| Michael Leone on Sat, 27 Apr 2002 13:35:07 -0400 |
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On Sat, 2002-04-27 at 11:15, LeRoy Cressy wrote: > I just finished reading this off topic thread with talk about the gold > standard, and end user license agreements, which the thread is about > anyway. Bill pointed out the M$ web page > http://www.microsoft.com/education/?id=DonatedComputers that contains > the following: > > Why should a donor include It is a legal requirement that > the operating system with pre-installed operating systems > their PC donation? remain with a machine for the > life of the machine. If a > company or individual donates > a machine to your school, it > must be donated with the > operating system that was > installed on the PC. > > Through out the thread I did not see one comment about M$ views the > purchase of a computer. Are they trying to tell me that it is illegal > to put Linux on a computer that I bought and that the awful Windows OS > must stay with that system forever? Of course not. Read it again .... only if you if donate that machine, do you need to put back Win95 onto it. Because you do not OWN that awful Win95; you only purchased (willingly or not) a license ... and the license REQUIRES it to stay with that hardware forever. So, in order to legally comply with the license that you agreed to, *if* you later donate the hardware to some other organization (person?), you have to put Win95 *back* onto it. While you have that hardware (and you do own it, BTW), you can put any OS on it that you like. It's only when you give (or perhaps sell; I'm not sure, but it wouldn't surprise me) that hardware to some other entity, that you have to fulfill the legal obligation you previously agreed to (i.e., have the original OS on any hardware it came pre-installed on). Because you do *not* own the OS. If you build your own machines from scratch, obviously, this would not apply. > With this attitude any business > that purcahses M$ pre installed systems deserve to have themselves > hauled into court by the evil empire! Any manager that even agrees to > such an agreement is doing his company great harm and damage. Most companies do not donate their old hardware, so it doesn't really affect the majority of business, actually. If they did, all non-profits and schools and such would be drowning in old 486s, P-75s, etc. -- PGP Fingerprint: 0AA8 DC47 CB63 AE3F C739 6BF9 9AB4 1EF6 5AA5 BCDF PGP public key: <http://www.mike-leone.com/~turgon/turgon-public-key.gpg> Conform or be cast out. Attachment:
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