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| Windows 8 EULAs very different from previous incarnations |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-08-21 21:57:15 |
| With Windows 8 right around the corner, the usual game of reading the end-user license agreements and spotting the different versions is in full swing. Usually, this is a game of ridicule as Microsoft comes up with ever more convoluted version schemes and EULA terms. This time around, though, the company seems to be taking steps to make things easier, as Ed Bott reports. |
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| RE[3]: Simple All right |
| By Alfman on 2012-08-23 03:43:22 |
|
WereCatf, That sounds good in principal. It makes sense to void prohibitions against after-sale license transfers, but what about DRM? The law is pretty useless if technology actively interferes with a user's right to transfer. |
 - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: Simple All right |
| By rikkirakk on 2012-08-23 03:49:52 |
| It's probably not illegal to reverse-engineer DRM in Finland. I may be wrong though; all the information I could find is quite old and a lot could happen in 4 years. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Why would companies care? |
| By Alfman on 2012-08-23 04:40:04 |
|
leech, "Besides, as far as I know, the EULAs have NEVER stood up in court, anywhere. GPL has because it's a copyright rather than just a license." I'm not following your distinction? "License" is right there in the GPL acronym. Take a look at this case as it may be a counter-example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro... I find this ruling disappointing for various reasons. One of which is that phone directories are not supposed to be copyrightable. The judge ignored this and essentially concluded the EULA trumps copyright law. There wasn't even a formal contract in place, just a damned clickwrap license. I'd write this one up to a seriously bad judge, but it has established a precedent. It proves that with the "right" judge, you can get any ruling you want. What I find despicable with "clickwrap" licenses generally is: 1) they aren't explicitly available at the time of purchase 2) you have to "agree" to them before you can see the product 3) Opened software typically is not accepted for return if one doesn't agree with the EULA. It's notoriously difficult. For example, Dell's return policy is: "We accept returns of software for refund or credit only if the package containing the disks is sealed and unopened." Clickwrap licensing is a scam. |
| - Score: 4 |
| MS licensing = time sink |
| By benali72 on 2012-08-23 05:52:09 |
| Am I glad I don't use Windows! I can't imagine wasting time on decoding MS licensing schemes every release. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: MS licensing = time sink |
| By Nth_Man on 2012-08-23 07:50:02 |
|
A big contrast. People can start using GPL software without even having to read the GPL. "You are not required to agree to anything to merely use software which is licensed under the GPL. You only have obligations if you modify or distribute the software." -- https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-... Edited 2012-08-23 07:51 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[5]: Simple All right |
| By Alfman on 2012-08-23 14:56:32 |
|
rikkirakk, "It's probably not illegal to reverse-engineer DRM in Finland." It's probably legal to reverse engineer the software in many places, even the DMCA offers some rights in that direction. However I still can't help but feel that it's wrong for companies to prohibit legal rights through technological means, which is what DRM does. The (in)effectiveness of DRM doesn't really enter into the equation for me. It's not safe to assume DRM will ALWAYS remain ineffective. From a CS perspective, It is impossible to implement foolproof DRM on open consumer hardware since the outer layer of DRM code is always inherently exposed; this is true even of the operating system. DRM is ineffective because corporations have not been successful at enforcing their control over the full stack - including hardware. However the powers that be are making headway in pushing the entire industry towards closed platforms where the hardware itself will be capable of banning end user modification. On such platforms, the DRM will no longer be inherently vulnerable to software hacks, only hardware ones. Ultimately the DRM will still get broken even if it requires hardware hacks, but since users no longer have the capability of running unapproved software on their own machines they won't be able to circumvent the DRM without a hardware hack (consider xbox mods). |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Comment by kenji |
| By TemporalBeing on 2012-08-23 14:57:43 |
|
> > I'm very curious to see what happens when smart developers get their hands on this and work within Metro's constraints to make beautiful applications. Thom, you are a perpetual Windows optimist. Yes, considering "smart developers" will ignore Win8 on the Desktop when it comes to Metro. Of course, "smart developers" might ignore Metro altogether if they believe Win8/Metro won't be any kind of market for mobile, which is very likely. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[3]: Enterprise edition... |
| By BluenoseJake on 2012-08-23 21:24:04 |
| No reason to apologize, I was trying to make a point, but it came out too harsh. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: MS licensing = time sink |
| By ilovebeer on 2012-08-24 04:37:25 |
|
> Am I glad I don't use Windows! I can't imagine wasting time on decoding MS licensing schemes every release. You'd spend less time doing that than you would dealing with the constant breakage in linux. Assuming you're a linux user of course. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[2]: Why would companies care? |
| By leech on 2012-08-24 12:12:05 |
|
Well, I did say it isn't "just a license." Meaning that while it is a license agreement, it's also a copyright agreement. It states that the copyright holders are indeed the authors of the source code and to be able to change the license, you would have to get all of the contributors to the source code to agree. |
| - Score: 2 |
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