A Vista of Licensed Censorship

Let's say you get Windows Vista sometime next year and, after using it a bit, decide it really sucks wind compared to other operating systems like Linux or the Mac OS. Can you tell your friends, family, or your blog readers about your comparative findings? Well, before you do, you will at least have to check what Microsoft's web pages say about just what kind of Vista criticism Redmond is allowing at that moment

Let's say you get Windows Vista sometime next year and, after using it a bit, decide it really sucks wind compared to other operating systems like Linux or the Mac OS. Can you tell your friends, family, or your blog readers about your comparative findings? Well, before you do, you will at least have to check what Microsoft's web pages say about just what kind of Vista criticism Redmond is allowing at that moment in time.

It is actually quite heartening to see the rather intense debate that has already begun since Microsoft posted the Windows Vista EULA last week. (To see the EULA for yourself, go to Microsoft's EULA page and search for Windows Vista.) Restrictions on license transfers that did not exist in the Windows XP EULAs, some ham-handed attempts to deal with the tricky licensing issues posed by virtualization, and some very scary language regarding Microsoft's invasive anti-piracy rights have already been discussed in several forums. But I think the most horrific term is one that will at first probably strike most watchers of Microsoft licensing as being a step in the right direction.

According to Microsoft's website, the EULA for the home version of Windows Vista will contain this provision:

"9. MICROSOFT .NET BENCHMARK TESTING. The software includes one or more components of the .NET Framework 3.0 (".NET Components"). You may conduct internal benchmark testing of those components. You may disclose the results of any benchmark test of those components, provided that you comply with the conditions set forth at http://go.microsoft/fwlink/?LinkID=66406. Notwithstanding any other agreement you may have with Microsoft, if you disclose such benchmark test results, Microsoft shall have the right to disclose the results of benchmark tests it conducts of your products that compete with the applicable .NET Component, provided it complies with the same conditions set forth at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=66406."

At first glance, this censorship clause seems less onerous than the ones Microsoft has used in server and language products in the past. Those terms required users to get Microsoft's written permission before publishing any benchmarks involving the .NET Framework, which the Vista EULA does not do. And, if you go to the cited page, the "conditions" that Microsoft sets forth seem fairly reasonable. For the most part, they are things that any serious publication or testing lab would do as a matter of course before publishing benchmark results in any case, so what's the harm?