Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 7th Jun 2007 16:14 UTC, submitted by Punktyras
"What's the best way to attract a pile of threatening lawyers' letters from Microsoft? Sell pirate copies of Windows? Write a DRM-busting program?
Londoner Jamie Cansdale has just discovered a new approach. He had the temerity to make Redmond's software better. As a hobby, Cansdale developed an add-on for Microsoft Visual Studio. TestDriven.NET allows unit test suites to be run directly from within the Microsoft IDE. Cansdale gave away this gadget on his website, and initially received the praises of Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft was so pleased with him, it gave him a Most Valuable Professionals award, which it says it gives to 'exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their high quality, real world expertise with others'. However, his cherished status did not last."
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Member since:2005-10-02
Member since:2005-11-10
Member since:2006-01-16
No, that's wrong. The MSVSE EULA doesn't stand above the law and if it contains restrictions which are forbidden by law, these restrictions are nullified.
I don't know about the UK exactly, but the situation in Germany is that it is not allowed to include such clauses. If you buy or license any product, including software, you have to be allowed to customize it to your needs. It also cannot forbidden to give advice to others customizing theirs or providing tools for it.
So MS could not enforce this clause in Germany (and most probably UK, too), because the _clause itself_ is against the local law.
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Member since:
2006-02-04
I don't think the DMCA is an issue. The MSVSE EULA is. No LAW has been broken.