probably has all the same APIs in both.
I'm not an MS developer. I've only used Visual Studio C++ once to write a RIM Backberry app. So, I don't know any MS GUI/Windows APIs.
You can't add to VSEE? You can only develop in it? Well, why coudn't they SAY that?
... But now it can. limitation bypassed.
And why isn't running it under Mac (or Linux or other VM) "bypassing technical limitations"? Because, technically, it was limited to running under WinXXX not Mac or Linux or AS400 windows image, or
Like the 24 people involved in "owning" the off menu.
huge is relative, are you comparing it to your brain?
Holo-Official: You young 50 have been selected from the best, the brightest, and the most loyal of all His Shadow's subjects from thousands of planets. Among plain stones, you are bright, shining jewels. And after you receive your Awards of Merit today, you will return to your home planets, where you will dedicate the rest of your lives to helping His Shadow's light reach those unfortunate dark corners where it still does not yet fall. A shining example for every planet, you are hereby--
Holo-Judge: Sentenced to be devoured by Cluster Lizards, such sentence to be executed immediately!
Holo-Official: Among plain stones, you are bright, shining jewels.
Holo-Judge: You have been found guilty. Guilty, guilty.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
"Maybe Microsoft did intend the EULA to cover this case but failed to spell it out clearly enough. That would mean this guy is getting by on a technicality"
All of law is a "technicality". I can't copy a DVD because of the "technicality" of copyright.
I can't drink and drive because of the "technicality" of a blood alcohol level.
If MS (or anyone) intends to hold you to the "technicality" of a EULA, then they'd better pretty damned specific with what it covers. Maybe Microsoft intended that once you agreed to the EULA, you would never program again legally in Java. Well, they'd better spell that out in the EULA, and not say "well, we forgot to slip that in".
Seriously, you're not making even a little sense here. Not one iota.
What he did is build and add-on that -in passing- removes a deliberate limitation that Microsoft built into the "free" version of their development tools.
Now ... no matter how he did it, and what legitimately available tools or interfaces he used ... he still produced something that removes a technical limitation of the free software package he was working on. Now as far as I can see {but I am not a lawyer} that is a violation of the EULA. And what's more, Microsoft really has a tangible interest in him not doing this.
Moreover, his email correspondence with Microsoft shows that Microsoft pointed out to him that in their view he was violating the EULA, shows that he was *aware* of the EULA and said that he did want to abide by it.
All in all I fear that this is a lost cause. Even if I should be wrong in this, how much would it be worth to you to go to court with Microsoft on their reading of their own EULA? That sounds like a *really* expensive hobby.
I made approximately the same comments on said programmer's website and gently pointed him to the advantages of Open Source in this respect.
And where is it written that Microsoft has to provide legal advice? Where is it written that they must answer questions when they're clearly not satisfied with the situation? The Microsoft guy was consistent in his message right from the start: it's the dev himself who's been waffling the whole time. He didn't make it clear he wants to cooperate. He intimated he was going to do as Microsoft requested, and then suddenly changed his mind.. like five fucking times, and finally used the threat of further illegal activity as a lever to try to get Microsoft to cooperate *on his terms.*
It's Microsoft's copyright, it's Microsoft's software. They can do whatever the hell they want with it, and this guy doesn't seem to be interested in cooperating on *Microsoft's* terms, and so he draws out the exchange for.. what? Months now?
Not only was he threatening to re-enable Express support in his product if Microsoft didn't come back to the email exchange, but he even demanded they reinstate his privileges and access to the commercial software he had before they yanked it due to his non-cooperation.
Gimme a break.
It is pretty clear from the correspondence and from all the information around this situation that he did in fact violate what MS intended for the treatment of the Express products to be, and gave him ample time to deal with the situation appropriately, which he then violated. MS isn't always the big bad wolf guys.
"If you don't give me more free services and the time of your top developers, I'm going to do more illegal stuff."
Yea, that's a good way to convince Microsoft to do what you want them to.
