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Microsoft To Issue Blanket License To NGOs
itwbennett writes "Following a recent report that Russian police have used software copyright raids to seize computers of activist groups, Microsoft announced it will issue a blanket software license to nonprofit groups and journalist groups outside the US. The new blanket license should remove software piracy as an excuse for 'nefarious actions' by enforcement authorities, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith wrote. The new license 'cuts in one swoop the Gordian knot that otherwise is getting in the way of our desired handling of these legal issues,' he said. 'The law in Russia (and many other countries) requires that one must provide truthful information about the facts in response to a subpoena or other judicial process. With this new software license, we effectively change the factual situation at hand. Now our information will fully exonerate any qualifying [nonprofit], by showing that it has a valid license to our software.'"
In soviet russia, software licenses you?
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Am I supposed to know what a "blanket software license" is?
If American English is your primary language, yes.
If not, know that here in America, we license our electric blanket software (the programs that tell a blanket when its getting too hot). Sure, some hip nerds install Linux on theirs so they can literally feel the system load, but most people just think of electric blankets as appliances.
Weird shit has been happening to me since I started taking Ambien!
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The general story could be summed up with this:
MS Exec: Oh shit, our name is being dragged through the mud big time and we didn't really lift a finger to stop it happening. This is bad. This is costing us more money in lost reputation than it would cost us just to give everyone a license. Joe, get right on it!
Joe: Yessir! Free copies coming right out.
MS Exec: Also, can we put a spin on this to say that we are supporting victims, journalists and fighting organized crime and extortion?
Joe: Sure thing boss. Spin is being added now!
MS Exec: Righto, that's the morning done for me, time for a coffee. Hmmm, Joe, how can we squeeze some more money out of people?
Joe: Well, with all that free time now, perhaps we can set the lawyers on the EU again? What about we put Google through another adwords privacy scandal? Maybe we just give them a week off and feed them some more children, you know it's been almost a whole month since they last tasted child flesh...
MS Exec: Make it happen Joe. You will go a long way here someday...
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
I would respond but my copy of Windows Server is holding my family hostage.
OMG this could actually be the first decent thing we've seen Microsoft do in ages....or at least since they pulled the Kin off the market.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
I trust only the ABACUS I WHITTLED from a tree I GREW MYSELF!
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
n/t
That was a strangely non-evil thing for Microsoft to do. My world is shifting.
Not so strange, it's just step 3 in their "How to fix our public image and steal back clients from Google" strategy.
1. Announce we love Open Source.
2. Help with some Linux bug fixes.
3. Fight some anti democracy thingy in Russia or China.
4. Get massive press coverage from 1, 2 and 3.
5. ???
6. Profit