Microsoft Slaps Its Most Valuable Professional 474
Violent Offender writes with a touching story in The Register about Microsoft's awarding of its Most Valuable Professional credential to a British hobbyist, Jamie Cansdale, then turning around and threatening him with a lawsuit for the very software that won him the award. The article links to the amazing correspondence from Microsoft on Cansdale's site.
Ballmer said it best... (Score:5, Insightful)
Developers, developers... lawsuit.
Re:Ballmer said it best... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just read up on all of it a few hours ago... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry - that's not clear to me at all.
I'm not particularly up there with UK contract law however. Perhaps you can explain to me exactly how he violated Microsoft's contract by using the published APIs?
Re:Mod me flamebait all you like (Score:4, Insightful)
internets (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They're idiots... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the same company who released the Zune, which doesn't play playsfornotsure. Media player 11 which doesn't support Zune. IE7 which fixed few real IE bugs but instead added chrome like tabs and phishing filters. Vista which is un-compelling enough to ensure most people will be on XP until developers stop writing software for it. Need I go on? Microsoft isn't evil like many think. They just suck. Totally clueless.
Exactly why I love linux (Score:5, Insightful)
programming on a windows box is like programming with one hand tied behind your back. Nothing but artificial barriers to getting things done. I sure don't miss the days when I had to program on windows.
Re:Just read up on all of it a few hours ago... (Score:5, Insightful)
For those not clear on the situation, the short of it is this. TestDriven.NET is an add-in for Visual Studio. Visual Studio Express has a "technical limitation" that ostensibly prevents the loading of add-ins (removal of the Add-In Manager, I believe). The EULA states that:
"...you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways... You may not work around any technical limitations in the software."
Constructing an add-in that can be loaded by Express is presumably a violation of the EULA for Express, because you're working around the technical limitation (weak though it may be) in the software that blocks the loading of add-ins. Technically speaking, anyone who uses it with Express is also violating the EULA. The best argument, IMO (and IANAL), is going to be that disabling the Add-In Manager isn't really a technical limitation against the loading of add-ins, since they can be loaded programmatically. It's a technical limitation against end-users manually loading add-ins.
Re:DUPE (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Tags were revamped a while ago, and as a result the fun tags don't show up anymore.
Personally, I don't bother with them any longer. When you could tag something "fud", "yes", "no", "itsatrap", "omgponies", "09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0", etc it was a fun way to comment on a story (even if it is the epitome of groupthink). I thought the tags gave Slashdot users another interesting way to communicate, and to express the general sentiment of a story.
Sorry Taco, but Tags are boring and useless now. Bring back the old ones or do away with these.
Re:Just read up on all of it a few hours ago... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and no. I can explain what I read, and why I believe that it will hold up in court. But I don't think you're asking for that. I think you feel that using public APIs should not be prevented or outlawed, and so you object to the entire concept. If I'm wrong about that, you can skip this paragraph and go to the ntext one. But if I'm right, all I can say is that's not an argument I can have with you, as I find it to be a boring one. MS has a contract, they've cited the passage he violates, and they'll sing it out loud in court. Whether we like that or not, it means MS will win in my book. So I don't really care to have a discussion about how ethical MS is, or whether they should be able to restrict a public API. The fact is, they do it, and seem to have a leg to stand on here. But by all means, have that discussion with other Slashdot readers. I'm sure it's one that many would like to have.
So with that disclaimer in place, here is what I read [asp.net]. Near the bottom of the first page of that scan, you'll see that they cite the part of the contract that has been violated. In particular, the contract states that you cannot circumvent the limitations they've put on the low-end product. One of the limitations is no plugins. That's explained elsewhere, but here in the letter from the lawyers we at least see now that they have a clause prohibiting end-runs around the crippled features of the low-end product. This is what Jamie asked for time and time again. No one would cite any clause that he violated. Finally, at last, someone did. Whatever I think about the merits of Microsoft's case, I will continue to think that they're jerks for taking a year to quote the relevant part of the contract.
