Microsoft has tweaked Windows and some Office 2007 licenses so people who rent PCs to customers - like internet cafes and business centers - can do so legally. The company has introduced the Rental Rights license for Office Professional Plus 2007, Office Standard 2007, and Windows across the globe following international …

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Saturday 9th January 2010 12:08 GMT slooth

WTF??

From the EULA for Office 2007 :

INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. Before you use the software under a license,

you must assign that license to one device. That device is the “licensed

device.” A hardware partition or blade is considered to be a separate device.

a. Licensed Device. You may install and use one copy of the software on the

licensed device.

And....

Section 3a....You may allow other users to access the software to provide you with

support services. You do not need additional licenses for this access. No other

person may use the software under the same license at the same time for any

other purpose.

So, you buy the software, install it on a machine and abide by the license use of having only one user use it. Then MicroShaft turns around and says: "Because YOU are not using it, pay us more money". How do they justify their OWN EULA?

Their licensing practices are more like piracy!

Go open source and to hell with M$

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1. Sunday 10th January 2010 06:26 GMT Vigilante
  
  Except... You said it yourself.
  
  "Section 3a....You may allow other users to access the software to provide you with support services"
  
  If some gran is in a cafe sending an email to her grandkids, friends etc, she's hardly giving you or your organisation "support services".
  
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Saturday 9th January 2010 12:08 GMT adnim

Having it both ways

I was under the impression that MS software, in particular Windows, was licenced to the PC on which it is installed and not the user.

Seems to me like MS get to have their cake and eat it.

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1. Sunday 10th January 2010 06:25 GMT SImon Hobson
  
  RE: Having it both ways
  
  That's about it.
  
  You can have a licence for a product - but it's not a licence to use that product where and when you want, it's only a licence to use it where and when Microsoft think you should be allowed to use it. Oh yes, and you can't necessarily tell from looking at a bit of paper exactly what it is that you've got (and hence what you are allowed to do with it).
  
  As others have pointed out, in any other industry that would be declared invalid on the basis that once you've sold something then it's not reasonable to restrict what the purchaser does with it. Imagine if Ford had a clause that if you rented your car to someone else then ownership would instantly revert to them and the car would go into auto mode and drive back to the nearest factory !
  
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2. Monday 11th January 2010 09:49 GMT Rob Beard
  
  OEM
  
  I gather that's for OEM licences which are tied to the machine and the licences die with the machine. What's even more annoying, if you upgrade the motherboard, say due to a motherboard failure, and don't get an identical board (or one with very close specs) then you have to buy another licence. So you can't say, upgrade from an older dead P4 board to a shiny new Core i7 board and use the same licence.
  
  If I understand correctly though, this restriction doesn't apply to full retail boxed packages (for instance, a full retail boxed copy of Windows 7 or Office 2007 bought from a store). These can (or at least could a while back) be moved between PCs as long as it was only used on 1 PC at a time.
  
  This is one of the reasons I went down the open source route, however the wife does run Windows on her laptop and desktop.
  
  Rob
  
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Sunday 10th January 2010 06:25 GMT paul brain

Linux and open office

People wonder why others dislike MS. Most of it has to do with poor products, high prices and complex licensing.

This will not continue for ever. There are viable alternatives.

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Sunday 10th January 2010 06:25 GMT John Sanders

Since when Microsoft decides what is legal and what is not?

"Microsoft has tweaked Windows and some Office 2007 licenses so people who rent PCs to customers - like internet cafes and business centers - can do so legally"

Since when MS is able to pass bills in the congress or the British parliament to make the terms on its abusive EULA "legal" or "not legal".

This is utterly bullshit, next thing is MS trying to legislate whether I can write horny letters to Paris while I'm on the toilet using MS Word.

God thanks the penguin.

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Sunday 10th January 2010 06:25 GMT Anonymous Coward

Two Words.

Open Source.

