Post #60,470
10/31/02 12:52:11 PM
10/31/02 12:52:53 PM
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Microsoft opposed Kmart Bluelight.com sale.
Can you believe [link|http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/021029/retail_kmart_bluelight_3.html|this:] Software giant Microsoft Corp. and others have filed objections to the proposed $8.4 million sale of Bluelight.com to United Online Inc., citing software licensing and tax issues among their concerns. o o o According to court documents, Microsoft said Kmart had not specifically identified which Microsoft software licenses it planned to transfer to United Online as part of the sale. Fortunately, the bankruptcy [link|http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/021030/1723000979_1.html|court approved] the sale. Alex
"I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain. -- Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
Edited by a6l6e6x
Oct. 31, 2002, 12:52:53 PM EST
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Post #60,483
10/31/02 2:19:49 PM
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Other details . .
There were only a few desktop and one server license involved. Kmart had to list these and present proof of licensing for each and every one to get Microsoft's approval of the sale.
Any business manager who doesn't take the ramifications of Microsoft licensing seriously after this little event is a total idiot. The company is out of control and bordering on insanity.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #60,496
10/31/02 3:07:59 PM
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Tell me if I understand the issue correctly
BlueLight is/was a wholly owned KMart subsidiary.
KMart, in its bankruptcy reorganization, wants to spin/sell off that subsidiary.
BlueLight is a virtual business, so in a very real sense its only value is the brand and the hardware.
Microsoft asserts that the computers (and attendant licenses) are actually owned by KMart, not the subsidiary, and so can't be sold.
Is that about it?
===
Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978|Andrew Grygus]
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Post #60,500
10/31/02 3:34:10 PM
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It's a licensing issue.
Microsoft said Kmart should be required to abide by the parties' license agreements before being able to transfer any of them. Kmart should also be prohibited from transferring any Microsoft licensed products or software without Microsoft's consent, except as the agreements permit, it said. [link|http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/021029/1445000813_1.html|Link.] You can't do "didley" with your systems w/o Microsoft approval. Alex
"I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain. -- Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
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Post #60,501
10/31/02 3:37:06 PM
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Precendent
The REALLY scary part of all this, is the precedent it's set. So now all corporate mergers have to get Microsoft's approval? Microsoft is now a regulatory agency?
Halloween nuthin..I just scared the crap outta myself.
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Steve
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Post #60,525
10/31/02 6:17:33 PM
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Yeah, I can...
You can't do "didley" with your systems w/o Microsoft approval. Yes, I can. I can switch to Linux.... jb4
"About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead. "
-- Edsger W.Dijkstra (1930 - 2002)
(I wish more managers knew that...)
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Post #60,530
10/31/02 7:13:58 PM
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You can now - but . . .
. . will you still be able to after Paladium? Microsoft is now the sole specifier of PC hardware (stated in PC2001, the last joint spec with Intel). With "on the CPU" security, maleable to Microsoft's fingers, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few "Well, we can't test everything" features in future PCs.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #60,609
11/1/02 2:05:38 PM
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I"m so glad I don't live in US
... if you guys think that the US gov might seriously forbid the use and/or sale of non-palladium hardware in your country.
Still and all, I wonder what CCK's comments in a few hours might mean to all of this. I really look forward to reading them...
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #60,616
11/1/02 2:16:57 PM
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You think that makes you immune?
Remember, we're the guys who busted a foreign national for describing the product he made and legally sold in his home country. We're also the guys who will use trade sanctions/deals as clubs to enforce our idea of copyright on smaller nations. Once you have a thriving non-Microsoft computer industry, you can start to feel confident. Until then ...
===
Microsoft offers them the one thing most business people will pay any price for - the ability to say "we had no choice - everyone's doing it that way." -- [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=38978|Andrew Grygus]
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Post #60,621
11/1/02 2:40:09 PM
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No... but at least it means it's not inevitable.
--\r\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\r\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\r\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\r\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #60,665
11/1/02 7:04:49 PM
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Now that you have read CCK's comments...
Were they all that you hoped for?
Blech.
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
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Post #60,679
11/1/02 11:21:20 PM
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It was all that I hoped for, hoped for and more...
... of course, that was in the sweat-drenched febrile mononucleotic whiskey fantasy I experienced a year and a half ago after a particularly nasty go-round with the business end of a chilinduced projectile fecal cannon attached to an eighteen month old boy with far too great a sense of curiousity and far too little a sense of gastric self-preservation, followed by an afternoon in the hot sun sucking down chili dogs, pickled jalapeño peppers, expensive Québecois white beer, and cheap Canadian rye whiskey.
Outside that brief hallucinogenic evening (largely passed in the close company of a cool, damp, porcelain receptacle, pondering which end would need to be inserted next) I guess I would have to say that it sucks. Large excremental chili dogs, in fact.
Ok, on to specifics... it appears that the main thing that is motivating this decision is the lies, not the acts themselves... hence the light regulatory burden they will be bearing.
The fact that the oversight committee will not be able to be existing or former employees has some interest value... though in real life probably not a great deal of value. It's not like they're going to have a hard time finding like minded business people to stick into its chairs.
No, this pretty much sucks.
You do realise that this settlement stands to do terrible damage to the North American software industry in relation to the rest of the world, don't you? We're going to get pounded over the course of the next five years by places like India, Taiwan, and the like because nobody's going to be willing to actually risk money in something new as it will get firmly fisted into the ground once it shows any signs of life.
