HEXUS.opinions :: Microsoft Vista EULA spits in the eye of self-builders worldwide

[Bob Crabtree]

Forget the headlines - look at the substance.

Compare the EULAs for yourself.

Oh, and for the record, I take swipes at everyone and everything I think deserves them but, by the same token, where something deserves praising or defending, I do that too.

Back when XP was new, a lot of people who were familiar with Win2K, NT and 98 were quick to criticise what they called XP's Fisher-Price (in some cases, Mickey Mouse) interface.

I took a very different view in what I wrote because for people who were not experts, XP made a lot of tasks so much easier (heck, it actually even let them see that they were possible).

Truth is XP made things easier even for experts - if they gave it a chance.

I'm neither an MS fanboy nor an MS hater - I simply try to tell things like they are.

Bob

[dangel]

XP has a tellytubby interface by default - get it right

[Synergy6]

But that's in part because Macs are so much better designed than any Windows PC you've ever seen. As a result, they don't need as much work as a Windows PC and that could endear them to folk whose DIY activities are aimed at achieving a certain level of usability and performance, not outwardly flashy effects.

"I've ever seen" would make so much more sense than "you've ever seen". Also, it would then be factually correct.

it's the other way round, really

the high price and silly terms come from over 20 years of people taking the pee and pirating the software. competition is what drives down prices, and microsoft have no competition because people have been pirating the MS product rather than using a cheaper competitor - ensuring that the competitors go out of business, and the microsoft option becomes a de-facto standard that everybody needs to work with (usually by buying the microsoft option, since there are no viable alternatives)

the high price and silly terms on vista are microsoft tightening their grip, now that almost every computer user has built up a dependence on their products - you *have* to use windows and office to work with everyone else, and you *have* to spend silly money on them due to the brutal new anti-piracy measures

at this point, i have an urge to say something about cake, and eating thereof

I have to say something about eyes, and the opening of. The high price and silly terms comes from Microsoft wanting a bigger profit. I'm not anti-MS, that's just the way of the world. Profit-maximization is the assumed primary motive of most businesses, after all. However, to say the main reason for this is piracy is, quite simply, rubbish.

For reference, in the quarter ending June 2006, Microsoft had a revenue of $12 billion. Operating income was $4 billion. For the year ending at the same date, revenue was $44 billion and income was $13 billion. Microsoft has an operating margin of 36% and a net margin of 31%. Each of the figures I have just quoted have gone *up* when compared to the same period last year. Perhaps you'd tell me if those figures sound like those of a company which is so crippled by piracy of its products that it *has* to increase prices and impose new restrictions?

Microsoft does have competition. What is MacOSX, Linux, BSD? The first is small because it relies on annoyingly proprietary hardware, and the others are small (on desktops) due to their own issues, notably the fact most of them are given away for free. Piracy neither forced Microsoft to bring in ludicrous regulations, nor damned the alternatives. It was simply the best alternative for a great many people. You could arge it became the "best alternative" mainly because of XP's still high price, and various heavy-handed policies (activation, WGA etc), but I'll not go there now.

As for "cake, and eating thereof." If you actually thought about that inferred statement, it makes no sense whatsoever. The people who pirated XP are, in a large majority, probably going to pirate Vista as well. The only people this hurts are, by definition, the people who don't pirate, who are the people who have paid for Microsoft's profits. So the pirates keep their cake, and eat it too; while the legal buyers stick to their "no cake now, no cake later" position.

Synergy6

[charleski]

Well I was going to buy Vista, and now I won't, simply because of the licensing changes. I have no doubt that when Vista becomes necessary there will be ways to run it without having to worry about activation.

directhex, you're wrong. This is not about clamping down on piracy. The current system of XP activation and WGA does a very good job of catching out those illicit vendors who are selling pirated copies of XP. Witness the numerous court cases that MS has been able to bring against them. It's difficult if not impossible to pass off a pirated copy of XP as genuine.

OTOH, the current measures do little to prevent people knowingly running a pirated copy. But they aren't going to combat that by increasing the motivation to do so. Adding onerous terms to the licence and making it more difficult to run a legal OS than a pirated one is a sure method of increasing the amount of this form of piracy. And please, let's not pretend that SPP will actually be effective against this.

