[dvd-discuss](Fwd) Product licensing by idiots, fools and cretins

[microlenz(at)earthlink.net]

HEre is a slightly edited version of an email from my neighbor Joe SIxpack...He 
likes DOS, BASIC and can tolerate Windows3.1. I found a still in the box copy 
of MS C++ for $4 and picked it up for him

------- Forwarded message follows -------

Subject:        	Product licensing by idiots, fools and cretins that destroy 
loyalty.
To:             	Microlenz@earthlink.net
Copies to:      	GatesB@msn.com

Well, i examined the licensing for the C++ package.
It is an education version and you are restricted to
using it solely on the institutions computer!  

It expressly states that you CANNOT use it on a laptop
at home!  sheesh!

It comes on 12 1.44meg floppies.

Besides being version 1.00, the STANDARD version
cannot compile to DOS programs, you need the
professional program.

-------------------------------------

I thought of possibly writing MS and requesting a 
special indulgence (permission) to use this package to
attempt to educate myself in the C++ iostream.  Still
debating --- the main problem being that the package's
viewed worth at this time isn't worth the price of the
37 cent stamp to request its use. 

-------------------------------------
------------------------------------- 

Aside from using the package illegally to learn C++, i
would like to thank you for the box of floppies and
the toilet paper (documentation) for the outhouse.  If
you have any interest in retrieving this valuable
software package for your own use either as floppies
and/or toilet paper please let me know.  You have a
limited 30 year period or the period of the extended
microsoft copyright (937 years) to make up your mind
and request a return of this valuable toilet paper. 
It will be cryogenically stored in the interim for
you. 

---============================================

SO...this was a "licensed" copy sent to a university that I picked up at a 
Goodwill. Microsoft never wanted it back and someone disposed of it by donating 
it to Goodwill. If there has been any violation of "license" then it is not me 
for purchasing it but whomever Microsoft licensed it to and if they don't know 
who they gave it to then it can't be a license now can it. Clearly this is MY 
personal property right now...or rather Joe's except he doesn't want it.
OK If it is MY personal property, then how can MS possibly have any say about 
what I can or cannot do with it.That includes breaking into it and altering it. 
This is abandoned intellectual property both figeratively and literally. 

So here is a modest proposal.....if there is such a thing as functionality in 
intellectual property  that allows it to to be regulated ala Kaplan, then when 
that property becomes abandoned, if the functionality is to be maintained 
(remember this is a licensed in perpetuity), then hacking, cracking, reverse 
engineering etc must be allowed.  Of course to not permit people to discuss it 
is to not allow them to assemble since they all have a common interest now.