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Re: [PLUG] Interesting thread on SEUL-EDU mailing list...
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> > MS has the power to force an audit through the BSA. Since most school
> > districts are run/owned by local government, that gives the BSA more
> > leagal/political power over school districts.
>
> Any idea what gives BSA any legal power in the first place?
MS software comes with a license agreement -- by virtue of agreeing to the
license for the operating system, I think you've agreed to grant MS, or a
third party on their behalf, the right to audit you for compliance.
Actualy, there was an article recently by the FSF that talked about one
of the core differences between propritary software and OSS. With
propritary software, copyright didn't give corporations enough control
over end users (copyright allows for some things under fair use that
corporations would rather that you didn't do). A license argeement goes
above and beyond copyright, taking away some of the rights granted to you
by copyright. OSS is not licensed in any way -- a user does not agree
to any license when using OSS. There is a copyright with OSS (the GPL
in many of the pertinent cases), which constrains what you can do in
the event that you want to change and distribute the source code -- but
it says nothing about how you otherwise use the software.
I'm glad to see this sparked some discussion. Thanks for talking
about it.
Kyle
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