An End User License agreement is a Contract to use a Copyrighted work.
The GPL is NOT a contract. The GPL license is a Grant to the reciever of rights greater than what is provided to the reciever by copyright law.
A EULA can take way your rights under copyright law.
The GPL, by its nature as a grant, cannot do so.
arkanes: "The license of a theme is of obvious importance to someone looking to redistribute screenshots"
Then excuse the following language: Arkanes you are a gutless scaremonger.
1) Where are the non-freely licensed theme packages for GTK+,GNOME and KDE? IF you do not use any such theme package, and only used freely licensed ones the then it does NOT limit ability to publish screenshots.
2) What Linux Distribution ships any Theme package that *prevents* you publishing screenshots? There is no freely available Linux Distribution that ship with such packages THEREFORE it does NOT limit ability to publish screenshots for those Linux Distributions.
Your looking for problems that, in general use, are not there. Unless *you* can a point to:
3) ANY widely distributed Linux application that restricts screenshots; OR
4) ANY widely distributed X.org/Distro Font that restricts screenshots; OR
5) ANY widely distributed KDE/GTK+/GNOME Theme package that restricts screenshots; OR
6) Where the KDE/GTK+/GNOME Framework, from which the default inteface widgits are sourced, restricts screenshots.
Have a look at the hundreds of professional publications with Linux screenshots over the last decade. Has there been any single legal incident over published Linux screen shots in any book, PDF or webpage? NO. Why? Because the inclusion of any Linux screenshot and screenmovies has been considered fair use by the community.
The GPL states that for program output is a derivative "Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.". Print and image capture of Themes, fonts, application display has always been considered Fair Use.
As for themes and GPL/non-GPL programs, what I have repeatedly stated, is that the theme packages are seperate from the programs, not linked by the program distributer. The program is linked to the LGPL licensed library that loads the plugin them at run time. The end user, within his rights of the GPL internal use, loads the theme package.
arkanes stated "1) Just because I don't know that there are any doesn't mean that they don't exist." arkanes, don't look behind you, there is a pack of unicorns stampeding in your direction ( Just because I don't know that there are any doesn't mean that they don't exist). In reality there is little risk from being run down by unicorns, thats what the (1)+(2) challenge was about. If the prepackaged themes that come with the Linux distributions are all freely licensed then, like the stampeding unicorns, there is virually NO risk with taking screen shots.
"But it's the themes copyright thats important, not Gtks." Which is why I stated:
1) What GTK+,GNOME or KDE themes are NOT licensed either as GPL or a more liberal open license that allows screen shots?
"The GPL, by the way, has nothing whatsoever to say about screenshots"
Because of the design of the X-client server protocol interface, screen output can be considered normal program output of data. But should you choose to inteprete the GPL license in that way, all a publisher would have to do is attribute the theme and application and make an offer ot supply a copy of source of the theme package according to section 3 of the GPL license.
Extra notes
B1) The GPL lisence is a grant which extends further rights to the recipiant, so (B1) is still valid.
B4) if (1) (2) (A) and (B1-3) are correct then how is B4 Irrevelent?
arkanes, A challenge for you:
1) What GTK+,GNOME or KDE themes are NOT licensed either as GPL or a more liberal open license that allows screen shots?
2) What Linux distributions package ship a copy of that theme that matches #1?
Again:
A) The Program OUTPUTS images generated by the themes to the
Clients X Server. This is important. The GPL license does not restrict
what you can do with the output of a GPL program. You can capture the
output from the X Server with a screen shot, put it on the web, or
reproduce it in printed media. Reread the GPL license.
B1) The GPL comes under effect only when you distribute the result
outside of your organization. You are entirely free to use the GPL
source code as you wish as long as you do not distribute the derivative
outside of your organization.
B2) The theme plug in DDL library used by applications for GTK+/GNOME
and KDE is LGPL licensed. You can link and distribute NON-GPL licensed
code that links to those DDLs.
B3) The applications are distributed seperate from the themes and the
applications are in no way dependent upon a any theme to run.
B4) It is the users, NOT the application distributer, who get the
applcations to load individual themes. Because the end user does so
within their own organization, they are free to do so : see (B1)
As for Mozilla's Firefox tradmark ( not trade dress ) demands, the Mozilla foundation only prevents developers from releasing newly compiled binaries ( See opensource definition 4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code ), it does not restrict screenshots.