The only time things will look up is when investors wake up to the day that they realise that nobody but nobody in the rest of the world is willing to buy US made software anymore... because all of that software is designed to bleed their money into a small number of American pockets. It's already starting... I expect that it will play itself out over the next ten years or so. Unfortunately, a lot of people are going to get a lot poorer because of it.
Cell technology has passed the US by... it looks like that, in the long run, software technology will pass them by too.
Who knows... perhaps a new burst of arrogance out of Redmond will cause even more people to start rethinking how they handle their software... the linux system I installed at a friend's business network is a direct result of that thinking... I estimate they saved their business a thousand or so dollars up front, and may in fact save a few thousand more over the coming years in licensing costs alone as their business grows by having that system in place. They're already blow away by its reliability and perfect functioning in comparison to the Windows based system that it replaces, and the price is looking very right to them indeed... coupled with the fact that they can have no fear whatsoever about having it messed with due to a license audit or the like. I anticipate that I'm going to end up installing a "data dump" system (prolly stick it in postgres or something) for them sometime next year for them to put all their business critical data into. Putting it in an old cheap PII (these guys are not rich) and pasting a decent front end on it will mean that they will be able to do what they need to for some years to come, and that they won't have to worry about it disappearing out the door in some stupid license audit or something. It also means that it will move their office away from one vendor dependence... and one step closer to being able to choose their platform instead of having their platform choose their tools for them.
They're also interested in an alternative client in the longer run... as they put it to me, "I can see the value proposition... it's just that I can't exploit it right now because some of the stuff we have to have means that we have to have Windows."
Another way to put it is when they get themselves to a point where a more formal licensing situation becomes more important (they are only three people, four including me) then I bet I will be able to kill on price and features compared to MSFT... and the day when they will have to more formally legitimise their software will come within the next year or two. I've already pointed the owners at some of the more interesting features found in the fine print... I can but hope that they will actually read it.
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #61,045
11/4/02 4:00:09 PM
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Not the government
Andrew's comment - Microsoft is now the sole specifier of PC hardware - is that Microsoft currently sets the standard. I don't see where government was mentioned.
As shown by [link|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59197-2002Nov2.html|this], [link|http://www.schoolnet.na/pr/msftrelease.html|this], [link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25157.html|this] and so on, I don't think it'll matter that Microsoft dictates the hardware that their OS runs on. The rest of the world will be running on "open" hardware, and I'm sure that same hardware will be available in the US.
Darrell Spice, Jr.
[link|http://home.houston.rr.com/spiceware/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
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Post #61,056
11/4/02 4:40:48 PM
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The last is not at all certain.
- that it will be available. Under Ashcroft, security is the equivalent of the magic priority codeword for obtaining materiel for the Manhattan Project, silverplate. (It is completely irrelevant that it has nothing to do with actual security, we see.)
If this Admin survives sans impeachment and removal; if {Horrors} it garners a second term (first actual Election), well --
Web access? - for Gawdless erotic displays harming The Cheeldrun?
Unsafe Pee Cees robbing Corporations blind? Subversives employing steganography to plot destruction of The Flag?
You tell me, about 'certainty'.
Ashton
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Post #61,058
11/4/02 4:54:02 PM
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I think the public is wising up
while it's not computers per say, I'm seeing a lot of backlash against "copy protected CDs" and "copy protected Digital TV" by Joe Public.
Darrell Spice, Jr.
[link|http://home.houston.rr.com/spiceware/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
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Post #60,499
10/31/02 3:20:03 PM
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Presenting proof... so that MSFT could approve ...
Do you have any documentary evidence of this... preferably online? I think it could help with a sales pitch that I'm in the early stages of... the main reason they're interested is because MSFT's new licenses are making them nervous about what could be done to them.
Thanks!
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca] [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Laval Qu\ufffdbec Canada [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
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Post #60,502
10/31/02 3:38:04 PM
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Re: Presenting proof... so that MSFT could approve ...
[link|http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/021029/1445000813_1.html|Link.] In court papers, Microsoft said Kmart has indicated it intends to transfer some Microsoft license software products to the proposed buyer as part of the sale, although exactly what will be transferred hasn't yet been specifically identified.
Microsoft said Kmart should be required to abide by the parties' license agreements before being able to transfer any of them. Kmart should also be prohibited from transferring any Microsoft licensed products or software without Microsoft's consent, except as the agreements permit, it said.
Microsoft said the licenses that Kmart has of its software products relate to copyrighted materials that cannot be assigned without Microsoft's consent.
While the parties' agreements do allow the licenses to be transferred under certain conditions, this includes obtaining a legal proof of the license. Microsoft said while legal proofs have been paid for some of the licenses, no such proofs have been issued for others. Alex
"I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain. -- Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
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Post #60,511
10/31/02 4:28:11 PM
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but... but... but...
Wasn't Microsoft trying to imply earlier this year that it was illegal to sell/donate your old computers w/out the operating system?
Darrell Spice, Jr.
[link|http://home.houston.rr.com/spiceware/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
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Post #60,515
10/31/02 4:48:35 PM
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Already discussed
If perhaps not under as clear a title at [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=60111|http://z.iwethey.org...w?contentid=60111]
Cheers,
Ben
"Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it\ufffds probably a fly."
- [link|http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html|Walter Mead]
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