To: nylug-talk@barley.electriclichen.com Subject: [nylug-talk] Educational demonstrations, pamphlets, law work, and Refund Day From: Jay Sulzberger < jays@panix.com> Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 02:39:01 -0500 (EST) cc: Jay Sulzberger < jays@panix.com>, Mike Smith < mesmith@panix.com>, David Alan Gross < dag@panix.com>, Edward Green < erg@panix.com> In-Reply-To: <199901210701.XAA04625@barley.electriclichen.com> Sender: owner-nylug-talk@electriclichen.com I am Jay Sulzberger and I live, nearly, in New York City. I run only free software, except for Netscape, and I shall remove that source secret program when Mozilla gets good enough for my taste in browsers. Today's free software movement is based upon the reasonable right of an author to license the author's work any way the author sees fit. rms can choose to license his work under the GNU General Public license, a quite strict license which demands a lot of developers who wish to add code to rms' work and distribute the modified work. Microsoft licenses its best selling OS to the end user under a license which explicitly includes the completely reasonable clause: If you use this software you must pay us a license fee. If you do not use this software you do not have to pay us a license fee. Some of the insane press calls the above clause "a loophole". No, it is rather the main clause of the contract. 15 February 1999 is Refund Day. On that day millions of computer users will learn that there are other OSes than Microsoft's for the IBM style peecee. http://linuxtoday.com/stories/2466.html I expect that all the OS User Groups for non-Microsoft OSes which run on the peecee will join in demonstrations, in the preparation of pamphlets aimed at the casual computer user, informing them of the unfairly extracted high price of the bundled Microsoft OS on their peecee, and in getting the world's best legal opinions on what steps can be taken to create a freer and fairer market in OSes for the end user. I myself feel strongly that Don Marti's statement on the above web page is dead on. We want licenses, and we want their terms adhered to, without deception, run around, or intimidation, on either side. This educational effort is not a joke, nor should it be an occasion for general Microsoft bashing by partisans of other OSes. We think that the performance of Microsoft's OSes does sufficient damage to their reputation, and any bashing we do just makes some people think there might be something good about Microsoft after all. By fall, I expect that OSes for the peecee will be unbundled at CompUSA. But only if we do the hard work. To repeat, I think we need to: 1. Find lawyers willing to give us good advice. 2. Prepare pamphlets. 3. Get as many people as possible to come to literal demonstrations of other OSes. Laptops are useful here I think. LXNY has a Laptop Brigade, which does admittedly need more drill. 4. Reach out to even the source secret OS User Groups. Our interests here are the same. oo--JS. PS. Expect some official announcement from LXNY soon, likely a formal call to action by the User Groups.
To: nylug-talk@barley.electriclichen.com Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Educational demonstrations, pamphlets, law work, and Refund Day From: Jim Gleason <jgleason@electriclichen.com> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 11:01:50 -0800 In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSU.4.05.9901210203300.9859-100000@panix3.panix.com> References: <199901210701.XAA04625@barley.electriclichen.com> Sender: owner-nylug-talk@electriclichen.com Jay wrote, >Microsoft licenses its best selling OS to the end user under a license >which explicitly includes the completely reasonable clause: > >If you use this software you must pay us a license fee. >If you do not use this software you do not have to pay us a license fee. > >Some of the insane press calls the above clause "a loophole". No, it is >rather the main clause of the contract. > >15 February 1999 is Refund Day. On that day millions of computer users >will learn that there are other OSes than Microsoft's for the IBM style >peecee. Here's the ZD Net article with Microsft's response: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2191274,00.html "We consider this a bit of a PR stunt by some Unix guys. Adam Sohn, Microsoft." - Jim Electric Lichen L.L.C.---------------------------------------------------- phone: 718-858-4349 fax: 718-858-4242 2124 Broadway, Suite 374 email: jgleason@electriclichen.com New York, NY 10023 http://electriclichen.com http://www.nylug.org
To: Jim Gleason <jgleason@electriclichen.com> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Educational demonstrations, pamphlets, law work, and Refund Day From: Don Marti <dmarti@electriclichen.com> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 09:34:48 -0800 Cc: nylug-talk@barley.electriclichen.com In-Reply-To: <v03007804b2ce77e8c652@[165.254.214.22]>; from Jim Gleason on Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 11:01:50AM -0800 References: <199901210701.XAA04625@barley.electriclichen.com> <Pine.GSU.4.05.9901210203300.9859-100000@panix3.panix.com> <v03007804b2ce77e8c652@[165.254.214.22]> On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 11:01:50AM -0800, Jim Gleason wrote: > "We consider this a bit of a PR stunt by some Unix guys. Adam Sohn, > Microsoft." As of now the consensus among Windows Refund Day webmasters is that we're all reasonable people here and we'll be able to work something out on the 15th without embarassing anyone. Please allow Adam Sohn's deliberately irritating and insulting comments to roll off you like water. He is trying to get us mad. Smile sweetly. All he's doing is making his boss look like David Koresh. And making the OEMs look silly. In the Bay Area, we'll be there on the 15th with the media and TV cameras rolling. What's up for New York? -- Don Marti Electric Lichen L.L.C. whois DM683 -rwxr--r-- Harrison Street dmarti@electriclichen.com San Francisco, California USA