Microsoft XP License Prohibits VNC 798
jhml writes: "Looks like the monopoly muscles are flexing. According to this article in Infoworld, the XP license prohibits products other than from Microsoft's from being used to remotely control an XP workstation. So ... guess they were having a little trouble with VNC being widely used?"
ssh ? (Score:5, Interesting)
VNC vs. Remote Desktop (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, remote desktop runs much better than VNC, and is sure a lot better than a screen capture... oh well. Besides, with VNC can you play a CD on the remote computer and listen to it at your local machine? =]
Re:ssh ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Jeremy
Re:Look, more FUD. (Score:5, Interesting)
The way I read this is that this prohibits software from remotely driving the computer - whether it is for serving applications or for administrative purposes.
I don't think it is even possible to set up VNC to be used on the Windows platform to set up application sharing -- the VNC instance is tied to the desktop -- IMHO that means it is only good for a single user and I don't see why it matters whether that single user is at the KB on the console or a remote console.
I also agree with an earlier poster -- for the Windows platform, the Terminal Services client is *FAR* superior to VNC -- of course it is -- VNC works by sending bitmaps across the pipe -- the terminal services client can send API calls -- same principle as behind Xwindows.
I often like to install both as there has been times when Terminal services has croaked but VNC hasn't and vice-versa.
Re:This is for "Citrix like" applications. (Score:3, Interesting)
50 people on 50 Linux machines using 50 VNC clients connected to 1 Windows VNC server does not result in 50 people remotely running their own instance of Windows apps. Instead, they'll all be sharing the same mouse/kb cursor, and the same processes.
It would be nothing short of chaos... why does this need to be regulated again?
I still don't get this: (Score:4, Interesting)
That, because we are running their software, this means that they own the computer it runs on. What else could the deal with the "registered programs" and such be about? I own the damn network card, so doesn't that mean I can choose how to use it? It's the same ownership/license debate.
I sick of it all...
Nahtanoj
An Observation (Score:3, Interesting)
The point I want to raise is this: VNC is an innocuous program. It's not Napster or Morpheus, which I could see Microsoft actually blocking. It's instead something you throw on a box to make your life as an admin easier. In short, VNC is about the
My question: Windows XP has been out there for what, a year? It took people that long to realize that the license agreement disallows the use of VNC? How much longer is it going to be before someone finds the clause that disallows the use of OpenOffice? If such a clause existed, would people be able to find it and realize its implications? Furthermore, how much longer is it going to be before network admins decide that they'd rather not use an operating system where they don't even have any idea what applications they are allowed to run on it? Again, VNC is an extremely common and handy tool, it seemed like the LAST app MS would disallow. If VNC is disallowed, what's next?
-inq
License Agreement (Score:2, Interesting)
I've been wondering about these licenses. In particular, I was wonder about the case where I purchase a PC from some big brand name store. There store already has installed the OS(Windows XP). I buy the PC, and without ever clicking on "I Agree" button, I use the PC.
Who has agreed to this license agreement? Me or the store?
Typical. (Score:5, Interesting)
The bold text implies that a Windows 98 license would be required, for example, on the BSD machine running a BSD client connecting to a Windows 98 desktop.
The Windows 2000 EULA is more blunt:
Good thing that except for those unfortunates who live in UCITA states, these clauses are likely to mean dick.
Re:What about PCAnywhere? (Score:5, Interesting)
At the XP rollout I asked (twice, once where the entire audience could hear it) about licensing vs "As a guest using remote assistance, you are able to run anything on the remote system"... frex, Word. But Word's current license is PER USER, *not* PER SEAT. (One computer, one copy of Word, 6 *possible* users == you are now required to have 6 licenses -- possibly 7 if your M$Office install was OEM, since in some confused way it appears that sometimes the computer itself is regarded as a user.)
The M$ guy quite deliberately danced all around but never answered my question.
Draw your own conclusions.
Predictable and not impresssive anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
Story reminds me on time when I needed to purchase Terminal server. With all the licenses needed (you need WinNT + client licenses + terminal server, but funny is that client side is even more expensive because every client needs Win98 license + WinNT full license + Terminal server access license) I just smiled my self and felt quite happy about my decision to move bussines to Linux.
I don't know, but that makes accessing WinXP trough SSH illegal too. But where is some Microsoft WinXP SSH client.
It might came a bit out off topic, but story reminds me on Windows license stickers, that must be sticked on every computer that you sell Windows with. I sell only well designed and expensive cases (otherwise I rather avoid that job), this could break their level of class. It's like some Ferrari reseller would put a sticker on the car he just sold, but to get back. There has come to dispue about this topic and dispute was over the moment I asked for damage covering. You can't sell classy PC case with stickers on it. This just isn't way to do bussines, it's more like cow branding to which ranch do they belong.