Elsewhere, in another letter, they explain that they have the legal prohibition in the contract to cover cases exactly like this -- cases where they tried to block it technically, but someone found a loophole. So they use the contract as a way to say, "even if we screw up and left a way to do it technically, you still can't do it contractually." We may or may not think they should be allowed to get away with that, but again, that's where I get bored and drop out of the conversation.
Re:Just read up on all of it a few hours ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you could make a good case that if you're only using *public* API's to do something, then the software is by-definition *not* technically limited in order to prevent you from doing [whatever]. It could be easily argued as being *supported* in fact, just not *supplied* by MS.
What MS *wants* from its licence isn't necessarily how it ought to be interpreted...
Simon.
Re:Just read up on all of it a few hours ago... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, this is evil. You don't treat people this way who are helping your business.
How does it compare to, say, people hacking OSX around to make it work on regular PCs ?
Re:the APIs (Score:1, Insightful)
If only I was worth $10bn, maybe I would have had a chance.
Developers developers developers developers dev... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty silly to have a free, "watered down" IDE/compiler for their product, and a paid-for Pro version in the first place. They only benefit by making world class development free for everyone. The money that they make on IDE licenses must be pretty marginal to the amount of Windows licenses they sell through strong third-party dev support.
It's even worse to have a pissing match with someone that made one of their products better, and was recognized by Microsoft for doing so.
I hope student developers everywhere take note.
The guy is violating the license (Score:4, Insightful)
I kind of feel bad for this MS manager, he really went out of his way to be nice to this guy who was clearly violating the license. Now people on slashdot are going to say all kinds of nasty stuff about him without actually looking closely at the issue and seeing that he was pretty clearly in the right.
Chilling effect (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that this could in principle happen to anyone extending MS software, this ought to be a chilling effect on use of MS APIs without a $10,000 annual partnership license. That sets a pretty high bar to participation. Let's say MS developers fall into four categories:
a. Smart and a partner. These will continue to contribute. They always did. (If you accept that they're not an oxymoron.)
b. Smart and not a partner. These will stop contributing because of the legal risk.
c. Dumb and a partner. These will continue contributing, but their contributions will be worthless.
d. Dumb and not a partner. These poor saps will continue contributing, because they're too stupid to realise they're in the gun.
All I can say is that if you screw with the bull, you get the horns. This developer would have had no problems if he'd been working in free software. That's the real lesson.
L
Notes from an MS apologist (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Weber was way, way out of line.
3. Weber should be dismissed.
4. This incident has made me doublethink our decision of going to ASP.NET for in-house app development.
5. Yet another reason not to get locked into proprietary software.
Re:Just read up on all of it a few hours ago... (Score:2, Insightful)
Go open source, my friend (Score:5, Insightful)
First, be open source if you want to be truly principled in all of this. Just walk away - clearly you don't like the way Microsoft operates. Have some sympathy for people in M$ who spent one helluva long time trying to avoid bringing lawyers into the mix, tell them you think their business stinks, and walk away (and get the story out there on the web).
Or, work in the spirit of Microsoft's business model. It's what a decent business person does. It seems that far from being a hobbyist you are in fact selling this tool on your website. If you want to make money out of the Microsoft ecosystem, and they're willing to invest something like a year in explaining their point of view, don't get the lawyers involved. Work with them, respect their intent.
Trying to paint M$ as the bad guys here is wrong - if things are bad, they're bad on both sides. So the license wasn't clear, but M$ spent a lot of time explaining their point of view. But no, this guy Jamie wants to get his lawyer involved. He wants to force a guy running a development team to talk about law, not about the spirit of what they're trying to achieve. That's bullshit. Jamie never discloses the content of the conference calls, he just sticks to his "let's talk legal specifics" - and then bitches when M$ does indeed come at him with lawyers.
He might be making the mistake of many programmers, of course, who think that the law operates like code. Well, just like all code has bugs, so do all legal arrangements. And when you force things to go legal instead of having principles, you might just find that the justice system allows a bug fix to be applied before it comes to a legal conclusion. For example, the courts may find that the intent of the Express edition is clear, and that in the course of a year's worth of dialogue between the two parties any confusion was clearly resolved. They might agree with Microsoft's lawyers that Jamie's own offering of different commercial editions of the TestDriven product indicates a good understanding of Microsoft's commercial model. They might express sympathy for M$'s efforts to get a free version out for hobbyists, and forgive them for not having a 100% airtight technical and legal solution to prevent it from being extended. After all, it seems reasonable to expect that people can act in accordance to the spirit of an arrangement, without needing otherwise pointless effort being spent on perfectly restrictive measures, doesn't it?