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Cold War propaganda concerning uses and threats of Atomic Energy
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Arnold Marquist
MUSIC COMPOSED and CONDUCTED by: Thomas Palouso
A) The Program OUTPUTS images generated by the themes to the Clients X Server. This is important. The GPL license does not restrict what you can do with the output of a GPL program. You can capture the output from the X Server with a screen shot, put it on the web, or reproduce it in printed media. Reread the GPL license.
B1) The GPL comes under effect only when you distribute the result outside of your organization. You are entirely free to use the GPL source code as you wish as long as you do not distribute the derivative outside of your organization.
B2) The theme plug in DDL library used by applications for GTK+/GNOME and KDE is LGPL licensed. You can link and distribute NON-GPL licensed code that links to those DDLs.
B3) The applications are distributed seperate from the themes and the applications are in no way dependent upon a any theme to run.
B4) It is the users, NOT the application distributer, who get the applcations to load individual themes. Because the end user does so within their own organization, they are free to do so : see (B1)
As I have already stated: Like a browser is a viewer for HTML'ed content, KDE/GTK+/GNOME applications are also viewers for the Themes.
Because of the implementation of GNOME/KDE themes and X11R6 font systems, both Themes and fonts are considered seperate from the program.
Like a browser is a viewer for HTML'ed content, KDE/GTK+/GNOME applications are also viewers for the Themes..The majority of KDE and GNOME themes are GPL'ed. I do not know of any non-GPL'ed GNOME Themes for a start. All the themes on Fedora are GPL'ed.
The GPL applies to the source and binaries of the Themes. However, in the same way that you can run GPL'ed applications on propriety platforms such as Solaris, because of the design of the theme system, can even be used by non-GPL'ed applications.
In the same way, either the X11R6 Xserver display or the applications themselves are also viewers for fonts. All the fonts shipped with the X.org implentation of X11R6 can be freely used in screen shots and printing.
The X Windowing system is a client server protocol. All such icons, UI widget graphics,etc are ALL output from the program, NOT part of the source code.
Imagine a quantum process is discovered that can be used to receive a signal from a point the future and put the result in a que. You create a computer with such a temporal quantum receiver that stores requested program,data and job que. At some point in the unspecified future, the job que with programs and data will be loaded on to a seperate processor that is sealed from the outside world. The job que is executed and the result transmitted back in time to the first computer temporal receiver que : Temporal Quantum Overclocking.
There are no restriction on use the output of GPL and LGPL licensed programs, unless the the program outputs copies of GPL/LGPL source code:
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
Crackers and hackers always find ways to exploit the code to access or share protected content. There is not a DRM system that has not been cracked within months of widespread release.
That was the point of the article. Porting applications to another processor architecture is not that easy. Even using Apple's Xcode build tools, enough twiddly byte order shift bugs will be introduced to make third party applications appear less stable than on PowerPC. Using Rosetta will introduce a ten to thirty percent performance hit and will also be less stable.
Remember, folks: The evil Emperor was the also president of the old republic. Vote NO on giving Steve Jobs any special powers during the upcoming crisis.
Do you think when you call Dell for Windows support you are talking to someone in the USA?
Support these days is outsourced, it does not take all that long to retrain these hard working sub-minimum wage paid folks to read off a seperate page of instructions while atempting a north american accent.
It would not be any challenge for the support company to set up seperate support departments for Mac and Windows, with differing call in phone numbers.
This leaves Apple with a choice. Either continue to remain the sole supplier of hardware for MacOS/X and loose a large chunk of the desktop market share OR choose to directly compete with Microsoft and let Dell, Lenovo and HP sell Apple designed/approved "built for MacOS/X" laptops and PCs. The OEMs would love to have Apple and Microsoft competing to sell on the OEMs own hardware.
In my opinion if Apple does not choose the latter option, then it only because of very bad decisions by Apple's management or Sherman Act violating non-compete agreements with Microsoft.
A long established sports car company Porsche, like Apple, use their unique design and reputation for performance and quality to set itself apart from other players in the same market.
In 1976 Porsche released the Porsche 924 as an entry level introduction for new customers to the Porsche brand. The 924 may have been designed by Porsche, but it also had the same engine as models of the AMC Gremlin and Volkswagen Mini-van, and was built by Audi ( at that time it had just become a division of Volkswagen ). In comparison to other similarly priced sports cars of the day, the engine failed to deliver the expected performance, even with the addition of a turbo in 1979.
