>>Dan
>
>For a long time Microsoft turned a blind eye toward folks using their copy of WinXX on more than one machine, especially at home. They needed the 'market share'. Now that they have a market monoply they don't look the other way.
>You buy a box that comes with WinXX preinstalled (hard not to these days, unless you are a knowledgable power user and hardwire lover). Later, you buy another box that has WinXX+1 presinstalled. For some reason you wish to swap them, so you do. Now you have two PCs, both containing a purchased copy of WinXX, but you also now have two 'pirated' copies of WinXX, according to MS.

I don't think that's true. It's come up before. Otherwise, what would happen if you replaced every part of your computer over time? Would it be a new computer? What would trigger the need for a new license? Motherboard, CPU, Disk, RAM, power supply?

>Or, say you didn't swap the OSs on the old and the new PC. You just give away the old PC, plus its OS, to a charity, and only run the new PC. You no longer can use that copy of WinXX on the old PC, obviously, but the charity is now a 'pirate' for accepting it. According to MS, the charity, or you, must delete the perfectly good copy of WinXX from the PC and the charity must pay MS to replace it with the same thing. I don't know what your sense of ethics is on these matters but my sense says it is nonsense driven by greed.

The license is to the user, not the machine. This is a standard practice for most companies, at least in the EULA's I'm looking at. What's unethical about it?

>While I am ranting I'd introduce another grievence: that MS can't be sued for its own violations of the EULA (because the judge ruled the OEM sold the license, not MS) but MS can sue the consumer for violating the same license. This is pure evil. Secondly, MS & other unethical software companies greased congress to the point that they passed laws exempting the software companies from product liabilities. If auto makers did that folks would be up in arms. They are rapidly approaching that point with the software houses.

So you're saying I should be able to sue Linus if Linux crashes and causes me loss of money or life? Is the Linux community unethical because they fall under the same laws as MS? VNC does not come with a warranty or guarantee. Is ATT Research Labs unethical? It's GNU so is GNU unethical? By your definition the whole software industry is unethical. Find a EULA that accepts blame and reimburses the user in case of failure.

>
>enough said.
>JLK

Dan