Microsoft like most companies out there has a very short-term view. They give away a limited version of VS for free, with a licence that prohibits "circumventing" its limitations. What do you think would happen if people and smaller companies started developing plugins for the free VS version, thus extending its capabilities? Microsoft seems to think that its profitability would be threatened. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the result would be simply more users, more market share, for the free VS version. MS appears to believe that more market share of the free version would not translate into higher sales of the professional versions. This could happen in the short-term. However, in the long-term, the higher market share of the free VS version would get so much gravity that it would become an unstoppable snowball, getting bigger and bigger in the way. When you have lots of people using your free product, there are also lots of ways to make money from it. A large userbase is like a celebrity with lots of fame. Most celebrities find ways to translate their fame into wealth: They sell interviews, they sell their photos, they socialise with other wealthy celebrities, etc. In software, you can give away the code for free and earn money by selling services, certifications, training, books, participating in conferences, etc. Actually many open-source businesses such as GNU/Linux distributors work in this way. I think capitalising on reputation rather than a restrictive licence and the accompanying legal enforcement of it is a much more enlightened way to conduct business. By using a licence to force people to pay you is like poking them with a gun. You get their money by a combination of persuasion and threat: The performance of the product persuades the people that they need it, and the threat of legal action ensures that the only way they can acquire it is by making you rich. Using fame is a softer approach, where you persuade customers about the usefulness of the product, and then you create various para-products that support the main product. It's easier to persuade existing users of your product that they also need an additional paid-for para=product to enhance their experience of using the main product. Or, in other words, it's easy to make someone walk another kilometre if you have already persuaded them to walk along two continents. The only problem with the fame-based approach to business is that it takes time to monetise. This makes this approach unsuitable for the personal careerist interests of many managers, who want to show direct results on the bottom line from day zero. Therefore, many business managers focus only on whatever can create positive cash flows in their monthly or quarterly financial statements. After they have some quarters of positive results they go to the boss or the investors begging for a promotion. Short-term profitability may help their career (especially if the boss or the investors are clueless about business) but actually hurt the business in the long-term (not of their problem, in fact, as the business isn't theirs - managers are just elevated employees and wouldn't give a fsck about whether the company survives the next recession - not everyone is like this of course but I suspect that this must describe the majority). With such dynamics in place, it's no surprise that most companies are as clueless as MS in managing their reputation, an endeavour which necessitates a long-term bird-eye view. Microsoft has not learnt to conduct business with a soft reputation-based approach, and it may never do. In fact the company has a long track record of excellence in creating negative reputation of itself, even among people who wish to play within its own ecosystem. Whether a licence has been violated must be taken into account within a larger more all-encompassing business view. I'm not arguing that this guy isn't in the wrong, they might be. What I say is that Microsoft should re-consider its very basic business model (they code software, package it and sell it under
sorry, it just made me laugh... :)
I don't feel like it...
See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/06 /most_sued_profe.html
Bye,
Oliver
I think it is in the same book that says that you have to do whatever a competitor says just because they say so.
He didn't make it clear he wants to cooperate.
Except for the part where he actually co-operated (that was right before the part where MS ignored him for a full year).
like five fucking times
2==5? Say, do you work for Microsoft?
petitio principii. The entire discussion revolved around whether and why his activity was illegal so I can only assume that by "further" you meant "alleged". In fact, the portions of the EULA mentioned by Jason Weber are not the same as the (single) section referenced in the C&D. In other words, JW was blowing smoke.
It's Microsoft's copyright, it's Microsoft's software. They can do whatever the hell they want with it
You DO work for Microsoft! If it is their software, why don't they just change it themselves?
sigs are hazardous to your health
You are as much an idiot as those other children who has to post FIRST!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"A technical limitation" is, in reality, about "Man" vs. Nature: the problem of always imperfect technology.
In this EULA and in the MS blogger's doublespeak, "a technical limitation" suddenly changes its meaning to "limiting you with our technology": "Man" vs. Management (= the Law).
By the same reasoning, that users don't RTFA, they cannot reliably tell anything and should therefore notbe allowed to assign any tags.
It is hard to make a case that tagging is good except for dupes. Either tagging is inherently broken as a concept or it isn't and dupe is a valid tag.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why?
I have had a couple of friends die from schizophrenia.
OK, so they committed suicide.
Many schizophrenics do. They cannot stand the pain.
Do you know what schizophrenia is? What its symptoms are?
Ever met someone whose child was schizophrenic?
Ho Ho! It's fun! Better than Down's Syndrome!
Why not just say "Cancer is one word for it" instead?
.
- aqk
F U
Headline: "Gotcha!" (ripped from their Belgrano headline - they might even use the same photo). The "technical" (ha!) part of the story goes on page 2, so that readers get distracted by page 3 and don't care.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yes. :)
No doubt they would go totally OTT.
Personally I feel that this is a battle that MS should never have allowed to develop. I'm not really sure that they would be wise in getting as far as court. English law is based on precedent (as I understand it; IANAL), so I'm not sure they would want to see their EULA tested in a case like this.
The best thing they could do (for their own point of view) is to buy the app for a generous sum (half a million or so) and bury it. Damage limitation time, I think!
"I'm a snake if we disagree"-Jethro Tull, Bungle in the Jungle
Where is it written that Microsoft has to threaten and bully? It's not about what Microsoft has to do -- they're free to bully as much as they like, and they've been doing so for most of their existence -- but they promised assistance, and the only thing the microsoft guy offered in the end was mockery and insults.
Now where is it written that people who have done nothing wrong have to jump through Microsoft's hoops?
On the contrary, it's the microsoft guy who's been waffling. He claimed license infringement, but never explained properly how what parts of the license were infringed. Microsoft doesn't have to do anything when they're not satisfied with the situation, but they shouldn't be complaining if others don't do anything about changing the situation either.
He did. He cooperated, on the blind assumption that the Microsoft guy was right and would provide the required quote. Only when they ignored him for months without living up to their promise or providing any kind of information at all, did the dev revert to the original situation.