The real reason is made evident by the lies told in Paul Thorrot's post. MS wants to change the playing-field by forcing people to buy the OS for each installation. His statement that, "There's a funny myth going around that says you have a right to transfer a single copy of Windows XP (or any previous Windows version) to as many computers as you like, as often as you like, and for any reason you like. This myth exists because the Windows XP EULA is vaguely worded." is quite simply a lie, the XP EULA is very clear, and it very clearly states that the device licensing can be transferred as long as this is serial. Their attempts to explain away the money-grab as a post-hoc explanation of their 'intentions' is nothing more than a cynical manipulation of the facts.

With these licensing changes, MS has made it clear that they aren't prepared to deal honestly with their customers. Therefore there is no longer any obligation for us to deal honestly with them.

[Peeb]

Isn't this just about the steady erosion of consumer rights imposed on us by practically all software companies? I can accept restrictions on an OEM version because I won’t have paid the full whack, but if I buy a retail copy of Vista then as long as I stop using it on the previous machine it should be none of Microsoft’s business how many times I transfer it.
How did we let this notion of a “licence” supersede all established consumer rights? The fact that it’s a digital product doesn’t change the fundamentals. Could Black and Decker unilaterally proclaim that I was only licensing use of one of its power tools, and if someone else wanted to borrow it he or she would have to buy a separate licence? The fact that we have to “agree” to the EULA in order to install the software is hardly a willing consent, and in Microsoft’s case a pretty clear case of monopoly abuse.
The current situation is already nonsensical and getting worse. When software first began to enter the mainstream the copyright analogy was explicitly with books, and it worked: when you buy a book you gain no rights over the IP (you’re not allowed to reproduce it in any way) but you are allowed to use the object itself as you wish and you can of course resell it.
Instead of mucking around trying to stop Microsoft doing useful things Windows Media Player, I hope the EU will come down on this like a ton of bricks, but I’m not optimistic. I'm not advocating so called piracy, but I'm fed up with businesses trying to punish their customers for fair use of their products. In some circumstances the market can correct that (we can buy elsewhere) but where it can't we need legal intervention to protect our rights. Ideally this needs to happen in the US where it would really hurt, but Europe would be a good start.

[charleski]

How did we let this notion of a “licence” supersede all established consumer rights? The fact that it’s a digital product doesn’t change the fundamentals. Could Black and Decker unilaterally proclaim that I was only licensing use of one of its power tools, and if someone else wanted to borrow it he or she would have to buy a separate licence? The fact that we have to “agree” to the EULA in order to install the software is hardly a willing consent, and in Microsoft’s case a pretty clear case of monopoly abuse.

I couldn't agree more. The 'licenced not sold' concept has been increasingly perverted and is corrupting the nature of the commercial transaction. Certain EULA terms have been ruled unenforcaeable in the past, although these actions have been limited in scope. I'm hoping that the EU Commission will indeed weigh in on this matter, and the more people who write to them to voice their concern the better. But I agree the chances of them having the guts to take real action are slim.

[hibby]

Microsoft has already hit us with activation codes, so how about deactivation codes? If Microsoft were to provide an uninstaller for Vista that generated a deactivation code at the end of the process, then you could quote this on activation of the new device. That way, you could transfer the license as many times as you required whilst guaranteeing to Microsoft that you weren't trying to run it on multiple machines.

It would have an interesting loophole, however, in that unless Vista was made aware of partition image restoration you could technically get around it by deactivating the old installation and then restoring it from an image in an activated state.

Edit: Just had a thought. If you claimed on an insurance policy to replace your computer for whatever reason, and Microsoft refused to activate your copy of Vista, would the insurance company have to shell out for the new license of Vista?

[nichomach]

The real reason is made evident by the lies told in Paul Thorrot's post. MS wants to change the playing-field by forcing people to buy the OS for each installation. His statement that, "There's a funny myth going around that says you have a right to transfer a single copy of Windows XP (or any previous Windows version) to as many computers as you like, as often as you like, and for any reason you like. This myth exists because the Windows XP EULA is vaguely worded." is quite simply a lie, the XP EULA is very clear, and it very clearly states that the device licensing can be transferred as long as this is serial. Their attempts to explain away the money-grab as a post-hoc explanation of their 'intentions' is nothing more than a cynical manipulation of the facts.

