What Linspire Agreed To

We can read the Linspire-Microsoft patent agreement now, and I thought it would be worthwhile to give it a close, line-by-line reading. I’ll explain it as best I can, but ask your lawyer if it matters to you in a real-world sense. For our purposes here, let’s just have fun with the worst deal I’ve seen yet in this category. It’s worse than Novell’s, actually. It’s worse than Tivo, in my book. I know some say that Tivo doesn’t interfere with you modifying, as long as you give up using the modified software on Tivo hardware. To me, that is a penalty not contemplated by GPLv2, because if you buy a Tivo, it’s because you wanted to use the software with the Tivo hardware, but with Linspire’s agreement, you have to give up pretty much all your GPL freedoms, as far as I can make out, and more. And what do you get in return for giving up everything? True Type fonts, Windows Media 10, DVD playback, patent coverage…

Here’s what you can’t do without losing Microsoft’s promise not to sue you. You can’t share the software with others, pass it on with the patent promise, modify your own copy, or even use it for an “unauthorized” purpose, whatever that means in a software context. You must pay Linspire for the software, but then the “covenant” says to use Linux, you must also pay Microsoft. That payment doesn’t cover upgrades. Linspire said it was absorbing the initial fees, but I don’t know about upgrades. New functionality means you lose your coverage or presumably must pay again.

It doesn’t cover a lot of types of software, most especially not business applications. It covers Linspire Five-0. That’s it. It doesn’t cover anything running on a server. It doesn’t cover clone or foundry products or “other excluded products”, according to Microsoft’s definitions, which I’ll show you, even if you get them from Linspire, and of course it doesn’t cover GPLv3 anything. Freespire isn’t covered, nor are apps you get separately from CNR that you don’t pay for. Microsoft can change the deal or even drop it any time they are good and ready, but Linspire can’t. And of course, you are not consulted. Microsoft can interrogate you any time it thinks it necessary to make sure you really are covered. But there is no clear list. I see no arrangement for resolving disputes.

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