> Maybe I'm thinking too simplistic here, but any time one company
> offers a distribution license to another, if they also retain the
> right to revoke it. Size of the distributing company should not
> matter. Breach the contract, lose the license. Simple, fair and legal.
>
> [...]
>
> Or am I missing some "big picture"?
call it the mid-sized picture. the party that buys the license has a
corresponding right to assume that the licensing company won't yank it
without a good, solid reason. the big guys would love it if they
could charge $N00.00 for the right to use a piece of software or
technology, then turn around and say, "nope.. changed our minds.. you
can't use it after all. OBTW - we're keeping the money."
that's why contracts explicitly state the conditions under which the
license can be revoked. even when you do that, though, there are
always times when people interpret things differently. the court's
job is then to sift through both sets of arguments and decide which
version fits the law best.
the current dispute between Sun and Microsoft deals with the
definition of the term 'compatability'. from what i can gather, Sun
wrote the original license to say, in effect:
"anything Microsoft develops for Java has to be compatible with our
implementation, and we'll be testing to make sure."
which Microsoft has interpreted to mean:
"any time we write something that uses existing Java from Sun, we have
to follow their standards.. but that doesn't stop us circumventing any
standards we don't happen to like, and replacing them with our own
versions. those items won't be 'standard', which might hurt us in
the marketplace, but we're willing to take that risk."
relying, of course, on their ability to shove software down the throat
of the consumer market to the point where thier way of doing things
becomes the de facto standard.
in-your-face? yes. ethically contemptible? IMHO, also yes.
breach of contract? that i couldn't begin to guess, because i don't
know what the contract actually says. and i'm willing to bet that
the wording of that contract is so completely opaque that the decision
will end up reflecting the judge's opinion of Microsoft itself, more
than some abstract principle of law.
mike stone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 'net geek..
been there, done that, have network, will travel.
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