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Sunday 10th January 2010 06:25 GMT Mr Blonde

Earn Ye some Balls

"Sterling Ball, a jovial, plain-talking businessman, is CEO of Ernie Ball, the world's leading maker of premium guitar strings endorsed by generations of artists ranging from the likes of Eric Clapton to the dudes from Metallica. But since jettisoning all of Microsoft products three years ago, Ernie Ball has also gained notoriety as a company that dumped most of its proprietary software--and still lived to tell the tale. "

more here

http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

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Sunday 10th January 2010 06:25 GMT Anonymous Coward

Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets.

I agree with Slooth

This is quite scary.. This has possible major impact on many more projects than internet cafe's.

(Which lets face it 99% will have no idea about this license requirement)

Most major IT projects now a days are provided on a leasing/support basis.

What other products this effect? Server products? SQL Server?

Even the free products suddenly seem dangerous...

If anything is going to push people towards Open Source this is it.

Sometimes it seems like Microsoft is starting to turn a corner and then all of a sudden it shows it's colours again... disappointing..

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Sunday 10th January 2010 06:25 GMT Anonymous Coward

Licence Key

From now on it must be tattooed on the skin of every MS product user.

Microsoft *will* own the world

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Monday 11th January 2010 09:49 GMT WinHatter

Sorry ...

... I haven't been paying attention to MS orientations lately. In the world I belong to, MS is just a way to run legacy applications, and it is rather bad : XP/2003Server.

But, if MS is pissing off people that can't be a bad thing.

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Monday 11th January 2010 09:49 GMT Mark Simon

Is this legal

My understanding of the licence is that you can’t have two people using it at the same time. ("No other person may use the software under the same license at the same time for any other purpose"). Now

(a) in what sense are you in breach of this if somebody else is using your computer, but you are not;

(b) might you be in breach of this licence if somebody looks over your shoulder while you are using it, or is one of the few people enjoying a PowerPoint presentation on a projected screen?

As far as I am aware, an impossible contract, ie one the terms of which are impossible, is automatically invalidated ...

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1. Monday 11th January 2010 10:43 GMT alain williams
  
  Re: Is this legal
  
  I think that what this is talking about is the special case of someone *renting* out a machine running MS s/ware, be that by the week or by the hour. I suppose that this sort of like Blockbuster renting out DVDs of the latest film and (I suppose) having to make some payment to the studio.
  
  However: with a film, once you have seen it you are unlikely to want to see it again - so some fee back to the studio is reasonable (since they won't go to the cinema). I don't see the same analogy with s/ware.
  
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Monday 11th January 2010 11:54 GMT Ted Treen

Whatever you do...

read, learn & inwardly digest the small print - 'cos it'll shaft you.

Better still, get a friendly neighbourhood legal beagle to check it out. Especially if Ballmer has had any input.

You know it makes sense!

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Monday 11th January 2010 11:54 GMT TeeCee

Those one-time licence payments.

"Office Professional Plus......$58......Windows........$23......"

At those prices, I predict that most of these licenses will be "rented" via eBay.....

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Monday 11th January 2010 13:06 GMT Anonymous Coward

I actually agree with this

But then it doesn't seem that unusual to me as one of my friends used to run a cyber cafe, the issue wasn't letting other people use the software, it was specifically about charging other people to use it.

All the games, and software on the machines had to have publisher agreement to be able to charge people to use them, and often those agreements had to be paid for. I'm willing to bet there is a clause in the windows eula somewhere that says you can't charge people to use it.

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Tuesday 12th January 2010 00:24 GMT Andy Taylor

Typical Microsoft greed

One of my previous employers is a large charity that, amongst other things, provides IT services to a number of related, but legally separate charities. Several of the services are web based and hosted on Windows.

According to Microsoft, if you run a web site that is available to the public, that's fine, shove it on IIS and away you go. Alternatively, if you run a wabsite that is only available to employees of your organisation (aka an Intranet), that's fine too.

But any service that caters for your related, but separate organisations requires all the servers that provide that particular website to have an additional "interconnect" licence.

Does this special licence provide any additional functionality? What do you think?

12 grand for no discernable benefit to anyone except Microsoft. Of course my ex-employer simply paid up rather than tell Microsoft where to go or switch to a proper web server platform.

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