Todd Walton wrote:
On 11/3/05, DJA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
And if you have the OS on the original media, you
have a license to use any or part of it.
You have a *right*, if not the license. The Windows license says that
the software can only be resold once. If you're the third owner, you
can't run the software you own, according to the license.
-todd
Yes. The media is in effect its own license to use. Unless the media was
stolen, the possessor has the right to use it. This whole nonsense about
needing a piece of paper /in addition to/ legal possession of the media
is just part of a conspiracy by software companies (and more and more
non-software companies) to move the public to a strictly rent-to-use
economy.
Personally, I don't give a rat's ass what what the license says. I
bought it, I can do as I please with it. The only terms even close to
being reasonable are those restricting use to one computer at a time,
and redistribution of the original media only (i.e. you can't make a
copy and give away or sell it).
Even not being able to disassemble, decompile or use for personal use
some or part of the software in my own non-distributed (or
conditionally, in distributed) software is bullshit, and I find it
absolutely amazing how many people in the computer industry now have
rolled over and accepted such restrictions.
How many programmers on this list have ever in the past (of course you
wouldn't _dare_ do so today cuz it's just strike-you-down-by-god-hisself
immoral) disassembled a proprietary program in order to figure out how
it did something cool, and then used some small portion of that code or
it's ideas in your own software? Most programmers today have never seen,
let alone possess or know what to do with, a disassembler.
I remember when that was SOP for many application writers. Everyone did
it (especially programmers working for the major software companies) and
everyone expected it to happen to their code if was any good (and who
didn't think their code was revolutionary?)
As for being the third legal possessor of the software on its original
media, who says I can't use it? Microsoft? Why would I care what
Microsoft says in this regard?
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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