The courts may therefore conclude that although Jamie has not committed such a blatant breach of contract that M$ can claim damages, he has violated the clear intent of the Express edition and must therefore restrain from offering TestDriven for Visual Studio Express.
Work to open source principles, work to business principles - both of those I can understand. Work to a principle something like, "it's your fault if I can get *my* lawyer to prove that *your* lawyers didn't put a sufficiently airtight contract in place", and you're just another weasel making the world a worse place for everyone.
Colour me not surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
<rant>
So you develop components for closed software with proprietary languages on commercial operating systems, and you're surprised when the powers that be want to control what your components do?
If you lock yourself to a vendor, and that vendor acts against your interests, you're screwed. If the vendor acts against its own interests, as is the case here, you may also get screwed. By locking yourself to that vendor, you've locked yourself to their decisions, as misguided as they may be.
It's obvious that control is more valuable to Microsoft than the developers who work with its systems. Tough. Either deal with it, or get out.
</rant>
Apologies for ranting, but although I understand that some people must develop on the MS platform, I simply cannot understand those who choose to voluntarily. The rant is directed at the latter.
Does it make any difference... (Score:2, Insightful)
Typical big company / little employee situation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:DUPE (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than build on that they decided to tweak the system (for understandable reasons) so it started working more as it was originally intended - as a way to tag/classify stories at a high level.
I thought it was always interesting/entertaining - it basically summarised the comments (which is why I read slashdot in the first place) in a way that made it easy to see what the general community feel for a story was. That's more useful to me than keywords in the story, personally.
While I understand it, it sounds rather dumb... (Score:2, Insightful)
The thing that kinda bugs me about all of this is that he managed to get the add-on to work in the express edition without "hacking it" in anyway. Now, sure he's in violation of the EULA, but translate that to the OSS world -
"We've implemented a new piece of software we call Mutt Express Edition, with Mutt express your not allowed to attach binary files". Only the mutt keys to attach the files still work so you dont even realise your doing something wrong. One day, a Mutt rep knock's on your door and says "hi, we hear you've been attaching files in emails with Mutt against our license".
Bizare.
It is his own fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you try this with closed source software of an international quasi-monopolistic mega-corporation you should not be surprised if you get slapped should you do something they do not like or is against their rules.
We are used to much nastier stuff from MS than just threatening or ruining a single little programmer.
made me laugh (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of the poor customers -- they might download something they normally wouldn't even know it existed.
Neat.
Serves the guy right when he messes with idiots of that caliber.
Missunderstanding ... (Score:1, Insightful)
> Some say the EULA is a contract. I ask, where is the signature ?
> Can I negotiate the contract with my local reseller ?
> The EULA is probably not valid in many countries.
You're missing an important point
That's why the GPL works for example
So if the EULA is invalid in your country, but the copyright laws are
Re:Missunderstanding ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Nonsense, it is called copyright and not use-right for a reason. Copyright does not in the slightest apply to the mere use of something. And no, the copies unavoidable to run a program (e.g. copy from disk to memory) do not fall under copyright either. And yes, this has been decided by courts.
Re:Sent this off a few days ago... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not surprised, it was a bit juvenile and inflamatory.
Re:DUPE (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't see what Weber does wrong in this (Score:3, Insightful)
Further, as stated many times he used publicly available APIs which are openly documented on MSDN. He didn't hack, he didn't reverse engineer, he simply said "I want to do x (run vs on my mac), lets see if there are any APIs I can use, oh what do you know, here's one called x (parallels), lets try it and see, yup works! sweet!"
