RE: Open Source menu system

Hey James just an FYI but if you have a valid license to a newer version of
any(?) MS product.  Then you also have a valid license to any older version.

So, if you want to load MS-DOS 6.2 on that new PC that came with WinXP.
That's ok ;-)

Charles


> -----Original Message-----
> From: James H H Lampert [mailto:jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 12:41 PM
> To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: Open Source menu system
> 
> 
> >>
> >> > Hey, I have no problem with an open source menu system.  
> What I have
> >> problems is using the menu system to bypass paying the license for
> >> the ERP  package.
> >>
> >> But as I read it, they're not currently out to bypass 
> paying whatever
> >> they may already be paying for the licenses they already 
> have, just to
> >> bypass paying for additional licenses just to set up 
> additional menus.
> >
> > I'm confused about your two examples; can you explain the 
> difference why
> > in your mind one is software theft and the other isn't ?
> 
> Suppose you have a fleet of fairly old Windoze machines. And you buy a
> bunch of new ones, that have newer versions of M$ Office 
> factory-installed
> on them. A version that's got compatibility issues with the version on
> your old machines, serious enough that once you save a Word 
> document from
> the newer machines, it's unreadable on the older ones.
> 
> You were never given the choice of putting the old version of 
> M$ Office on
> the new boxes. And you don't especially want to pay The Bill 
> to update it
> on the old boxes, an update that might even require you to put a newer
> version of Windoze on them, or replace them outright (and 
> once again pay
> The Bill).
> 
> Is it software theft to install Open Office instead?
> 
> For that matter, if Microsloth started making you pay The Bill for the
> privilege of browsing the web with Imploder, would it be 
> software theft to
> switch to Mozilla instead?
> 
> Back to the case at hand: We now have it from the proverbial "horse's
> mouth" that the point of installing the open-source menuing 
> system isn't
> to avoid paying for additional (and expensive) ERP licenses 
> for people who
> are actually using ERP (whatever the Hell that is), but to 
> avoid wasting
> those licenses on non-ERP users.
> 
> --
> JHHL
> 
> 
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