On Tue, 2003-12-23 at 21:29, Ivan Leo Murray-Smith wrote: > They come with apps because the vendors of those apps have a license from M$ to > redistribute them. You need such a license before you can redistribute them.
What about people who redistribute those apps in turn? For instance, if I write a public domain program that uses the MFCs, and include MFC40.DLL and upload it, then somebody else emails it to a friend - are they redistributing without a license? I don't know. > As I don't think you developed the > script with a M$ tool that comes with a license that allows you to distribute M$ > dlls for whatever platform, this is irrelevant. I seriously doubt you have to write every piece of your code in a project using MS tools in order to be able to redistribute a DLL. Even if the license did say such a preposterous thing, it could certainly be ignored. > The antitrust case about this is not over, actually Bill testified at it > recently, and maybe D.C. and the ten suing states will win. If they do, there > may be builds of windows without OE/IE/MSN, but I don't think there will be > OE/IE/MSN that can legally run without a windows license. They can't tie MSN to Windows, regardless of how it's shipped, MSN doesn't have a monopoly. > dll-files is a illegal site, M$ doesn't do anything about it but it stays > illegal, so it may be a problem because I think the DMCA says you can't link > illegal software (I suppose that's why nobody in the US links to linux dvd > players with decks) No, the DMCA does not say that (as far as I understand), it says you may not distribute (and maybe link to) code that breaks encryption for the purposes of circumventing copy protection. IANAL etc. YMMV :) thanks -mike
