03.13.12
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Sends Out Lawyers to Shut Down Competition
Microsoft poison pill in the form of EULA
Summary: News about the struggle of a small company against Microsoft’s monopoly
THE EULA is to Microsoft a key part of the business model, which is basically renting binaries over and over again. We wrote about Microsoft’s various EULA matters before [1, 2, 3] and now that a company makes Microsoft’s platform accessible over the Web the lawyers step in:
The OnLive Desktop app enables users to run a Windows desktop on an Apple iPad or Android tablet, freeing users from their PCs even if they want to use Microsoft Office. It’s a great innovation from cloud-streaming firm OnLive, but Microsoft said this week that the app is apparently in violation of licensing terms for Microsoft’s operating system.
Once again we are seeing how lawyers — not developers — take a leading role at Microsoft. The target of Microsoft’s lawyers is not FOSS this time around. As Pogson points out, “OnLive has patents, apparently… Sigh. Interestingly, OnLive runs GNU/Linux on their website.” █
Michael said,
March 14, 2012 at 4:40 pm
MS does not want others, essentially, giving out access to their software.
How dare they!
Still, would be cool if they could work something out so you could pay pennies an hour for use – for those with just the occasional need they would have access and MS and the middle-men would make more money. A win-win for all.