Michael Maddison
michael at ddisolutions.com.au
Wed Jun 6 20:49:11 CDT 2007
There are 2 sides to this story. In a nutshell... MS says the version of TestDriven.net for VS Express uses hacks to enable functionality that they explictly attempted to disable in the free version. MS says the owner of TestDriven.net has breached the EULA and that any users of his tool in Express will be in breach of the EULA. MS has been asking for 2 years for TestDriven.net to stop supporting Express. TestDriven.net says prove that I've broken the law. If it goes to court it will be a test case for EULA's in the UK and Europe. Could be a small thing or it could grow in significance. My opinion is MS just wanted him to stop supporting Express because if they open up the locked down features then who will pay for the full versions? Also why wait 2 years before sending in the lawyers if you have an open and shut case? <shrug> Hardly an example of big bad MS though. cheers Michael M OT: An email I received from a friend. More comments on the latest NEWS story from the Registry. These are not my comments but fellow who use to be Microsoft fanatic and about 2 years ago made the switch to the 'Dark Side". He now is 2IC in a large development company and asked me to post his email. <comment> This would be further indication that Microsoft doesn't "get" current trends in the industry and Web 2.0, mash-ups, open source and everything... The ideal situation for Microsoft would be that someone be developing for the Windows platform and using their development tools. If someone is willing to _pay_ for TestDriven.net, that would be a big flashing red neon sign that: 1. Microsoft left a big gaping hole in their product that consumers were asking for. Logic would dictate that the aim of a business would be to meet consumer demand, which Microsoft couldn't, so someone else had to fill it. 2. The person buying it, likely will _never_ have gone for the whole package and is price-conscious 3. Microsoft is being undercut by competition. Competition is good. These software prices were artificially set by MS (intentionally to undercut other competition), and so therefore they have to rely on some legalese text in a EULA to protect their flow of income (not even sure it exists?), rather than trying to be a competitive and ethical business. This is the sort of thing that damages your reputation in the geek world (can MS afford this anymore?). In my opinion, I think Microsoft ought to be happy people are using their IDE and developing for their operating system, and not running off to play with Eclipse, Mono, RealBasic, Java, and all the rest of the great stuff out there... Or they could continue bullying people, who are actually helping to promote their bottom line. Which is actually OK by me, because I personally would like to continue seeing people migrating over to Linux. </comment> Any comments Jim -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com