Big dogs don't want to play fair
Filed in archive CSR on September 22, 2007
If there's one thing Microsoft does well, it's keeping the money rolling in. Most recently the technology giant has been asked to re-write their Permissive Lisence (MS-PL) because OSI has found two flaws in the license which make the term "Permissive" misleading.
Honestly, that is just a bunch of techie mumbo-jumbo to me. I only just barely grasp the whole licensing and open source buzz, but I'm not the only one. And while I can't do much to change the techie-scape for the better, unfortunately the lawmakers don't know too much either - and they can do something, but in most cases don't know enough to care enough or be effective.
Just to give you an example, once you open the packaging of any program, the end-user license agreement is in effect. This wouldn't be a big deal if you could see the EUL before you opened it - unfortunately it's kept inside that annoying mass of seals.
What's being done about it? Absolutely nothing. To add insult to injury, the EUL for most programs, including most if not all Microsoft programs, has a clause that states the program is not guaranteed to do anything or even work at all.
You know, human instinct is to fear that which we do not understand - yet somehow these giant techie corporations have managed to gain our trust without providing any understanding, or at least little to no information on the stuff that actually matters.
Do yourself a favor. Even though it might be a really big pain on your eyes, read the fine print.
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Tags: microsoft eul mspl mpl opensource social social+enterprise play+fair
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