Problems with the early model 924s really damaged the reputation of Porsche and most Porsche enthusiasts shunned it for the earlier model 911 series. Despite the loss of reputation, Porsche stuck with the 924 series for a few years. Sales were not as good as the 911 series and outsourcing the manufacturing turned out to be less cost effective than expected.
Because IBM failed to deliver the next generation of Power CPUs, Apple is need of a new engine. Intel and AMD can provide one, but Apple does not have enough market share for either to manufacture custom CPUs or a new proprietary bus architecture. That leaves moving MacOS/X to the same ia64 or x86 processors which are also used in the Microsoft Gremlin and Linux Mini-van. The latter two OSs are quite capable of providing very comparable desktop experience to MacOS/X well within the next two years.
There is not much Apple can do on the other side of processors bus which is going to deliver enough performance to set it apart from a new Laptop or PC from Dell, Lenovo, HP or any whitebox OEM. Apple style flashy external bodywork is being adopted by those same vendors. The inevitable comparisons will result in damage to the public's perception of Apple's uniqueness.
This leaves Apple with a choice. Either continue to remain the sole supplier of hardware for MacOS/X and loose a large chunk of the desktop market share OR choose to directly compete with Microsoft and let Dell, Lenovo and HP sell Apple designed/approved "built for MacOS/X" laptops and PCs. The OEMs would love to have Apple and Microsoft competing to sell on the OEMs hardware.
In my opinion if Apple does not choose the latter option, then it only because of very bad decisions by Apple's management or Sherman Act violating non-compete agreements with Microsoft.
Since the computers are already networked then the beat solution may be to run those applications under WINE on a linux server. CrossOver's Office Server Edition provides an easy way to do this, but it is possible to do the same with effort from the WINE sources without added cost.
WINE/CrossOver uses the networked X wire protocol which can be piped through a encrypted ssh or a third party encrypt/compression system like the NX Terminal Server system.
In combination with some of the newer dual/multi processor servers, a
Office->WINE->NX pipe line can provide a better service to more
people than the same hardware hosting Microsoft Terminal Server.
When You Purchase An Instance Of Something, You Own That Instance. When I purchase a car, I own that car. I have the right to that particular instance of that car to use,modify ( pimp my ride ),combine, dispose or resell without having to seek permission from the car builders, vendors etc. Therefore is the following is self evident:
1) Acknowledge the supremacy of the doctrine of first sale : When you purchase an instance of a copy of copyrighted work, your rights to view,use,modify,combine,interoperate with, dispose or resell that one instance are not impeded by either legislation or technology. This fact has been recognized time and again by the US courts.
2) The doctrine of first sale applies to both physical media and digital content where the receiver pays a transaction for an instance of a copyrighted work: When you purchase an instance of a copy of copyrighted work that involves the buyer making a choice for that instance of copyrighted work and entering into a transaction with the seller, then the buyer has the rights to that instance under the doctrine of first sale. Sellers of instances of copyrighted work cannot hide behind provision as a service, when you pay for an instance, you own that instance.
3) You do not have the right to record content without permission of the copyright holders of a live performance ( play, concert etc ) or private performance ( Film theater ) on private property or venue. You pay to attend a performance at a physical venue, not for a copy of an instance of that performance.
4) Broadcasted ( as apposed to downloaded ) copyrighted works as content received into a household or to device held by individual person or on that persons property, may not be redistributed outside of that person's household to anyone who does not receive the content though the same service. You may record a instance of copyrighted work for later viewing ( timeshifting ) and distribute a copy along to any person whos household also receives that same broadcast service ( Samaritan clause ). You many not redistribute or resell content recorded from a broadcast service to anyone not receiving that same broadcast service content.
5) Although you may not redistibute recorded copies of broadcasted copyrighted content outside of the terms of (4), there should be no limit to what you may do with instances of those works within your household. You should have the right to modify the works, combine with other works and interoperate with other works.
6) Copyright protection extends only to the particular work copyrighted. The Copyright holder's exclusive rights should not extend to the right to deny other combining an instance of copyright holder work with other works. You should have the right to distribute and/or sell, patches, recipes and addon components that refer and link to the content of the copyrighted work, but do not contain content from the original copyrighted work. The resulting combined and/or transformed work that contains content from the copyrighted work sources can not be legally redistributed without the permission of all the copyright holders.
Each of the cases I mentioned involved either Microsoft breaking promises, abusing the OEM relationship, or comming out with a product, that competes with a party that Microsoft has had a formal relationship with.