Now in these days of XP licensing, I can't say I haven't expected something like that. Nobody can say that without a lie, even the toughest Microsoft fans.
To get a little more out off topic (but with a point again). Interesting is how they protect their rights. And what kind of material do they use to lower quality of other products. Recentlly I recived two CD-s for Windows 2000 resellers "How to compete with Linux environment". I don't think that I've ever read this many "bullshit" in my life as I've reada in that material. Just to cover some points (Comparing Win2000AdvSrv with Redhat 6.0, while document is dated late 2001, Linux has no 1000Mbit eth support, Linux has no VPN support, Linux has no PPP dialer, etc, while other file (dated few days in difference) comparing Samba with Win2000 says that weak point of Samba 2.2 is that it doesn't come preinstalled on releases prior to 7.2, so you must set it up on your own...).
This (sad) reality (unfortunatelly) shows how over protective (no body count and no regrets) thay are. It seems like they'll soon lack of new enemies and they want their customers to become ones. Now with that legal issue about remote control, they've just made competition alias Citrix harder job to copete with their solutions. It wouldn't surprise me if the next step would be selling licenses for use of non-Microsoft software. As how this software is not confirmed by Microsoft and they've got to approve it so this license would be just covering their expenses to test that software. It's long since they've shown that they're interested in money and not in users benefits.
I know the last claim is off course missed one. But as current events are evolving... Who knows
bout the article let's just say "Predictable and not impresssive anymore"
Re:As a wise man once said (Score:3, Interesting)
I've always thought it's funny you don't get to accept or decline the EULA until AFTER you plunk down your money for it...
Actually, this is exactly why ELUAs are not usually binding. When you pick up the box, take it to the counter, and pay your money, you have completed a contract. The vendor cannot unilaterally change the terms of that contract by surprising you with a piece of paper with additional terms on the inside.
Actually, the notion of the ELUAs as they are typically attempted by MicroSoft and such are disturbing to me beyond their mere illegality. The idea of ambushing the buyer with additional terms on the contract after the user has already paid for the product is morally repugnant. MicroSoft (along with other vendors) appear to believe that ELUAs should have some force of law, even if the courts know better. If ELUAs were legally binding, wouldn't this ambush tactic be a kind of fraud? How can anyone with a personal sense of honor or any kind of sense of ethics at all perpetrate such a fraud? The very notion of an ELUA hidden from the buyer at the time of purchase with terms as draconian as we keep hearing about from MS speaks volumns of the moral degeneracy that must be rampant at MicroSoft. I would resign from a company before I ever allowed myself to be a party to such a fraud, and I don't understand why the people involved with packaging products and creating these ELUAs at MS don't do this simply to preserve their own integrity. I'm sure MicroSoft would claim that values like integrity, morality, honesty, and honor are very important at their company, but how can we reconcile such a theory with these ELUAs?
Adrian
Re:Netscape (Score:5, Interesting)
By excluding previously allowed software on their systems, Microsoft are extending their monopoly over the software that runs on their system.
It is most likely that this part of the EULA would be overturned in a court ruling as being unreasonable.
In any company, to comply with the license, they must use a Microsoft remote terminal application. This is restriction of business (or product tying), as companies will comply with the license of course!)
Someone should point this out to the 9 states and the DOJ as evidence that Microsoft are *continuing* to act in a predatory monopolistic manner, and that harsh terms need to be applied in order to allow true competition in the OS and application market.
Re:ssh ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ssh ? (Score:3, Interesting)
rdesktop killer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That doesn't mean VNC won't run. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just ssh to the host and run your app. If your feeling really nifty , do a X
and run the entire desktop remotely
Re:They don't want you to use workstations as serv (Score:2, Interesting)
Old news (Score:3, Interesting)
But who cares? I installed VNC on XP anyway and it works great (never could make the original "remote control" work because it needs another XP system).
Re:Not necessarily anti-VNC... (Score:3, Interesting)
How often was MS sued?
Easy fix (Score:5, Interesting)
They won't dare fight you on this, because if they win, it would basically invalidate the whole EULA concept: if a click can be considered to be agreement, so can a signature for a certified letter...
Re:What about databases? (Score:2, Interesting)
I could have seen that if we were offering File and Print services, but to allow clients to access a seperately licensed product purely using TCP/IP services?
We ended up using Digital Unix instead of NT.
