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Microsoft's corporate vice president of communication Frank X. Shaw has given the company's take on the conviction of Eric Lundgren for allegedly ordering unauthorized copies of Windows:
In the last few days there have been several stories about the sentencing of Eric Lundgren in a case that began in 2012, and we have received a number of questions about this case and our role in it. Although the case was not one that we brought, the questions raised recently have caused us to carefully review the publicly available court documents. All of the information we are sharing in this blog is drawn from those documents. We are sharing this information now and responding publicly because we believe both Microsoft's role in the case and the facts themselves are being misrepresented.
- Microsoft did not bring this case: U.S. Customs referred the case to federal prosecutors after intercepting shipments of counterfeit software imported from China by Mr. Lundgren.
- Lundgren established an elaborate counterfeit supply chain in China: Mr. Lundgren traveled extensively in China to set up a production line and designed counterfeit molds for Microsoft software in order to unlawfully manufacture counterfeit discs in significant volumes.
- Lundgren failed to stop after being warned: Mr. Lundgren was even warned by a customs seizure notice that his conduct was illegal and given the opportunity to stop before he was prosecuted.
- Lundgren pleaded guilty: The counterfeit discs obtained by Mr. Lundgren were sold to refurbishers in the United States for his personal profit and Mr. Lundgren and his codefendant both pleaded guilty to federal felony crimes.
- Lundgren went to great lengths to mislead people: His own emails submitted as evidence in the case show the lengths to which Mr. Lundgren went in an attempt to make his counterfeit software look like genuine software. They also show him directing his co-defendant to find less discerning customers who would be more easily deceived if people objected to the counterfeits.
- Lundgren intended to profit from his actions: His own emails submitted as evidence before the court make clear that Mr. Lundgren's motivation was to sell counterfeit software to generate income for himself.
- Microsoft has a strong program to support legitimate refurbishers and recyclers: Our program supports hundreds of legitimate recyclers, while protecting customers.
TechCrunch calls Microsoft's blog post "spin" for misrepresenting recovery discs as equivalent to entire licensed operating systems, hyping the "elaborate counterfeit supply chain", etc. Frank Shaw also defends the company in the comments for that article.
Also at The Verge.
Previously: 'E-Waste' Recycling Innovator Faces Prison for Trying to Extend Life Span of PCs
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday April 29 2018, @10:47PM (14 children)
The comments on TechCrunch story [techcrunch.com] are worth reading. For instance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:01PM (2 children)
On the other hand, a license code or a keygen are also worthless without the recovery disk...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @03:44AM (1 child)
So you're saying a Windows license is worthless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @06:41AM
Bingo! And not just worthless, less than worthless, since it ties you to a master who will rape you, fuck you over, stab you in the back, and give you blue screens of death. And all that before NT. And after, the involuntary colonscopy, the sharing of you contacts and friends and people you have shared biological matter with. . . Oh, dear. Well, fuck Bill Gates, and I hope his herpes flare ups are as bad as mine. I hope the rat-lung-worm infection that is Microsoft code produces the same ringing in the head, the inability to thing logically, the tendency to vote Republican, . . . OH, wait a minute! It all makes sense now. Kanye West is Microsoft Bob. How could I not have seen that before . . . . . .
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 30 2018, @02:22AM (10 children)
Where Lundgren went "wrong", IMO, is that he was selling these discs, for profit. He went all the way to China, to find a cheap labor supply, to produce discs of pretty high quality, to fool people into believing that they were genuine.
Had Lundgren produced these discs on his own computer, and used standard quality printed labels, then GIVEN THEM AWAY, his actions would have been moral, if not legal.
Even the GPL doesn't allow you to produce their discs, then sell them at a profit. You may only recover production costs for the discs you produce. So - what, 50 cents per disk?
