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.

Comments

Mod me flamebait all you like

[Weaselmancer]

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?

Re:Just read up on all of it a few hours ago...

[Sam Ritchie]

As the other replies state, the clause (in the Express EULA) is: 'may not work around technical limitations of the software'. Microsoft are assuming:

1. Jamie at some point clicked through the Express EULA and is forevermore bound by it (ie uninstalling wouldn't terminate the contract).
2. The 'no plugins' directive will be construed by the court as a technical limitation. Given they've published APIs, this is probably open to interpretation. Someone in the dupe discussion mentioned that the one-sided nature of EULAs means the UK courts must interpret it in the way most favourable to the party that had no input - no idea how accurate this statement is.
3. Distributing the software to others constitutes 'working around the technical limitations'. IANAL, but on the face of it I can't see how this applies to Jamie.

Alternatively, perhaps Microsoft think his original alleged violation of the license (during development) somehow disqualified him from distributing a VS.NET plugin - this would probably require proving the plugin is a derived work as Microsoft would have no authority over its distribution otherwise. I can't see them doing this as I would think it would have serious repercussions for their other customers.

Personally, I think this clause is overly broad and Microsoft's action on it is quite worrying. If they win here, basically all they need to do is claim that something you've written is 'working around a technical limitation' and they can control your product distribution. Let's not forget that the MSTest functionality in the pricey VS 2005 Team Edition is effectively in competition with Jamie's TestDriven.NET.