Request for Netopia's (Timbuktu Pro) spin on this: (Score:2, Interesting)
Could you address the following posting on Slashdot, regarding the Windows XP license and what this means in terms of using your product legally on Windows XP? This is especially an issue for those of us that use Macintosh computers to connect to other TB2 boexs on our network (like here). While XP has only just begun to enter my shop, it will. I want to know if this is an issue. (If it is, you should sick your lawyers on them, since they're forcing you and Symantec out of this market.)
Re:Slashdot is wrong as usual. (Score:3, Interesting)
But it's all irrelevant now: the five-year contract was signed in 1997 and expires this year. Therefore, Citrix is scheduled to die this year. Rest assured that all of the value add that Citrix provides will now be built into the system by Microsoft.
That includes clients for non Windows platforms. It's a downright draconian licensing model: for each client connecting to Terminal Services, you have to buy a Client Access License, a Terminal Services Client Access License (yes, they're two different things), a Citrix license (if you're using Citrix), and... if you're using a non-Microsoft operating system, or a Microsoft operating system older than the one running on the Terminal Services host... you also have to buy a Windows [2000] Workstation license!
Add up all that free money for Microsoft and it doesn't really matter what OS you're connecting from.
This makes sense -- it's NOT a arbitrary (Score:3, Interesting)
The original market for stuff like Citrix WinView and WinFrame was where people really were remote; they were at their house connecting with a modem or at a satellite office connected to HQ via a leased line or whatever, and they needed some way to run applications that use a lot of network bandwidth (e.g. database stuff) with decent performance in spite of having a slow pipe. So you take the X11 type approach, and run the app on a machine with a fast pipe, and just use the slow pipe for the user interface.
I set up a few such beasties for clients and they were happy. Then I heard that Microsoft was doing "the Borg thing" to kill Citrix, and I couldn't figure it out at first. Why? It's not like there was some MS-only alternative where MS would make more money (except on the app server software) and even WinFrame itself only ran on NT (unlike WinView, which was Citrix was phasing out anyway), so Microsoft still got to, as Don Fanucci might say, "wet their beak." It didn't make sense to me at first. But, as usual, I was being naive and assuming the Microsoft just wanted money, when really their motivations were more sinister. Well, maybe that's going too far.. it's just that Microsoft people were really thinking about long-term consequences.
The reason WinFrame and VNC and PCAnywhere need to be killed, is that there's too much potential for non-Microsoft clients (well, it's more than merely potential, in the case of VNC). This is important, because there are very few reasons that a user actually needs to use Microsoft Windows -- it's usually just a few key apps that the users are locked into. Users could use things like WinFrame or VNC even when there isn't a slow pipe. You can have a whole office using a single app server for their Microsoft legacy stuff (it's not like MS Word is CPU-bound; a single box could service a lot of users), and then the users can run whatever platform they damn well want to. Thus, any remote access product that uses an open protocol, is potentially a migration tool and a threat to Windows lock-in.
WinFrame ISA protocol was never opened, but they did apparently license it. In the mid-late 90s we had some users on WinView (an earlier version of WinFrame that ran on OS/2 instead of NT), and I bought a Macintosh program (which I ran under emulation on my Amiga :-) which let me
dial into clients' app servers from home, so I could do some maintenance and
cleanup stuff after hours when users didn't have files open. Cross-platform
paradise! ;-)
VNC is even worse, because it's been ported to everything. It really might be feasible to have a single MS box for legacy stuff, and a whole office full of Macs or Linux boxes. And once users try non-Microsoft stuff, they don't want to go back. From Microsoft's point of view, this stuff really needs to be crushed before it gets popular.
Re:ssh ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Right now BIOS settings, and the POST bootup stuff only go to the video device. That needs to be modified to redirect to a serial console. Right now to do this, you need to use a add-on board such as Compaq's Remote Insight.
This new hardware design spec would also benefit x86 Unices.
What about commercial remote control software? (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the agrument posed in the licensing agreement;
"you may not use the Product to permit any Device to use, access, display, or run other executable software residing on the Workstation Computer, nor may you permit any Device to use, access, display, or run the Product or Product's user interface, unless the Device has a separate license for the Product."
From what I can understand, this licensing agreement limits the use of Windows XP to only one monitor/machine. Obviously you can't install Windows XP on other machines without a license, but this seems to say you cannot run any aspect of Windows XP from a remote computer, even though you are the proper owner and sole user of the software. What about using telnet to ping your Windows XP machine? Is that illegal? I would like to see this challenged because I don't know if it is really going to hold up in court. In a sense, Remote Access software, or VNC, lets you view your Windows XP machine using a different monitor. That's all it really is. No one can use the Windows XP box while you are remotely connected to it. There is still only one desktop available for use at any given time.
This seems pretty anti-competitive to me.