Now, if MS wants to implement a "technical limitation" such that you have to cause a buffer overflow to install an add-in to VS Express, then they should do that, and then they would have grounds. As it stands, the license terms are so broad they would prevent any and all functional work arounds, and there are other add-ins which are available for VS Express, so its not a rule that you can't extend it, they are just attacking/singling out this guy, probably because they only want "enterprise" features in their pay for products, and for whatever reason they see unit testing as an enterprise feature, and don't think students or hobbyists should be able to have that functionality
Re:MS is on a roll... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just read up on all of it a few hours ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
MS say you can't "work around technical limitations" of the product. So:
1) I can't use an external spell checker to make sure I'm spelling things right? (Assuming MS don't have a spell checker in the program).
2) I can't link to a web service to display the latest exchange rates in my program? (VS doesn't support exchange rates as standard, it's a technical limitation)
3) I can't design the flow of the program on pen & paper? (I don't believe VS includes drawing tools, nor pen & paper - another technical limitation)
4) I can't link to dll's I or others have written to add extra functionality not possible in express alone?
I'm sure other programmers could come up with better examples than mine, but it seems to me that this clause is going to be hard to enforce without making a mockery of the whole product.
Exactly what is the difference between a technical limitation and a feature they didn't include? What is the definition of a "technical limitation"? And what gives them the right to say what you can & can't do with the product? The car analogy made by others seems very appropriate here, this is like GM selling you a car and then saying "sorry, we don't allow you to tune the engine, or change the colour". The very point of programming is to make the computer do something it couldn't do before, something they're actually encouraging you to do by releasing this product.
Also, doesn't VS have a service pack? Surely that works around several technical limitations? If the licence for visual studio or the service pack doesn't explicitly state it's allowed, then by Microsoft's argument, the EULA prevents users from installing MS' own service pack as it means the customer is working around "technical limitations" in the product.
According to MS, SP1 "offers customers improvements in responsiveness, stability and performance for Visual Studio 2005". Sounds like that's getting round several technical limitations to me.
Ditto the SDK: "In order to use Visual C++ Express to build Win32 applications and leverage the powerful set of core Windows API components, you'll need to download and install the Microsoft Platform SDK.". So, without the SDK, VS Express has numerous technical limitations, and Microsoft actively encourage you to work around these?
How exactly is an end user supposed to know which "technical limitations" they are allowed to work around, and which they are not?
And how is this different from reading documentation online and finding out how to extend visual studio?
Are developers expected to check every idea past microsoft now to find out if they're allowed to implement it?
Surely a good lawyer could take this and point out that the EULA is nonsensical?
And finally, the piece de resistance:
If the EULA says you can't work around technical limitations in VS express, I don't see how you have a problem so long as you personally don't use VS Express.
MS actually gave Jamie a full licence of Visual Studio. Provided he only uses his program with that and not the express version he's in the clear.
The EULA at worse restricts how you personally use the program. It doesn't say anything to prevent you developing components for others to use, "technical limitations" become irrelevant
Re:Go open source, my friend (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you on? Microsoft - and all other large companies - make no recognition of the concept of "the spirit" of anything. The written word, and what you can get a judge to believe the words mean, is all that counts. If you're going to deal with them on the basis of the spirit of their business model you might as well give yourself a nice open wound and jump into the shark tank at Sea World.
So the license wasn't clear, but M$ spent a lot of time explaining their point of view.
Yeah, well, their view is their view. There are two people in this thing and no point of law give one's POV precedence over the other, and that's good if you pause for a moment and think about the devastating effects on consumers it would have if a company was allowed to review their contracts' meanings after the fact.
The bigger issue here is that, as far as I can see, there is in fact no legal stance of any kind. Microsoft's software has not been changed by the developer in any way and no contract existed (at least, no real contract with signitures, consideration and all that tiresome legal stuff that Microsoft ignores when it suits them to) so really there is no "legal arrangement" of any kind other than the concept of ownership. Copyright has not been broken and as far as I can see no trade law or contract law has relevance. Obviously, MS can pay a team of lawyers to argue otherwise until the heat death of the universe but that's just using the courts to bully through your own arbitrary view with no regard to the legalities of either party's actions.
