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MS To Finally End OEM Licensing For Windows 3.11
halfEvilTech writes with an excerpt from Ars Technica's story on the sputtering out of Windows for Workgroups 3.11: "Believe it or not, that headline is not a typo. John Coyne, Systems Engineer in the OEM Embedded Devices group at Microsoft, has posted a quick blog entry that broke the bad news: as of November 1, 2008, Microsoft will no longer allow OEMs to license Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in the embedded channel. That's exactly 15 years after it shipped in November 1993! Poor OEMs have so much to put up with these days; first Windows XP, and now this!"
Are you saying that discontinued products should be made available for free or that they should be open-sourced? If it's the former, that's one thing (though that still doesn't necessarily free the original manufacturer from any license or patent obligations they may have made). If it's the latter (which is what your last sentence makes it sound like), that would be a major issue, since the underlying technologies (which themselves are usually patented or licensed) are often used in the newer products that replaced the older ones.
This guy's the limit!
Discontinued products should be made available consistent with the spirit of the
original intent of US Copyright and the actual relevant Constitutional language.
Anything that patented is already "protected" in terms of "personal private property".
Further obfuscation simply isn't necessary. Furthermore, it's entirely moot since
anything patented has to be disclosed anyways (there are no secrets involved).
There may be complications in using the source but that's a situation that exists
already with Free Software.
If it's not worth the author keeping for sale anymore then it should quickly enter
the public domain. Abandonware should quickly go PD across the board.
It's really the only way to make quasi-perpetual copyright not stiffle new creators.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Companies believe, and often jusifiably so, that it makes little business sense to do this. Even though they abandon it now, they reserve the right to "unabandon" it later (granted this makes more sense for properties like out-of-print books than for out of date software titles). Maintaining the rights allow companies to do things like charge you ten dollars to play the original Super Mario Brothers on your Wii. Second, since the old software can do some of the same things as the new software, consumers could for certain applications, go with the public domain OS when otherwise they would be forced to pay for the current OS. Microsoft does not want to be in competition with it's own now-profitless product, that would just be silly.
That would make software "free", but the people who create it less so. Shouldn't I be allowed to choose how I distribute my software? Let the market decide.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
With gas at $4.00+ per gallon, that horse-drawn carriage is looking more and more appealing.
That linus torvaldes guy isn't selling linux, so I guess that should be public domain as well?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I don't agree.
I have a problem with the idea of software becoming open sourced just because the users want it. If you knowingly agree to be bound by a license, you should honor that agreement unless the licensor acts in an unconscionable way, and then your own actions should only be sufficient to address the specific issue. Everybody knows vendors stop supporting old software. You can't complain if the vendor gives you a couple years to upgrade and then pulls support, because you bought the license to use the software knowing this could happen.
This is important. This is why businesses and individuals should use open source software wherever possible: in order to control their future. Much of the open source software I use is because I don't like the license restrictions of the proprietary alternative.
People and organizations should support open source and free software rather than make deals with proprietary vendor then renege on them. And if people should be so cavalier with licenses, then the same applies to free licenses as well.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And it goes to show that Stallman is inevitably right.
There's no reason why bits "rot". The only reason is because that software is closed source, and the ONE company ordained to maintain it refuses to do so. This isn't a problem in Free Software, where anybody can pay a programmer to maintain it to X date, regardless if the original creator is long dead (or imprisoned).
This isnt just aimed towards old unmaintained versions of Windows, but also aimed at every piece of code anybody uses that is not documented and opened. If it's closed source, the user is a serf.
... and that's why your Windows 3.1 systems were stable. The stability of Windows 9x and earlier versions was susceptible to memory leaks due to their limited USER and GDI space. If your ace programmer had ported his app to Windows 95, it would have been at least as stable. The tick count problem was a stupid bug, true; but it was easy to fix and a patch was released for both 95 and 98. You could easily point to all the Y2K bugs in Windows 3.1 and call it "unstable" too, if you didn't patch it.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
they must have (had) a different kind of Windows 3.1 in your country.
The problem is there is no reasonable definition of Abandonware. Look at an old 1980s arcade game. It's 25+ years since someone made the unit. But there is likely 1. a thriving used market. 2. the current copyright holder for the ROM might want to make some money off selling it as part of an emulation package. This happens all the time, especially now that "retro" sells. All the current game console seems to have a "collection" or "anthology" with a bunch of old games on it. Those have to be licensed and someone is making money off selling those old Midway, Sega, Namco, Taito, etc games.
One issue worth bringing up is that computer software generally doesn't have much aftermarket support. Especially for things like Windows which have a license that is usually non-transferable. Selling your used XP discs seems to be (almost) as illegal as making a copy to install on another computer. Seems strange to me. (I think if you want to call it "stealing" you should at least require that all of it be fully transferable and have no restrictions over physical property).
Of course it is always possible for congress to make a law that would shorten copyrights for software, and thus make abandonware possible. Amend the law so that it automatically expires after 10 year of your last publish date would be reasonable way to do abandonware. But still have it expire if it exceed some time from the date of creation like it currently does (what is it now, like 10,000 years? :)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Seems to me it would be a fair enough rule that software with a sizeable installed base that is abandoned by its creators should be opened to the community, so it can live on or die on its own merits.
