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Is Onlive Pirating Windows and Will It Cost Them?

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-better-to-beg-for-forgiveness-than-to-ask-for-permission dept.

An anonymous reader writes "When Onlive, the network gaming company, started offering not just Microsoft Windows but Microsoft Office for free on the iPad, and now on Android, it certainly seemed too good to be true. Speculation abounded on what type of license they could be using to accomplish this magical feat. From sifting through Microsoft's licenses and speaking with sources very familiar with them, the ugly truth may be that they can't."

9 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Service Provider License Agreement by jesseck · · Score: 4, Informative

    They are probably using the SPLA for this. That allows you to license software for your service on a monthly basis.

    1. Re:Service Provider License Agreement by satchelmouth · · Score: 5, Informative

      Windows 2008 Remote Desktop Services with Remote Desktop Experience pack (which gives you essentially a complete Win7 experience) is how you do it under SPLA. That would be legal under SPLA.

    2. Re:Service Provider License Agreement by howardd21 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I am with a Microsoft Gold Partner, and we host and use the SPLA. The fact is that they would need to use these licenses at a minimum:
      * Remote Desktop SAL (6WC-00002) @ 3.45 a month
      * Office Standard (021-08183) @ $10.30 a month


      That is $13.75 a month per user they need to pay Microsoft + all the other costs for hardware, support, etc.

      --
      no comment
    3. Re:Service Provider License Agreement by DavidRawling · · Score: 4, Informative

      From what I recall, SPLA is not concurrent usage, it's "per account per month".

    4. Re:Service Provider License Agreement by jamesh · · Score: 4, Informative

      From what I recall, SPLA is not concurrent usage, it's "per account per month".

      That's pretty much it. You count up the number of users that used the product over the month and tell Microsoft.

  2. from TFA by sdnoob · · Score: 4, Informative

    (i know, i know.. i will punish myself later)

    Joe Matz, Corporate Vice President of Licensing and Pricing went on the record with âoeWe are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved.â

    i read this as being: onlive is not presently legit but microsoft is playing nice (i.e. squeezing them for every last nickel without involving more than a few lawyers) for now -- until they lose patience (or feel threatened by being beating to market by an upstart.. not once but twice) and bring the sledgehammer down on onlive's entire business model -- windows and office desktop and gaming platform (xbox and windows games, at least)

  3. Re:They applied for a site license by javascriptjunkie · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, but there's no actual proof that onlive has done anything wrong. The terms are not public. When did we start accepting rampant speculation as journalism?

  4. Re:real ugly truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The United States was booted off the UN human rights committee and replaced by China out of its unwillingness to address fundamental problems like having the highest incarceration rate of any UN member nation, no journalist shield laws, carrying out a forced sterilization program on its citizens, and for numerous actions that are against the Geneva convention such as the torture of political prisoners and secret courts where people are indefinately detained or even executed.

    Source? According to the Human Rights Council's website, the US and China are both current members.

    Also, although the US has no federal shield laws for journalists, most states do (and I really doubt China has any).

    Clearly the US government has committed human-rights abuses, but are you seriously arguing that China has a better record on human rights than the US?

  5. Re:They applied for a site license by Dahan · · Score: 5, Informative

    As an SPLA provider I can confirm there IS a win7 license available under SPLA.

    Huh, maybe you should let Joe Matz, VP of Worldwide Licensing and Pricing at Microsoft know, since he says, "However, it is important to note that SPLA does not support delivery of Windows 7 as a hosted client."

    He also mentions, "We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved," which implies that OnLive is not currently properly licensed.