I agree completely; the EULA for XP and previous versions was exactly as vague as Microsoft wished to allow it to be. What, is he arguing that Microsoft didn't have a lawyer handy? They just scribbled the EULA on the back of a fag packet? Don't be daft, that's what they do with kernel code, not important stuff!

I don't know whether Thurrott genuinely believes what he's spouting or has just tied his own career so closely to Windows that he'll parrot the party line whatever sophistic mental gymnastics he has to perform to do so, but it's just crap.

The fact is that the EULA has been materially and significantly altered to the detriment of the customer and in such a fashion that one might rightly ask "Well, what is it actually worth anymore? What is my £300 actually buying?" and, in the same breath, answer "Not a whole hell of a lot".

[CrazyMonkey]

Argh microsoft gets more and more annoying, this will ever more boost piracy and at £325 thats just stupid, cheaper to wait for dells to start using Vista and grab a £300 computer off them with vista bundled?!

[nichomach]

...which you then probably couldn't transfer to another machine, so you're stuck with a slightly iffy cheapo Dell and a sticker? I'm not seeing an upside...

[Peeb]

I couldn't agree more. The 'licenced not sold' concept has been increasingly perverted and is corrupting the nature of the commercial transaction. Certain EULA terms have been ruled unenforcaeable in the past, although these actions have been limited in scope. I'm hoping that the EU Commission will indeed weigh in on this matter, and the more people who write to them to voice their concern the better. But I agree the chances of them having the guts to take real action are slim.

If you guys feel the same then please do write to the EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes. I'd like to give you her email address but Hexus security stops me doing that until I've done five posts but if you substitute the regular @ symbol for the written form here you should be able to work it out - Neelie.Kroes at ec.europa.eu - I'm sure it will be handled by a functionary but it's a start and you never know where it could lead.

Like Charleski I'd been thinking of upgrading but this is the final straw. I can't see any reason at all under these terms to buy a retail copy. I'll happily embrace Vista with my next hardware upgrade in a year or so's time, and even then I wouldn't pay any sort of premium for the Ultimate edition, even though I'm probably one of the few people who could use it (I'm self employed and work from home). I'll buy the home premium version, and if I find I need the fax functionality (the only "extra" bit of the Ultimate edition that I could readily use) I imagine I can find some fax software for less ...

[blinky]

Up until now Microsoft have treated multicore / multithreaded processors as one processor. i.e. it is licenced by socket rather than number of processors seen by the OS. With the increased number of multicore processors in use I cannot see microsoft changing it.

[charleski]

Up until now Microsoft have treated multicore / multithreaded processors as one processor. i.e. it is licenced by socket rather than number of processors seen by the OS. With the increased number of multicore processors in use I cannot see microsoft changing it.

What's the bet that next year some MS shill will be posting that MS 'intended' to license the OS per core rather than per socket all the time, but just weren't clear in their previous EULAs?

Eight-core CPUs aren't too far away. I won't be surprised if the Home versions of Vista have problems with them.

[nichomach]

To be fair, on the multi-core thing, MS have been utterly consistent from their announcement in 2004.

[charleski]

To be fair, on the multi-core thing, MS have been utterly consistent from their announcement in 2004.

Well, we can hope. But given how keen MS seem to be about 'clarifying' their 'intentions', it's very strange that the Vista EULA contains no mention of cores at all, though it does mention two processors, without strictly defining what the term 'processor' means.

As you said, I don't think MS's lawyers are either incompetent or sloppy. The lack of a definition is there to give MS the latitude to 'clarify' the issue later on, and the 2004 document specifically refers only to dual-core processors and currently-licensed software.

So if they want to change their minds on this, they can.

[nichomach]

Actually the 2004 statement specifically refers to "dual core and multicore processors", as in:

Microsoft software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed per processor, not per core, for hardware that contains dual-core and multicore processors.

. Yes, they COULD decide to change their minds later on the basis that they were only talking about "software currently licensed...", etc., but their statement that the policy as then stated applies to dual and multi core processors was unequivocal, and they've stuck to it with stuff released since. Not that I trust them to carry on doing so, but so far on the cores question they've played a straight bat.