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree somewhat with this idea - though perhaps more with the specifics added to it by others, than your original idea quoted here.
First, how do we define "abandoned" in this case. The best hard line I can think of off-hand is "when official support is discontinued". But if that is where the line would be drawn, it puts software developers/publishers in a very difficult position. Their own older software because their biggest enemy and competition, like WinXP vs. Vista, except to a much greater extent. For an example, let's bring Win2K into the mix. If Win2K was now legally free to obtain and use because of support being discontinued, how many customers would have purchased XP? And more, how many would have purchased Vista? For the most part Win2K can do all the essential functions that either of the newer versions can do, and with a lot less bloat and overhead to boot. Many users still prefer Win2K, even at an equal price point. So with such an "abandonware is free" rule, now the software company has to tread a very careful path, so as to make their next version just enough better to entice users to switch from the old version, but yet not so good as to make a better version unfeasible. Service packs and major patches would become history; such updates would have to become a new pay-for version of the product. Otherwise, the only option is to keep supporting old versions of software merely so it doesn't become "abandonware" (and therefore free). Even worse would be if the hard line for becoming abandonware is whether or not the product is still sold by the publisher. Then they would not only be locked into perpetually providing support, but also keeping the old product available for sale to compete with the newer versions.
I think the real issues here that need to be addressed are software patents and ridiculous copyright durations. If those get properly fixed, abandonware would become free by default at an appropriate time.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
I have a problem with the idea of software becoming open sourced just because the users want it.
The entire concept of intellectual property (by which I include both patents and copyrights) exists precisely because "users want it" - ie, We-The-People grant the creator a limited monopoly to encourage that entity to do their thing.
Without the "limited" part of that, they, not the users, have broken their end of the bargain.
By explicitly no longer allowing us to license WFW311 (or releasing it into the wild for free), Microsoft has done no less than exploited our beneficence - They've gotten their cash, now they want to take our shared cultural resource away from the very society that allowed them to gain by it.
Unacceptible.
I would argue that any license that restricts the 4 fundamental software freedoms is unconscionable.
But your argument would be a pretty weak one, unless you were forced to accept the license. There is very little software you can't live without, and these days there are free alternative to almost everything. You might prefer Windows to Linux, but that's no excuse to obtain Windows under false pretenses.
I'd bet even RMS, who thinks proprietary licensing is evil, isn't going to run an unlicensed copy of Windows in QEMU just so he can test software on it. This is the kind of thing programmers rationalize doing all the time; they're doing Microsoft a favor. Maybe Microsoft secretly agree with them. But the more strongly you believe in the principle, the more up front you should be, even if it becomes confrontational. It's not civil disobedience if you do it in secret.
Some contracts are unconscionable because the nature of the terms were misrepresented to a party that could not be expected to understand them. There was a recent case in the news of a financial advisor who convinced a 90 year old to take money out of the annuity on which she was living and put it into an annuity that matured in sixty years. That's unconscionable. If you license proprietary software, you know darned well you aren't allowed to install it on more than one machine, so you shouldn't agree to that if you think it's wrong.
Some contracts are unconscionable because they are so bad for society they are repugnant. You can't sell your organs, or agree to become an indentured servant. Perhaps you think proprietary software licenses fall into this category. Then don't agree. It's at least as unconscionable for you to offer your kidney for sale to somebody on dialysis with no intention of following through than it is for that person to offer money for it.
It's unconscionable for you to agree to an unconscionable agreement with no intention of following through. It is not only dishonest, it encourages the very things you are supposedly against. If it weren't for "piracy" in the 80s and early 90s, Microsoft would never have become as powerful as it did.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I would like all software to be FOSS, but I don't think it should be law.
I do think that source must be published and on file in the Library of Congress in order to receive copyright protection, though. Source must be published so that we can properly study and be enriched by the work. Software is an odd case that the founders could have never foreseen. Really what use is there of the Windows 1.0 binaries when the source is gone? It'd be like trying to read a book without the words, yet the book still being useful. Published source is fundamental to the progress of science and useful arts.
I don't accept is copyright protection on top of patent protection on top of trade secret protection with an EULA thrown in to cover all the bases.
If any proprietary vendor thinks publishing the source is a bad deal, they can always use contract law to keep their customers from copying purchased software. And I would have no problem with that so long as it was a real contract, not a click-thru "contract".
In the end, copyright is supposed to benefit society, not authors of creative works.
Hey, now: so many arguments these days are predicated upon assertions that your free will is somehow constrained.
Fortune forbid that anyone take responsibility and think clearly these days. How would we ever hold elections?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Making it free would cost Microsoft money. They would have to host it somewhere and pay the costs of someone accessing it for free. As mush as I dislike Microsoft, that is not fair. Those who wanted it, paid for it. Microsoft has supported this product longer than most other companies with their respective software.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
IBM is a great test to determine if someone knows anything about IT beyond what they read on Slashdot.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.