Well put! Especially the part about Bill Clinton's splitting-hairs-with-words-mode :)

>... you may not...
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>>distribute any Distributable Code that runs on any platform other than the Windows platform; or
>>
>>I'm not so sure, it actually sounds like the opposite. I interpret it, "You cannot distribute the distibutable code if it doesn't run on Windows." In other words, if it isn't capable of running on Windows, you can't distribute it. :)
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>Jon,
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>You're getting close to what I thought the first time I read this. I shifted into my Bill Clinton splitting-hairs-with-words-mode (it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is), and the sentence leaves me with the following hair-splitting conclusions:
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>(1) If any distributable code runs on any platform other than windows, we can't distribute it.
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>(2) But, to make things more fuzzy, it does NOT address any subsequent client of a VFP developer installing/implementing our apps on a non-Windows platform after we have distributed it in good faith for the Windows platform.
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>(3) But more critical for us, since distributable code ~can~ run on platforms other than Windows, we can't distribute ANY distributable code.
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>Read that sentence in the EULA carefully! They could have been more clear and said we may not distribute any Distributable Code to be run on any platform other than the Windows platform. But that would probably draw too much fire over Microsoft tying its products to its operatings systems (anti-trust, etc).
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>Instead they said we may not distribute any Distributable Code that runs on any platform other than the Windows platform. And, as many of us know VFP code does, in fact, run on other non-Windows platforms.
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>Do we see that their language disqualifies ~ALL~ VFP redistributions.
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>They've written a supposedly enforceable license agreement. And instead of clearly stating that we can only distribute "distributable code" to Windows platforms, they've made some vague unclear statement with sentence structure that makes the disqualifying criteria be "runability" on other platforms, and not "implementation" on other platforms.
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>(4) Therefore, a legal argument could be made that the VFP 9.0 EULA could be used by Microsoft to require us to purchase a full copy of VFP for every end-user of our applications, no matter what platform the VFP app is installed on. In effect, they have made distribution of our applications a serious legal question.
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>Sorry if this sounds like nit-picking. But I'm only emphasizing what the document actually says. From here on out, we've got to either:
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> (a) Seek approval from Microsoft to distribute any and all VFP apps,
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> or,
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> (b) Take the shortcut approach and ~assume~ we know they would never enforce our violation of the EULA because we distributed a VFP app (for Windows or any other platform).
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>
>Guy