>
> M$ is advertising for you to BUY XP, not lease it, not rent it.
Best read your shrink wrap license. What you are buying is a rental license
that allows you to use the soft ware not the rights of ownership.
The method of transformation of shrink ware software was a big issue when
such packages first appeared. If the software company sold you the software
as they once did then you had the legal right to modify it or not modify it
and then resell as many copies as you wanted. You would also have the right
to stop anyone else from using the software and to charge them a fee for
doing such. It was yours to do with as you please just like any
physical property. If a software company sold the same software to two
different people then the software company would be committing fraud because
in the second sale they would be selling something they did not own. That is
the basic definition of ownership.
The solution to this problem was the rental license agreement. You do not buy
the software but you rent the right of usage for perpetuity for an up front
total payment of the what most people would call the purchase price. The
difference in the 2 points is moot in most cases but there is one major
significant difference. Since you are renting the software then the owners do
have the right to modify, inspect, place restrictions on usage, or use it at
their will. The software belongs to them.
This in many ways is similar to the GPU license. You do not own Linux; you
only have the right to use Linux and any improvements you make belong to the
public. If you owned Linux then you could forbid anyone else from using it or
charge them a fee to do such. Major difference is not in terms of usage but
in who the owners are and the rights the owners allow the users to exercise.
These are settle points with major implications.
Frank
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