There has been even more cases where smaller companies have gotten involved with Microsoft, with the result of the smaller company going out of business. In fact Microsoft is at greater risk from third party patents because of the Microsoft business practice of partnering or just meeting with small companies and then just adopting the technology, in a manner which "screws" the smaller company.
If these cases get to court what generally happens is that the smaller company presents evidence of the meeting or partnership with Microsoft, evidence of the included technology, with the result of a VERY large punitive damages awarded to the small company. But it still costs hundreds of thousands and around six to seven years to get the case to court.
How in the holy hell does the parent get modded interesting: by asking questions that advocates of Microsoft are unable to answer without providing more instances that prove the point.
Slashdot Mirror
Dot Net?Dot Not!Got Not?Bot Not!Bit Not?Bit Rot!
The GPL is NOT a contract. The GPL license is a Grant to the reciever of rights greater than what is provided to the reciever by copyright law.
A EULA can take way your rights under copyright law.
The GPL, by its nature as a grant, cannot do so.
Then excuse the following language: Arkanes you are a gutless scaremonger.
1) Where are the non-freely licensed theme packages for GTK+,GNOME and KDE? IF you do not use any such theme package, and only used freely licensed ones the then it does NOT limit ability to publish screenshots.
2) What Linux Distribution ships any Theme package that *prevents* you publishing screenshots? There is no freely available Linux Distribution that ship with such packages THEREFORE it does NOT limit ability to publish screenshots for those Linux Distributions.
Your looking for problems that, in general use, are not there. Unless *you* can a point to:
3) ANY widely distributed Linux application that restricts screenshots; OR
4) ANY widely distributed X.org/Distro Font that restricts screenshots; OR
5) ANY widely distributed KDE/GTK+/GNOME Theme package that restricts screenshots; OR
6) Where the KDE/GTK+/GNOME Framework, from which the default inteface widgits are sourced, restricts screenshots.
Have a look at the hundreds of professional publications with Linux screenshots over the last decade. Has there been any single legal incident over published Linux screen shots in any book, PDF or webpage? NO. Why? Because the inclusion of any Linux screenshot and screenmovies has been considered fair use by the community.
The GPL states that for program output is a derivative "Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.". Print and image capture of Themes, fonts, application display has always been considered Fair Use.
As for themes and GPL/non-GPL programs, what I have repeatedly stated, is that the theme packages are seperate from the programs, not linked by the program distributer. The program is linked to the LGPL licensed library that loads the plugin them at run time. The end user, within his rights of the GPL internal use, loads the theme package.
arkanes, don't look behind you, there is a pack of unicorns stampeding in your direction ( Just because I don't know that there are any doesn't mean that they don't exist). In reality there is little risk from being run down by unicorns, thats what the (1)+(2) challenge was about. If the prepackaged themes that come with the Linux distributions are all freely licensed then, like the stampeding unicorns, there is virually NO risk with taking screen shots.
"But it's the themes copyright thats important, not Gtks."
Which is why I stated:
1) What GTK+,GNOME or KDE themes are NOT licensed either as GPL or a more liberal open license that allows screen shots?
"The GPL, by the way, has nothing whatsoever to say about screenshots"
Because of the design of the X-client server protocol interface, screen output can be considered normal program output of data. But should you choose to inteprete the GPL license in that way, all a publisher would have to do is attribute the theme and application and make an offer ot supply a copy of source of the theme package according to section 3 of the GPL license.
Extra notes
B1) The GPL lisence is a grant which extends further rights to the recipiant, so (B1) is still valid.
B4) if (1) (2) (A) and (B1-3) are correct then how is B4 Irrevelent?
1) What GTK+,GNOME or KDE themes are NOT licensed either as GPL or a more liberal open license that allows screen shots?
2) What Linux distributions package ship a copy of that theme that matches #1?
Again:
A) The Program OUTPUTS images generated by the themes to the Clients X Server. This is important. The GPL license does not restrict what you can do with the output of a GPL program. You can capture the output from the X Server with a screen shot, put it on the web, or reproduce it in printed media. Reread the GPL license.
B1) The GPL comes under effect only when you distribute the result outside of your organization. You are entirely free to use the GPL source code as you wish as long as you do not distribute the derivative outside of your organization.
