VMWare / Wine

[Jeffrey F. Bloss]

Derek Broughton wrote:

> Matthew Flaschen wrote:
> 
> > Derek Broughton wrote:
> >> Ouattara Oumar Aziz wrote:
> >> 
> >>> I'll tell you what I thing are the main differences between Wine
> >>> (and its forks : Cedega and CrossOverOffice) and VMware :
> >>>
> >>> Wine :
> >>> - no need for windows license
> >> 
> >> Legally, or practically?  Many things you might run under Wine are
> >> _legally_ required to have a Windows license.
> > 
> > That's simply not true.  
> 
> You keep doing that to me.  It IS true.

Yes, it most certainly is.

I use to do a considerable amount of work for some attorneys who were
involved in software copyright and licensing law on an international
scale. We use to chit chat about all sorts of things. ;)

In short, if a piece of software lists "Microsoft Windows xxxx" as a
requirement, like almost every piece of Windows software does, it
implies a *legally owned* copy of that software. It doesn't even have
to be installed, IOW Wine is "legal" (the reason the topic came up), but
to run almost any Windows software legally requires ownership of a
Microsoft Windows license more current than Windows 95... for a couple
reasons that have to do with Microsoft's EULA changes starting with
Windows 98.

In fact if you aren't running a legal copy of Windows, software
authors and their agents can't legally warranty and support their
products without facing the wrath of Bill's considerable legal staff.
Not an enviable place to be, which is why in the business world legal
copies of Windows are most often explicitly stated as a requirement
rather than just implied.

For the average home user this isn't a real issue because nobody really
knows if your copy of Windows is legal, or cares if they do. But that
doesn't change the fact that technically if you're running a bootleg
copy of Windows you're committing multiple offenses with every third
party software install. 

> 
> > Components of Windows need a Windows license, 
> > but there's a whole lot of Windows software that isn't even put out
> > by Microsoft.
> 
> Of course there is.  I didn't say you couldn't run any software under
> Wine. In fact lots of good software does run under Wine, and legally
> (at least in my non-legal opinion), too.
> 
> However, as I said, _many_ applications are legally required to have a
> Windows license.  I think you'll find that almost all Microsoft
> software EULAs specifically require you to have a Windows license,

Indeed. And if you look at something like the IEs4Linux "Legal Notices"
page you'll find this explained and linked in some detail.

> plus any software that requires any DLLs or fonts or any other
> Windows component, that has not been freely released by Microsoft.

Which would also cover the vast majority of Windows applications. ;)

-- 
     _?_      Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
    (o o)         Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-oOO-(_)--OOo------------------------------[ Groucho Marx ]---
                    http://wrench.homelinux.net/~jeff/
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