"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4isn7iF56sosU1@individual.net...
> kony <spam@spam.com> wrote
>> visions of effty <impeach_the_shrub@verizon.net> wrote
>
>>> This topic actually makes me curious. I think it's a legal grey
>>> area that MS takes advantage of, but I wonder where the right
>>> to define what constitutes the "system" (and such) actually falls?
>
>> It's also been discussed over and over on usenet, there
>> is no point in rehashing again in a hardware group.
>
> Yes there is when its repair being discussed.
>
> That other discussion involves selling the OS separate
> to the hardware and MS cant legally sustain that claim
> either in any country with a decent legal system anyway.


Yeah. If they're going to change things on the software end that cause
major pains for hardware upgrades, I think it's a valid topic.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, you are 100% right, kony. And yes, it has
been thoroughly discussed elsewhere.

The intention with Vista is to make a Windows license non-transferable
through an upgrade of the motherboard.

http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/49364

I hate to turn any thread into a bitch about M$ thing (not really) but if
this is true then I don't see a lot of the people in this group going to
Vista. We love shiny new motherboards. If they tell us we can't have them,
then I think they'll lose some segment of alt.comp.hardware as a customer
base.

Microsoft doesn't make computers, they make software, yet this claim of
tying software to hardware makes them de facto computer manufacturers. In
my mind it comes down to your software trying to define your hardware in
order to sell you more software. If not illegal, it certainly seems
unethical.

I'll shut up now.

~e.