VMWare / Wine

[Michael R. Head]

On Fri, 2007-02-23 at 10:57 -0500, Jeffrey F. Bloss wrote:
> Derek Broughton wrote:
> 
> 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.

I don't think I buy this argument (without a snippet of a EULA from some
third party software that explicitly states that it is required to run
on Windows). Certainly the any warranties and guarantees (which were
shaky in the first place) go out the window (so to speak) when running
on a non-Microsoft version of Windows, but simply specifying on the box
that a program requires (or, more to the point _specifies_) windows
doesn't strike me as having any legal force requiring a Microsoft
implementation of that specification/requirement. 

Even if the EULA of a third party piece of software claims that it
requires Windows, I'd still not be totally convinced as EULAs are
notoriously weak.

-- 
Michael R. Head <burner at suppressingfire.org>
http://www.suppressingfire.org/~burner/
http://suppressingfire.livejournal.com
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