End user licences
Posted 01-14-2009 at 12:00 PM by EnglishPaul
What the ..?
I gave up reading these long ago. I mean its not like you have a choice. You either sign up and use the software, or try to return it for a refund.
But I had heard that I could downgrade vista on the same license, and I wondered if I could partition a 32bit vista along side the 64bit version if I could borrow the disk. So I started reading.
I have always been proud that our legal system protects people's rights and guards against corruption. It evens things and is (or should be) fair handed.
But heck, how much ground is being taken by legal concerns!
It is one thing to protect your financial interests as a company, but after reading the Vista EULA (or most of it!) how much have we as individuals given away to MS?
I can't be bothered to look it up to cite it, but there is a clause where MS reserves the right if they don't like a program you have installed to cripple all their programs on your computer via the internet.
Now I don't use my computer to copy things I shouldn't, I don't run evil programs, I don't use programs to run evil. I have nothing to hide.
Yet I find myself strangely worried at how much power MS and the like have. Its not like most of us can choose something else. We are locked into windows by convenience, training, availability and many other things.
So at what point does MS have not only an influence on our life, but also a dominance over it?
How did a legal system, meant to defend the truth and be just, turn into a protracted web of minor details and clauses?
You see, the upshot of this is that you can fall foul of rules that most people would find difficult to understand. So instead of defending the powerless, it is actually serving to trip them up.
And don't even get me started on the eroding effects to society of private litigation.
I gave up reading these long ago. I mean its not like you have a choice. You either sign up and use the software, or try to return it for a refund.
But I had heard that I could downgrade vista on the same license, and I wondered if I could partition a 32bit vista along side the 64bit version if I could borrow the disk. So I started reading.
I have always been proud that our legal system protects people's rights and guards against corruption. It evens things and is (or should be) fair handed.
But heck, how much ground is being taken by legal concerns!
It is one thing to protect your financial interests as a company, but after reading the Vista EULA (or most of it!) how much have we as individuals given away to MS?
I can't be bothered to look it up to cite it, but there is a clause where MS reserves the right if they don't like a program you have installed to cripple all their programs on your computer via the internet.
Now I don't use my computer to copy things I shouldn't, I don't run evil programs, I don't use programs to run evil. I have nothing to hide.
Yet I find myself strangely worried at how much power MS and the like have. Its not like most of us can choose something else. We are locked into windows by convenience, training, availability and many other things.
So at what point does MS have not only an influence on our life, but also a dominance over it?
How did a legal system, meant to defend the truth and be just, turn into a protracted web of minor details and clauses?
You see, the upshot of this is that you can fall foul of rules that most people would find difficult to understand. So instead of defending the powerless, it is actually serving to trip them up.
And don't even get me started on the eroding effects to society of private litigation.
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