Microsoft never showed how his activity was illegal. That's all they had to do, but instead, they blindly relied on bullying and blind obedience. According to the dev's lawyer, there was no illegal activity whatsoever. Microsoft offered no information that proved there was. The dev repeatedly told MS that he would gladly do what they asked if only they did that, and the microsoft guy kept going around the issue and assumed the dev would do it anyway, even if he got insulted, bullied and ignored. That's simply not the way the world works.
It's microsoft that ignored him for months. Yes, it's Microsoft's copyright, and it was in no way violated by the dev. Microsoft did claim that the license was violated, but never made it clear how. The clauses they claimed were violated, didn't say what they hoped they said.
Well, duh. That's the whole point. Microsoft didn't held up it's part of the bargain, failed to explain how the dev violated the license, so it's kind of obvious that eventually the dev wants to put that support back in. He made it abundantly clear that he would prefer to support the Express version.
In absense of any license violation, he was basically just being nice to Microsoft because they asked him something. He wanted to know what he would get in exchange. He got only insults, so he decided to stop cooperating. He's not required to be nice to Microsoft, you know?
I am using Pigeon Express you insensitive clod!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I've been programming for some while now, started with basic, grew to C++ and TP/BP 6.0 and 7.0, assembler, Perl, etc.. and always have found out that programming is a creative way how to get things done you normally cannot get done. Finding ways and methods of getting that thing done which you dearly want to have done.
.. every developer his own choice and taste and am pretty sure these applications built by Visual languages are tweakable till the bare bone...
.. that's pure creativity ..
.. am I so glad I didn't grow further into Microsoft products (and law and bullying).
Since Windows95 came out I stopped with programming; because a lot of that creativity was taken away by "visual" languages where you could practically drag-n-drop your modules to your code; which is more (to my opinion) a spaghetti-form-of-coding instead of freeflow programming. But
Still, what Microsoft seems to be doing here is to limit any creativity of a programmer how to get things done that were previously not possible; even because of the limitations set by Microsoft; this guy did his work as developer. He fixed the technical limitations he had with his own programs on his own way
After showing that kind of creativity he got an award and got hit in the face,
Am I glad I jumped the Perl/Python bandwagon
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
"If you don't give me more free services and the time of your top developers, I'm going to do more illegal stuff."
Yea, that's a good way to convince Microsoft to do what you want them to.
By "more illegal stuff" you, of course meant "whatever it was that you told me to stop doing without giving any real reasons". Dont get me wrong. I like the way you put it: its a great sound bite . Unfortunately, it has no basis in reality.
Whatever you want to call it, it was clearly more effective than the first thing he tried:
"Since you've been rude, vague and intimidating, I'll bend over for you and hope for a reacharound."
Rude? Did you even read the correspondence? They asked him politely like a dozen times, and he lags, changes his mind, and sends them conflicting messages the whole time. They were polite and obvious about what they wanted right from the start.
I'm having trouble understanding how you think the idea that what the guy is doing is illegal is even up for debate. It M$' copyright. They can do what they want to do with it. Their licenses are clear. Their lawyers were clear in the follow-ups. It's obvious the lawyers were a last resort. They offered to let him meet with bigwigs. They discussed, they approached him on *his* terms multiple times, and each time he delayed, changed his mind, and generally behaved poorly.
Bah. He either plays by Microsoft's rules, or he doesn't play with Microsoft's stuff. It's as simple as that. Why's that so hard for you to understand?
"Threaten and bully"? Now you're just being silly wasting my time. Either your English comprehension is impaired, or you are deliberately baiting me.
Simple points:
1. They explained quite clearly that he was in violation, that he should talk to his own lawyer, why they couldn't answer his legal questions, and then their lawyers were painfully clear about how he was in violation.
2. He didn't cooperate. Read the fucking thread. They were consistent and clear in their message from the start. He kept changing his fucking mind. Stop spreading FOSS wannabe FUD.
3. You're apparently not a lawyer. Or, if you are, you're a very bad one, and God help your clients.
This thread is over. I will not respond again.
You are wasting your time responding to ancient discussions. My English comprehension is fine, i'm just pointing out simple facts.
The MS guy claimed he was in violation, but he didn't explain how. It's the same thing as with those 235 unspecified mystery copyright violations in OSS code. You can cry all you like, but if you're unable to explain how your license, copyright or whatever is being violated, you should shut the fuck up and go home. Otherwise you can bully anyone into jumping through your hoops without any legal grounds, which unfortunately is an all too common occurance in this lawyer-driven society. Time to put a stop to that.
He did cooperate. Read the fucking thread. He only stopped cooperating when the MS guy refused to tell him how he was in violation. MS was expecting blind obedience and thought they got it, but that's not how it works. Not how it should work, anyway.
Well duh. I'm a programmer. What do you think I'm doing on slashdot?
But to get back to the central issue: the license doesn't say he wasn't allowed to extend the free version. The license does state you're not allowed to circumvent technical limitations, but the dev didn't do that. He used an open and well documented interface. His lawyer (who I'm sure is a lawyer) told him he wasn't in violation. If MS insists that he should obey them, then they should provide a bit more evidence that they're actually right.
You realise you were already responding to a week old discussion, right?