I have looked at this license, too. I thought it was screwy, but I believe it only applies to the free version. I could be wrong, but I think the license is quite different for commercial distros of the C++ compiler. If anyone else can confirm/disconfirm this, it would be helpful.
First, this quote from the bottom of every/. page: All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Does this indicate that, if the copyright owner so desires, any offending instance of alleged copyright violation should be removed? As the copyright holder of this post, I don't have the ability to delete it. Nor would/. delete it if I asked. Should MS be given special consideration because they are a corporation? Should they be given special consideration since they are the owner of the copyright, but not the originator of the post containing the copyrighted material?
Does fair use apply here? Fair use traditionally has not been understood to cover quoting, en bloc, the entirety of a piece intended to stand alone. If the entirety of the Specification has been quoted in/. posts, then it would seem to reason that this does not constitute fair use.
Second, in the notes generated with every "Post Comment" page, this quote: Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Copyright infringement is illegal. Whether you want to challenge DMCA or not, copyright will not go away anytime soon. (For good reason, I might add. Corporations abuse copyright principles, which were intended to protect original "authors" from the government and large corporate entities.)
Here is where things get sticky. Has the/. adminstration (roblimo, cdrtaco, etc.) at any time deleted posts, even partially? Then MS may have a legal leg on which to stand in court, as it indicates that/. takes editorial control at times. If not, then it may be argued by andover that/. is a public forum. In any case, whether exceptions have been made or not, it is clear that/.'s policy is simply to moderate illegal posts down. It is clear that/.'s policy is not to delete illegal posts (or any other violation of the above).
Clearly, andover would be reckless to ignore MS's request simply because most of us (myself included) hate MS. My vote (FWIW) is for the/. editors, in consultation with andover's attorneys, to do what they think is best. Of course, if this means giving MS the finger, all the better!
Perhaps as far as the look-and-feel of the desktop, Windows has it right. I'm willing to grant that for the sake of argument, though I tend to think that there could be something better out there. As far as infrastructure, I'm not sure Windows is the best thing out there.
Here is one example. As a user, I absoulutely don't want my application X to crash for no apparent reason. "No apparent reason," BTW, is the only thing that I, as an end-user, know what to call it. What I, the end-user, do not know, is that the new application Y, which is unrelated to X as far as I, the end-user, am concerned, replaced a shared library (.dll) file with an upgraded version of the same file. But the upgraded version of the library causes X to crash. That, friends, is a very poor user-interaction model. Either share libraries like we learned to share in kindergarten, or do not share at all.
There are tons of other examples of why Windows is not the epitome of intuitive user interaction. Open Source has the means to create a solution, but it needs an end-user feedback loop, or it will never be more than a small subset of cool toys for geeks.
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I have looked at this license, too. I thought it was screwy, but I believe it only applies to the free version. I could be wrong, but I think the license is quite different for commercial distros of the C++ compiler. If anyone else can confirm/disconfirm this, it would be helpful.
Obligatory: IANAL.
First, this quote from the bottom of every /. page:
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Does this indicate that, if the copyright owner so desires, any offending instance of alleged copyright violation should be removed? As the copyright holder of this post, I don't have the ability to delete it. Nor would /. delete it if I asked. Should MS be given special consideration because they are a corporation? Should they be given special consideration since they are the owner of the copyright, but not the originator of the post containing the copyrighted material?
Does fair use apply here? Fair use traditionally has not been understood to cover quoting, en bloc, the entirety of a piece intended to stand alone. If the entirety of the Specification has been quoted in /. posts, then it would seem to reason that this does not constitute fair use.
Second, in the notes generated with every "Post Comment" page, this quote:
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Copyright infringement is illegal. Whether you want to challenge DMCA or not, copyright will not go away anytime soon. (For good reason, I might add. Corporations abuse copyright principles, which were intended to protect original "authors" from the government and large corporate entities.)
Here is where things get sticky. Has the /. adminstration (roblimo, cdrtaco, etc.) at any time deleted posts, even partially? Then MS may have a legal leg on which to stand in court, as it indicates that /. takes editorial control at times. If not, then it may be argued by andover that /. is a public forum. In any case, whether exceptions have been made or not, it is clear that /.'s policy is simply to moderate illegal posts down. It is clear that /.'s policy is not to delete illegal posts (or any other violation of the above).
Clearly, andover would be reckless to ignore MS's request simply because most of us (myself included) hate MS. My vote (FWIW) is for the /. editors, in consultation with andover's attorneys, to do what they think is best. Of course, if this means giving MS the finger, all the better!
Here is one example. As a user, I absoulutely don't want my application X to crash for no apparent reason. "No apparent reason," BTW, is the only thing that I, as an end-user, know what to call it. What I, the end-user, do not know, is that the new application Y, which is unrelated to X as far as I, the end-user, am concerned, replaced a shared library (.dll) file with an upgraded version of the same file. But the upgraded version of the library causes X to crash. That, friends, is a very poor user-interaction model. Either share libraries like we learned to share in kindergarten, or do not share at all.
There are tons of other examples of why Windows is not the epitome of intuitive user interaction. Open Source has the means to create a solution, but it needs an end-user feedback loop, or it will never be more than a small subset of cool toys for geeks.