Lundgren could have "sold" recovery disks for half a buck, then offered "support" at any price, and he would still be operating in a moral and ethical manner. Doing so, in rather limited quantities, would have avoided coming to the attention of Customs, so the law would probably never have taken notice of him.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Monday April 30 2018, @03:34AM (8 children)
I don't see the morality in imposing, even for a non-for-profit organization, not to cover their operating cost.
As for the legality part, IMHO, the only thing that Lundgren got absolutely wrong was the infringement on Dell trademark (even then, would Microsoft have no standing, it has not been affected by anything real).
You are absolutely wrong on this one. The immediate example to spring into mind is RedHat - it is allow to charge $349 for the "self-support" license of RedHat Enterprise Linux [soylentnews.org]. Self-support license [redhat.com] implies:
- run it on max 2 CPU sockets
- access to updates
- open support tickets
If you want the GNU org position on selling Open source software in general, here it is [gnu.org]. The TL;DR version is absolutely simple, no ifs and no buts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 30 2018, @07:03AM (7 children)
Uhhhh, wow. That is certainly not the position that I read when I started using Linux, long ago. You could charge a "reasonable fee" for making copies, but you couldn't "sell" GPL'd software. Apparently, this stuff has been "evolving", and I've not kept up.
Yes, support has always been reasonably charged for. That's how Redhat got it's start, after all. And, "reasonable" has always been open to negotiation.
Thanks for the links.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @07:48AM (3 children)
You've always been wrong. At least since the GPLv2, which has always[1] been the license for the Linux kernel.
If you have read the GPL, there is the possibility that you simply misunderstood - it actually does have a part about only charging for cost, but that applies only when people ask for the source code. You can sell the software for a million dollars and as long as you include the source code, that part doesn't apply to you.
[1] There may have been a different license back when it was called "Freax".
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @08:54AM (2 children)
Runaway1956 has always been wrong. I will have to ponder this for a bit. I already knew it, but to have it pointed out so directly, in regard to the GPL, it just makes me realize, Runaway has always been wrong. Remember that population of China snafu? Runaway was wrong. Remember the "forced conversion under Islam" thing? Runaway has always been wrong. Remember the "steel-toed boots" affair? Yet again Runaway was wrong, but at least he kept his toes. And remember all the other times Runaway has been wrong. One wonders, with his level of ignorance and error, why he persists in posting.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @10:17AM
Perverse pleasure of being proved wrong?
A saint-hearth trying to suck all the wrong in this world so that all the other people will be right?
Who knows?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 30 2018, @10:35AM
Oh, come on, there are others always-wronger than him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by pendorbound on Monday April 30 2018, @02:45PM
You're thinking a "shareware" type license. Those tend to limit your charging a "reasonable fee" for the physical duplication & distribution. GPL has always been about access to the source more than the physical media. If I sell or give you a copy of GPL software at any price, I must also make the source code available to you. By extension, if I charge an exorbitant price for the binary, I need only provide source to those who pay me my exorbitant price. (But I can't do anything to prevent them from in turn giving it away for free.)
The only place where reasonable fee enters into GPL is a throwback to when source might be distributed separately from object code, IE because it wouldn't all fit on the same floppy disk. In that case, charging "a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source" was tacitly acceptable to get the rest of the disks, though I never saw a case of it being used. A link to web server was plenty, even when web access wasn't necessarily ubiquitous.
(Score: 2) by letssee on Monday April 30 2018, @04:56PM (1 child)
Ehm, this has been the FSF's stance since forever. At least since *I* started using linux (september 1994).
You can charge whatever you want. However, you can't charge more than a reasonable fee for the *source code* of the distributed software if someone wants it (and even then, you only *have* to give it to them if you also distributed the software itself to them). And you can't prevent others from selling the same software for less or even giving it away.
(Score: 1) by steveg on Monday April 30 2018, @09:03PM
You're right, and even longer. I first saw this discussion in a GNU manual of some sort (EMACS maybe) from 1989, so well predating Linux.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Monday April 30 2018, @10:45AM
This is absolute bollocks, outright contradicted by the FSF itself: [gnu.org]
(emphasis added)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.