The courts may therefore conclude that although Jamie has not committed such a blatant breach of contract that M$ can claim damages, he has violated the clear intent of the Express edition and must therefore restrain from offering TestDriven for Visual Studio Express.
I very much doubt that the English courts would see it that way since Microsoft has no contract to show as evidence and has consistantly refused to show what part of their self-declared license was breached by these actions.
No wrong, either legal or moral, appears to have been done, and no damage has accrued to Microsoft except by their own unreasonable beahviour which is making it clear just how hostile to outside programmers they can be if those programmers show more skill than Microsoft's own bunch of third-raters.
TWW
Re:Missunderstanding ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Contrariwise, the EULA in question is a supplemental contract regulating the USE of something you just got for free which is only called a license because of a lawyerly whim to spread FUD. The EULA applies (maybe) only if you explicitly agree to it.
Re:DUPE (Score:5, Insightful)
It is hardly a news flash that Slashdot does dupe stories, surly the editors are not so far up the Nile that they don't realise this. Taging dupes would seem to be a good way of dealing with this.
He used a backdoor hack. (Score:3, Insightful)
He even gave an example to the MS drone in his email correspondence, which is still up on his webserver.
http://www.mutantdesign.co.uk/downloads/ProjectRe
While I agree that it's technically possible, it's using an extension point which was not intended to provide full add-in access. Yes, no secret APIs were abused, no reverse engineering necessary. It violates the spirit of the agreement rather than the letter (which is that technical measures to prevent add-in use should not be circumvented). They removed the add-in manager and loader, which they figured should be enough. Mr Cansdale has effectively written his own add-in loader and used an alternate technical means (otherwise known as "hack") to get it executed. The fact that the "technical measures" used to prevent add-ins from loading were not implemented in a bullet-proof manner does not change the fact that they are present, and that they have been circumvented.
Yes, I think Microsoft are being dumb - being able to run the software you want is the sales driver for any OS, and being able to develop your own is the one sure way of getting exactly the software you want. Artificially restricting the features of your development tools so your IDE team can be a profit centre is of questionable value. Removing the ability of hobbyists to use professional testing features is fostering yet another generation of sloppy programmers who will have to adjust to become professionals.
But Mr Cansdale is in the wrong, IMHO. MS agreed to "play nice" by releasing a slick, functional, professional IDE for free, despite the risks of attracting antitrust attention. Mr Cansdale has responded by thumbing his nose at the spirit of that bargain. If he really wanted a version of his product that runs in a free IDE, he could have written a version for SharpDevelop without treading on the 300-lb gorillas toes. Or he could have just kept his hack to himself (he wrote it because he was using the Express edition to develop TestDriven.NET
By the way - the rumour that you cannot use Express to develop a commercial product is not true. There would be no point in imposing such a condition, simply because the compiler is free (beer) available. You have no means of proving that any
Point 4 in the following :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/support
Yes, there are no licensing restrictions for applications built using the Express Editions.
Re:DUPE (Score:5, Insightful)
This time however, that is monopolized by discussions about grammar and the editors lack thereof.
So while this story has been posted twice, there has been no meaningful discussion of an interesting topic. So - do I blame the editors for grammar/dupe problems, or the community for failing to look past some minor annoyances and actually talk about what is going on here?
Re:He used a backdoor hack. (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets be honest here, The express edition is restricted in such a way that if you want more features you have to opt for the full product. Cansdale simply developed something which undermined the value of the full product which, in the gorilla's eyes, was somebody going for their bananas so they slapped him.
But the truth is it is a useful feature, written independently and without violating the EULA.
To hear you blather on about fairness and spirit of agreements in relation to Microsoft is laughable.
C.
Perspectives (Score:5, Insightful)
What's interesting is your fond recollection, that trolltalk was noble and glorious council, that the sublime art of trolling was a magnificent contribution to Slashdot and Internet culture. To everyone else here, the trolls - regardless of education or social standing or media visibility - were a bunch of asshat punks dead set on ruining a good thing for everyone.
You laughed at the PWP hacks. We sighed at the interesting stories that were made unreadable.
You liked all the homosexual rape serials. We learned not to read anything more than a couple of paragraphs long.