As for Mozilla's Firefox tradmark ( not trade dress ) demands, the Mozilla foundation only prevents developers from releasing newly compiled binaries ( See opensource definition 4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code ), it does not restrict screenshots.B2) The theme plug in DDL library used by applications for GTK+/GNOME and KDE is LGPL licensed. You can link and distribute NON-GPL licensed code that links to those DDLs.
B3) The applications are distributed seperate from the themes and the applications are in no way dependent upon a any theme to run.
B4) It is the users, NOT the application distributer, who get the applcations to load individual themes. Because the end user does so within their own organization, they are free to do so : see (B1)
B1) The GPL comes under effect only when you distribute the result outside of your organization. You are entirely free to use the GPL source code as you wish as long as you do not distribute the derivative outside of your organization.
B2) The theme plug in DDL library used by applications for GTK+/GNOME and KDE is LGPL licensed. You can link and distribute NON-GPL licensed code that links to those DDLs.
B3) The applications are distributed seperate from the themes and the applications are in no way dependent upon a any theme to run.
B4) It is the users, NOT the application distributer, who get the applcations to load individual themes. Because the end user does so within their own organization, they are free to do so : see (B1)
As I have already stated: Like a browser is a viewer for HTML'ed content, KDE/GTK+/GNOME applications are also viewers for the Themes.
The parent post was moderate +5 informative, but now as I enter a reply all the mod points have ceased to exist! Interesting phenomenon.
Like a browser is a viewer for HTML'ed content, KDE/GTK+/GNOME applications are also viewers for the Themes. .The majority of KDE and GNOME themes are GPL'ed. I do not know of any non-GPL'ed GNOME Themes for a start. All the themes on Fedora are GPL'ed.
The GPL applies to the source and binaries of the Themes. However, in the same way that you can run GPL'ed applications on propriety platforms such as Solaris, because of the design of the theme system, can even be used by non-GPL'ed applications. In the same way, either the X11R6 Xserver display or the applications themselves are also viewers for fonts. All the fonts shipped with the X.org implentation of X11R6 can be freely used in screen shots and printing.
The X Windowing system is a client server protocol. All such icons, UI widget graphics,etc are ALL output from the program, NOT part of the source code.
Imagine a quantum process is discovered that can be used to receive a signal from a point the future and put the result in a que. You create a computer with such a temporal quantum receiver that stores requested program,data and job que. At some point in the unspecified future, the job que with programs and data will be loaded on to a seperate processor that is sealed from the outside world. The job que is executed and the result transmitted back in time to the first computer temporal receiver que : Temporal Quantum Overclocking .
IBM's Linux Watch enhanced shell with Bluetooth
Read the rest of the linked post and discover why DRM technology is a potential risk to end users.
Remember, folks: The evil Emperor was the also president of the old republic. Vote NO on giving Steve Jobs any special powers during the upcoming crisis.
Support these days is outsourced, it does not take all that long to retrain these hard working sub-minimum wage paid folks to read off a seperate page of instructions while atempting a north american accent.
It would not be any challenge for the support company to set up seperate support departments for Mac and Windows, with differing call in phone numbers.
A long established sports car company Porsche, like Apple, use their unique design and reputation for performance and quality to set itself apart from other players in the same market.
In 1976 Porsche released the Porsche 924 as an entry level introduction for new customers to the Porsche brand. The 924 may have been designed by Porsche, but it also had the same engine as models of the AMC Gremlin and Volkswagen Mini-van, and was built by Audi ( at that time it had just become a division of Volkswagen ). In comparison to other similarly priced sports cars of the day, the engine failed to deliver the expected performance, even with the addition of a turbo in 1979.
Problems with the early model 924s really damaged the reputation of Porsche and most Porsche enthusiasts shunned it for the earlier model 911 series. Despite the loss of reputation, Porsche stuck with the 924 series for a few years. Sales were not as good as the 911 series and outsourcing the manufacturing turned out to be less cost effective than expected.
Because IBM failed to deliver the next generation of Power CPUs, Apple is need of a new engine. Intel and AMD can provide one, but Apple does not have enough market share for either to manufacture custom CPUs or a new proprietary bus architecture. That leaves moving MacOS/X to the same ia64 or x86 processors which are also used in the Microsoft Gremlin and Linux Mini-van. The latter two OSs are quite capable of providing very comparable desktop experience to MacOS/X well within the next two years.
