XP home use editorial

XP is getting discussed down the page a way but I wanted to start a fresh thread so the following repost will get read more and maybe some of you will give me some feedback.

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The family license offers about a $10 proice reduction for a second+ copy of XP for home use. While they call it a license I dont think it is a license as much as a discount and a fairly small one at that.

I am used to the abstract idea where software is a code which you can run on any viable hardware. I think if a hobby person owns 5 PCs and buys software that they should be able to run it on all 5 as and when s/he sees fit.

I do not contest that the law for corporations which make money using the software should be substantially different than it is for the hobby user who makes no money out of computing, but as things stand the business scenario is being used as the template for the law regarding hobby use, IMHO unfairly.

With a book you are not limited to reading it once but as many times as you like, and you can lend it to friends legally, you just cant make money off it.

Software is different, pirating & selling for profit is obviously theft, but personal use on multiple machines is IMHO obviously not theft but is legitimate use of software. Hence it is an abomination that MS charge you pro rata for using their software on more than one hobby machine, this is going too far in the other direction.

A "license" is IMHO ideally a compromise which allows an equitable settlement in that it stops piracy but allows multiple use for an individual purchaser. MS current set up is not a license, except in the sense that it is a license to print money!!

As for keeping quiet and working around it, there is the issue of law here which ought not to be allowed to become hostile to the consumer while the corporate lawyers lie doggo for PR reasons. The tide is turning with the adroit use of propaganda and now the law will support prosecution of hobby users of an OS on more than one machine.

MS dont prosecute now because they fear the backlash, which is because people support the underdog. But IMHO the backlash is also because people do not see it as fair that people cant use the properties they have bought for personal use as they see fit. MS are avoiding prosecution which will set up a precedent against their interests, but if they can edge their way towards getting a precedent which enforces their advantage they will be under pressure to use it providing such use is cost effective. i.e. they might take a few casual copiers to court and throw the book at them and make them out to be generally unsavoury etc.

Pretty soon we will be paying per mouse click and per window opened and noone will even raise a squeak of protest. Why not do that anyway I hear you ask, well simply because it will be used as an opportunity to raise the price just as online activation was. The public discussion about privacy is pure misdirection in this respect...

"Clever girl" .