You waxed nostalgic about goatse. We cringed and trained ourselves not to click links.
I'm sure that somewhere out there, a couple of guys are kicking back and talking about the time they lit a cat on fine - you know, the good old days. To the rest of the world, they're not a couple of new-millenium James Deans. They're just a couple of sociopathic misfits that don't care what they ruin for their own entertainment. Well, enjoy your happy memories of those halcyon days, but don't be surprised that no one outside your clique has the same take on events.
Slashdot is older and more mature and a little more boring these days. And to be honest, that's just fine.
Re:But Stay Tuned! (Score:4, Insightful)
Where? In the parent post you replied to or in the register article on this topic that is linked in the synopsis above.
Personally I think it was a good idea to get a free version for those that wanted to try their hands at programming
This might happen, but it is a gamble on microsofts part. They know that if the remove express from the marketplace then alot of students studying programming will not be able to afford the full version. This gives them a limited number of choices:
1) Stop working from home.
For many this is simply not an option. Even if it was it doesnt benefit anyone in the long term as they will undoubtably suffer in the long term as they will not be as capable programmers as they could have been had they coded into the night for years on end.
2) Pirate the full version.
This has the result of getting people used to using knock off software. Since this is a mindset the MS are trying avoid people getting into as if they have to use pirated software for the duration of the degree they may continue when they start work instead of asking their boss to buy them a license for their home PC if they need to work from home alot.
3) Use a different IDE or platform.
This is worst case scenario for MS. For starters, it means that alot of the professionals of tomorrow are able to use non-MS products reducing vendor lock in to
Of the three options listed above, option 1 is out of the question for a great many students (The kind like me who slept during lectures). That leaves option 2 or 3. Option 2 is a far better choice from microsofts point of view and one the used to ignore people doing (maybe even encourage), now however they are certainly trying to change peoples mindset such that pirated software is bad from a very young age.
Re:DUPE (Score:3, Insightful)
To see that enough people tagged an article even with "haha" for it to show up as a top tag on the main page was informative indeed.
If there is a lawsuit.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:my only complaint (Score:5, Insightful)
It could even get more sophisticated than that. You could say that you only want to see the tag "haha" if more than 30% of the users who tagged the story included "haha", or something like that.
Then, of course, it should be set up so that users could also filter stories based on tags (or any number of other things). Thus, you could filter out all stories tagged "microsoft", if you so desired, or all stories tagged "slashvertisement". Or perhaps most useful, filter out all stories tagged "dupe"...
Re:DUPE (Score:2, Insightful)
I love el reg, but trying to claim that The Register does not introduce its own one-sided bias is like trying to claim that the Pope is Jewish.
Re:But Stay Tuned! (Score:4, Insightful)
He went on to create an add-on that works against a provided (short) list of system libraries which adds functionality to Visual Studio, including the Express version.
MS claims he violated the EULA, but he doesn't see it, his lawyer doesn't see it, and I don't see it either (IANAL). Specifically what part of the license do you think he violated? I'm doing my best to not hate MS right now, but it's pretty clear that they are the assholes here.
Ross
That doesn't make sense (Score:2, Insightful)
All of law is a "technicality". I can't copy a DVD because of the "technicality" of copyright.
I can't drink and drive because of the "technicality" of a blood alcohol level.
If MS (or anyone) intends to hold you to the "technicality" of a EULA, then they'd better pretty damned specific with what it covers. Maybe Microsoft intended that once you agreed to the EULA, you would never program again legally in Java. Well, they'd better spell that out in the EULA, and not say "well, we forgot to slip that in".
Seriously, you're not making even a little sense here. Not one iota.
Re:But Stay Tuned! (Score:3, Insightful)
At least put blame where it belongs. It might dry up because of MS. They make the ultimate choice on whether or not they will continue to ship it, so i think the blame is going to belong on their shoulders.
Re:But Stay Tuned! (Score:3, Insightful)
The Microsoft mantra historically until Vista WGA came out seemed to have been: If you're going to pirate, at least pirate from us.
And that's what happened and still happens. I'm working on switching people over to Linux, but it's slow as some of the tools just aren't good enough yet...