| From: | g'o'tz ohnesorge |
| Date: | 19 Sep 2000 at 02:36:42 |
| Subject: | Re: AMIOPEN: OT: Microsoft licensing policy, was: Console Market, was: Sega |
Martin Baute wrote:
> Hello Petr
>
> On 18-Sep-00, you wrote:
>
> > Hmm, today our czech comp site zive.cz brought article about new MS
> > licencing policy. They seem to be just stupid. Now you receive CD with OS
> > and small brochure with your ID printed on top of it when buying from OEM.
> >
> > New policy is introducing another aproach. There will be no CD with
> > Windows, nor there will be the brochure. Your ID will be DEPENDANT upon
> > your hw components, so you will not be able to install it on another hw. I
> > don't believe it - noone could be so stupid .... What's more, the article
> > says it will be up to OEMs to prepare recovery CDs for cases something
> > goes wrong. Once you change your hw setup - you will have to ask for new
> > ID ...
>
> It�s old, but nevertheless true news.
>
> Last I heard was that German (and EC) court was chaecking if this
> is at all legal. Anyone with more recent news on this?
A German court found fault with their making a difference between full versions
and OEM versions, and the new idea (though maybe only for Germany) is to sell
only OEM versions in minimal packaging, but with complete software on the CD, at
the lower OEM price, to everyone, including consumers.
I'm not sure whether this affects their idea for companies that built PCs - for
those it'S still possible that they'll only be allowed to sell a limited driver
set etc. "recovery" CD with their boxes, unless they are happy to pay higher
licensing fees for the full versions. That is to stop buyers from buying one new
PC and update all the ones they already have to the newest version of Windoze -
not a completely wrong idea, but sure to cause them more harm than good (i.e.
people annoyed over more difficulties reinstalling the system after changing the
graphics card or whatever).
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