I was reading these posts on /. and it made me think about this thread we are having here. (my thoughts are below)
================= They license it to you, they don't sell it to you (Score:5, Informative) by dorfsmay (566262) on Wednesday June 11, @10:21PM (#6178210) CUUG [cuug.ab.ca], our local UNIX group, had a lawyer talking [cuug.ab.ca] about this a couple of weeks ago. One thing that was very interresting was the fact that there is a good reason why Software is not sold to you, but licensed. If it were sold to you, it would become your property, and then a lot of laws would apply to it, giving you way to many rights, like re-selling it, reverse engineer it, etc... because it would be YOURS. That is why the software industry has decided license software to you, because legally, when you license something to somebody, you can set whatever you want in the license, like "you shalt not reverse engineer this software", etc... So, one would have to look at the license between SCO and IBM to be able to say if they can revoke it or not. Re:They license it to you, they don't sell it to y (Score:5, Interesting) by Minna Kirai (624281) on Thursday June 12, @12:01AM (#6178706) But yet, if you walk into CompUSA and say "Will you sell me Windows XP(tm) for $299?", the clerk will say "Yes". The signage hanging on the shelves and walls reinforces the idea that selling will occur. More importantly, the reciept says "Sold". Either the vendors of computer software are committing fraud on a gargantuan scale, or you are being sold software. (Software publishers wish to change this- why they include those EULA that are legally nonbinding, and why they've pushed US states to create laws making EULAs effective [upenn.edu]. Virginia, so far, has agreed) However, the reason normal EULAs are meaningless is because no contract terms were presented before money and product were exchanged. So, they have no similarity with the agreement between SCO and IBM. It was presumably conducted with lawyers, signatures, and even handshakes. ================= So when you buy an x-box, are you just buying a license for an x-box or did they "sell" you an x-box, and if they "sold" you an x-box, shouldn't it be your property now? I would really like an x-box just to do the cool mod stuff to it, but I shouldn't have to be afraid of legal ramifications of tinkering with a toy! If that held true years ago, I would be in prison right now for hot gluing more rockets and guns of the side of my GI-Joe vehicles. (It makes me wonder just how much trouble I could get in for using products that have labels that say "use as directed", "not as directed") I just recently reimaged a dead tivo for a friend of mine and was able to bump him up from a 20gig to an 80gig drive, and it was legal because he "owned" the tivo. There are tons of sites about tivo hacking and I have seen nothing illegal so far regarding tivo hacks. (unless you start getting into the directv/tivo boxes, but the illegal stuff is on the directv side of things) Imagine if other stuff was sold like this and you bought a license for a hamburger and it was illegal to remove the tomato from your burger because that was be reverse engineering the burger as per the EULA on the wrapper... scary huh! Adam J. Melancon ----Original Message Follows---- From: John Hebert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [email protected] To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]> Subject: [brlug-general] FW: Does buying an Xbox hurt or help MS? was RE: [brlug-general] one step closer to VR Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 17:57:17 -0500 -----Original Message----- From: will hill To: John Hebert Sent: 6/11/03 5:35 PM Subject: Re: Does buying an Xbox hurt or help MS? was RE: [brlug-general] one step closer to VR On 2003.06.11 10:11 John Hebert wrote: > Will, > > I have to disagree. It has been established to my satisfaction that M$ is > losing money on every Xbox. Therefore, by modding an Xbox to only run Linux, > you are screwing their plans for world domination. Remember that the DRM > must be bypassed to run Linux. Nothing keeps anyone from buying Linux > commercial software like id's and running on the Xbox. It is simply a cheap > but powerful PC that has been altered from it's original design. > > The only drawback _might_ be that M$ cries foul and convinces > congresscritters to enforce the DMCA and UCITA against Linux Xbox modders. > Which is unlikely IMHO. > > John Hebert Don't buy things for spite, buy them because you want them. Does anyone here need yet another cheap, relatively underpowered computer? People interested in console games should check out consoles and pick the one that they want. Games like Grand Theft Auto look like fun to me and I don't think you can get them on the Xbox because M$ demands xbox exclusivity. If you want a better Linux gaming experience, Why not put the money into hardware and software for what you already own? Hell, even spending money on your M$ box makes more sense than buying an 800 MHz computer. Losing money == Dumping. The point of dumping is to deprive your competition of marketshare. They are funding their advance into consoles with monopoly rents on operating systems and office sales. I'm not buying an Xbox to run Linux. It just gives them more numbers to pass off another "standard" and bully other companies in yet another industry. It's the same old, "cut off their oxygen", "knife the baby" game they have played for the last 20 years. I'm hoping they take a bath on it this time and it grieves me to hear that free software, of all things, might help them avoid future loses. The worst case for Microsoft is a complete flop, where no one buys it even when they try to give it away. _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
