It’s pretty weird eh? Regular remote check-ins by Microsoft, and constant on-board surveillance by “Defender”. I think we’re in for some interesting headlines in the months ahead. Vista’s just too totalitarian to be accepted as just another new version of Windows. It’s a whole different way to manage a relationship with a customer and it’s all based on software, which, as anyone knows, has weaknesses, especially when used by millions of people under hundreds [thousands] of different circumstances. This is the kind of monitoring that only a company with a monopoly would ever attempt to impose. Why else would customers agree to such an arrangement with so many conditions which only serve the interests of the supplier and at any point can cause the product to fail?

I agree with your comments and thus won’t be switching to Vista any time soon. Microsoft has gone overboard with this licence and I intend to pillory them about it every chance I get. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not a Microsoft hater - but this is beyond the pale.

What I find weird is that no one has tried to challenge a software licence in court. A licence is putatively a contract between the software company and the consumer - but it’s not much of a contract when the consumer doesn’t have any chance to negotiate the terms.

Another problem with the Vista licence is that parts of the licence are on a webpage and, as Ed Foster says, “…in classic sneakwrap fashion, dependent on what a particular webpage says at a particular moment. That in itself could have a chilling effect on what people can say about Vista. Consumers who don’t even know what .NET Framework is will, if they want to make sure any public statements they make about Vista “comply with the conditions” of Microsoft’s license, have to first decipher what that webpage means. And, of course, Microsoft could change the conditions at any time, so you’ll have to check back anytime you make any more comments about Vista.” How legitimate is it to have a consumer agree to a licence whose terms can change at any time and may change from one day to the next?

I wish that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson hadn’t screwed up the Microsoft antitrust trial by blatantly showing his anti-MS bias. The company would have been split into two parts and it would have been not only better for consumers, but also better for the company: In the four cases where the U.S. Justice Department has split up companies due to antitrust violations (the most recent was AT&T), the separated parts of the companies were worth more when combined than when the corporation was a single entity. But do you see the Justice Department bringing an antitrust lawsuit after after the black eye they got in the first one - especially under a Republican Administration? I don’t - unless folks like us yell longly and loudly and complain to the DOJ (and of course they won’t pay any attention to me as I’m Canadian). Ordinary users won’t - they have no idea of how MS is abusing them - and most of them never see the EULA!

Another good critique of the Vista licence (written by Scott Granneman) is here.

You’ve probably seen this one, but Mark Rasch in SecurityFocus, 2006-11-20, wrote an interesting legal analysis of Microsoft “shutting off” user’s Vista machines. Most desktop people, like myself, probably view EULA’s as just silly legalese, but apparently they’re taken very seriously by everyone else, including the courts, and every phrase in the new Vista EULA has very practical consequences.

I’m no expert, but I get the feeling MS is either going to change the most Stalinesque parts of the EULA (like they did with transfers) or we’re going to see Windows become Gulag-ware. At any rate, I’ll bet it’s going to make businesses think twice about upgrading. It might be a cure that’s worse than the disease for many IT folks.

Maybe the sales of Vista won’t be what was expected - and if they aren’t, the licence terms will (I believe) be a big reason…