13 Comments For This Post

1. Salmon Says:
November 19th, 2007 at 4:55 am

A Comparison of the GPL and the Microsoft EULA.

http://www.cyber.com.au/about/comparing_the_gpl_to_eula.pdf

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2. Ian MacGregor Says:
November 19th, 2007 at 9:16 am

This has got to be, far and above, the best article I have read in the last year. You have a knack for seeing through the bull, kudos to you! You’re right, Microsoft is just spreading FUD.. as usual. Linux users have nothing to fear from them.

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3. kc Says:
November 19th, 2007 at 11:28 am

http://www.cyber.com.au/about/comparing_the_gpl_to_eula.pdf

A good read! Thanks for the link.

Regards,

KC.

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4. Jim Steichen Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 2:09 pm

Another thing that Bill Hilf did not mention is that by choosing open source software, you don’t have to worry about the BSA Gestapo showing up at your door.

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5. BillabongBob Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 4:06 pm

Microsoft’s practice of holding this Sword of Damocles over the heads of the Open Source community surely cannot be legally defended. When will someone injunct Microsoft to either specify precisely the patent infringements or, failing that, to LAY OFF!

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6. SomeGuy Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 7:08 pm

[...]C. EXCLUSIONS FROM WARRANTY. This warranty does not cover problems caused by your acts
(or failures to act), the acts of others, or events beyond Microsoft’s reasonable control.[...]

the part “by your acts (or failures to act)”, am I getting this right?

so, if the system fails and you did something (or not) then it’s not covered by the warranty?

P.S. what is an act? move the mouse, click, press a key?

so if you read me (or failed to read me) Have a nice day

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7. kc Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 7:44 pm

Greetings…

[…]C. EXCLUSIONS FROM WARRANTY. This warranty does not cover problems caused by your acts
(or failures to act), the acts of others, or events beyond Microsoft’s reasonable control.[…]

the part “by your acts (or failures to act)”, am I getting this right?

so, if the system fails and you did something (or not) then it’s not covered by the warranty?

As I stated above, I Am Not A Lawyer, and as such, I can only interpret the EULA in my own, personal, way. Your interpretation may differ from mine, also, a lawyer is the best person to ask about this.

Having said that, “by your acts”, in my opinion means “something you did which caused the breakage”, and “(or failures to act)” means “something you failed to do but if you did might have resulted in the breakage not occurring”.

P.S. what is an act? move the mouse, click, press a key?

An “act”, as I see it, is any action taken by you – or , in the case of “failure to act” – an action you didn’t take but should have – which results in breaking Windows.

so if you read me (or failed to read me) Have a nice day

Oh I did read you

Have a great day.

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8. Psypher Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 8:04 pm

I think this is great, the more MS execs open their mouths there more they prove what absolute morons they truly are. Steve Balmer is a FINE example. Keep it up MS. The George W types you punt to us are keeping us in hilarity!! I only hope the masses read sites like these!

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9. fr0thy Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 8:15 pm

KC – You said you would like a translation to this :

“The first question that I ask, because I’m deeply involved with that decision chain is, what does this do to help or hinder that ecosystem of accountability, the testing model, the support model, the backstop? That has to be a counterbalance to any value that we might get out of a community software development model, and those are decisions that we kind of walk through.”

I think it’s something like this :

“My primary consideration, given my intricate association to the appropriate intellectual enlightenment group is, what is the envisioned effect of furtherment or reduction to our hierarchical employee tree, the inferred necessity to produce post Alpha commodity products, the knock on effect to customer support revenues in the event of producing fit for purpose software, can we still steal other peoples code? The aforementioned must not negate effective revenue streams which we appropriate from open engagement creation, effectively these are the considerations which we are unable to grasp nor control.”

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10. kc Says:
November 20th, 2007 at 8:51 pm

@fr0thy:

You managed to make me smile, AND hurt my head at the same time, congrats

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11. Jimmy Says:
November 21st, 2007 at 3:46 am

very well said; great article – keep it up

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12. Research Guy Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 12:12 am

Yep – I think you are right on again..

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13. Polprav Says:
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm

Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?

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KC reply on October 23rd, 2009:

Sure thing.

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1 Trackbacks For This Post

1. Boycott Novell » FUDMesiter Back in Action — Bill Hilf Spreads Lies and Myths About Linux and FLOSS Says:
November 19th, 2007 at 4:45 pm

[...] is said to have left his role recently, but the FUD continues, so shame on him.“Over in HackFUD, Bill Hilf’s latest arguments are torn apart systematically and effectively, proving yet again (fourth time in this Web site) that he is nothing more than a FUD-generating [...]

http://www.cyber.com.au/about/comparing_the_gpl_to_eula.pdf