Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[tom poe <tompoe AT renonevada.net>]

Hi:  I would like to see a correction to the seul report, making it painfully 
clear that Microsoft has gone out of its way to damage the concept and 
process of donating computers to those organizations, groups, and individuals 
that might read their donating computers page.  They are engaging in fear, 
uncertainty, and doubt in order to curb the practice of donating computers to 
others, and, in my opinion, bordering on fraudulent misrepresentation.
thanks,
Tom Poe
Reno, NV
http://www.studioforrecording.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/
http://renotahoe.pm.org/

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------
Subject: RE: [DMCA_Discuss] What Laws Does M$ Refer to?
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 15:52:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ole Craig <olc AT cs.umass.edu>
To: Raul Ruiz <raul.ruiz AT yale.edu>


On 04/29/02 at 15:15, 'twas brillig and Raul Ruiz scrobe:

This was done to death on /. a little while ago.

Essentially, the "legal requirement" is contained in the EULA. What
the MS webpages don't tell you is that

        - it is a contractual (not statutory) requirement, bound to the
          operating system license, not the computer hardware

        - it is valid only to the extent that the EULA is valid
          (TTBOMK, this has never been tested in court)

        - it applies to the *donor*, not the recipient; i.e. If I give
          a computer infected with Windows to a school, and fail to
          supply the license and documentation along with it, then I
          am in violation of the EULA, not the school. They can use
          the computer as-is all they want, or install any new
          operating system upon it -- *as long as that new operating
          system license is not an "upgrade" to a presumptively-valid
          previous OS.*

> I believe that they may simply be referring to the first sale doctrine
> (Title 17, Section 109) in an odd way. If you own a computer with windows
> pre-installed, and the terms of purchase of that computer require you to
> keep the operating system installed forever (not sure if it does, I never
> read those things), you must donate it along with the operating system and
> the license.

[...]

> Hi:  Anyone have any idea what laws are being referred to, here?

[...]

> http://www.microsoft.com/education/?id=DonatedComputers
>
> It is a legal requirement that pre-installed operating systems remain with
> a machine for the life of the machine. If a company or individual donates a
> machine to your school, it must be donated with the operating system that
> was
> installed on the PC.

                Ole
--
Ole Craig * olc AT cs.umass.edu * UNIX; postmaster, news, web; SGI martyr *
CS Computing Facility, UMass * <www.cs.umass.edu/~olc/> for public key

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