There is not much Apple can do on the other side of processors bus which is going to deliver enough performance to set it apart from a new Laptop or PC from Dell, Lenovo, HP or any whitebox OEM. Apple style flashy external bodywork is being adopted by those same vendors. The inevitable comparisons will result in damage to the public's perception of Apple's uniqueness.
This leaves Apple with a choice. Either continue to remain the sole supplier of hardware for MacOS/X and loose a large chunk of the desktop market share OR choose to directly compete with Microsoft and let Dell, Lenovo and HP sell Apple designed/approved "built for MacOS/X" laptops and PCs. The OEMs would love to have Apple and Microsoft competing to sell on the OEMs hardware.
In my opinion if Apple does not choose the latter option, then it only because of very bad decisions by Apple's management or Sherman Act violating non-compete agreements with Microsoft.
Apple on Intel is like the original Porsche 924. Either it's a very bad marketing decision or a precursor to a play for a much larger chunk of the mainstream market...
WINE/CrossOver uses the networked X wire protocol which can be piped through a encrypted ssh or a third party encrypt/compression system like the NX Terminal Server system. In combination with some of the newer dual/multi processor servers, a Office->WINE->NX pipe line can provide a better service to more people than the same hardware hosting Microsoft Terminal Server.
The BSA, Microsoft and the definition of Extortion
1) Acknowledge the supremacy of the doctrine of first sale : When you purchase an instance of a copy of copyrighted work, your rights to view,use,modify,combine,interoperate with, dispose or resell that one instance are not impeded by either legislation or technology. This fact has been recognized time and again by the US courts.
2) The doctrine of first sale applies to both physical media and digital content where the receiver pays a transaction for an instance of a copyrighted work: When you purchase an instance of a copy of copyrighted work that involves the buyer making a choice for that instance of copyrighted work and entering into a transaction with the seller, then the buyer has the rights to that instance under the doctrine of first sale. Sellers of instances of copyrighted work cannot hide behind provision as a service, when you pay for an instance, you own that instance.
3) You do not have the right to record content without permission of the copyright holders of a live performance ( play, concert etc ) or private performance ( Film theater ) on private property or venue. You pay to attend a performance at a physical venue, not for a copy of an instance of that performance.
4) Broadcasted ( as apposed to downloaded ) copyrighted works as content received into a household or to device held by individual person or on that persons property, may not be redistributed outside of that person's household to anyone who does not receive the content though the same service. You may record a instance of copyrighted work for later viewing ( timeshifting ) and distribute a copy along to any person whos household also receives that same broadcast service ( Samaritan clause ). You many not redistribute or resell content recorded from a broadcast service to anyone not receiving that same broadcast service content.
5) Although you may not redistibute recorded copies of broadcasted copyrighted content outside of the terms of (4), there should be no limit to what you may do with instances of those works within your household. You should have the right to modify the works, combine with other works and interoperate with other works.
6) Copyright protection extends only to the particular work copyrighted. The Copyright holder's exclusive rights should not extend to the right to deny other combining an instance of copyright holder work with other works. You should have the right to distribute and/or sell, patches, recipes and addon components that refer and link to the content of the copyrighted work, but do not contain content from the original copyrighted work. The resulting combined and/or transformed work that contains content from the copyrighted work sources can not be legally redistributed without the permission of all the copyright holders.
There has been even more cases where smaller companies have gotten involved with Microsoft, with the result of the smaller company going out of business. In fact Microsoft is at greater risk from third party patents because of the Microsoft business practice of partnering or just meeting with small companies and then just adopting the technology, in a manner which "screws" the smaller company.
If these cases get to court what generally happens is that the smaller company presents evidence of the meeting or partnership with Microsoft, evidence of the included technology, with the result of a VERY large punitive damages awarded to the small company. But it still costs hundreds of thousands and around six to seven years to get the case to court.
How in the holy hell does the parent get modded interesting: by asking questions that advocates of Microsoft are unable to answer without providing more instances that prove the point.
Intel: Microsoft dropping IA64/Itanium support in WinXP/Win2003/Clusters etc.
HP: Microsoft attempted to use OEM licensing agreement to use for free HPs intellectual property.
Cisco : Microsoft's planned Network Access Protection (NAP) technology.
AMD : At first Microsoft made a big deal about XBox2 having an AMD CPU, now using 3.5+ GHz IBM PowerPC.
AT+T : Going back in the past a bit, but Microsoft orignally attempted to sell Xenix as a pure clone without paying fees to AT+T for the use of the orignal Unix code. Microsoft had to back down.