[lolc]

The title on the original is "How Microsoft helped imprison a man for ‘counterfeiting’ software it gives away for free". Even that title is misleading, but the shortened title here is wrong because "Free Software" has a specific meaning.

Referring to Microsoft Windows as "free software" is just wrong. Microsoft Windows is not Free Software. Even if you leave out the caps intending to refer to price only, the title is wrong. Windows is not for free. You can only get unlicensed copies for free. Which is what the article is about.

[BeetleB]

>Microsoft Windows is not Free Software.

Sorry, but allowing the Free Software movement to insist they are the sole proprietors of the definition of "free" is wrong. About as wrong as the people who are trying to co-opt the word "racism".

If something can be had for $0, it is free. Even with a capital F. That there exists other definition of free does not prevent people from legitimately using this definition.

[lolc]

You go use the word "free" however you want. And if you refer to software that is for free as "free software", expect to be misundertood.

[BeetleB]

>And if you refer to software that is for free as "free software", expect to be misundertood.

1. For the majority of the population, I will not be misunderstood. Only confusing for a certain crowd (FSF advocates). But that's a hole they dug themselves into, so my sympathies are wanting.

2. Let's be frank: Your statement applies more to people who use it the way you prefer, as opposed to my usage. If it weren't the case, then I wouldn't encounter so many people all over the Internet going out of their way to point out pseudo-clarifications.

Don't get me wrong - I'm an advocate of what you call free software, and am even a fan of the GPL. That doesn't mean I'll buy everything they push.

[lolc]

The original title on Hacker News here ended with something like "distributing free software". I took issue with that because it was about distributing copies of Windows which is not by any definition free software.

I wasn't protesting the general case, just this instance. If the title hadn't been misleading to me, I wouldn't have cared. I don't generally care about licensing issues around Microsoft Windows. Though this one is an interesting case.

[petee]

It's not windows that's 'free', it's the recovery disk, which Microsoft allows anyone to download and burn for free.

[tialaramex]

That's only for personal use. Microsoft literally sells the exact product this was pretending to be for $25 ($20 for the crappy Home version, which they told the court was the appropriate comparison, the court disagreed and picked $25).

My local supermarket sometimes has little pieces of cheese on cocktail sticks to sample. Those are free too. If you eat six, and then run out of the supermarket, you're a dick, but they won't try to prosecute you for theft.

But if you say "Aha, cheese is free", reach over the counter and steal a whole wheel, expect to get prosecuted and don't expect a magistrate to buy your story about how clearly since individual pieces of cheese were given away therefore "cheese is free".

[lolc]

Maybe I'm mistaken but I thought the $25 copies of Windows sold by Microsoft included a licence?

Also equating unlicenced copies to theft of physical goods rarely helps to understand the case.

[Someone1234]

The $25 includes a new license. Microsoft claims that the original OEM license is invalidated by recycling and that they should be paid twice (and claim their $25 discount licenses are a benevolent gift).

[tripletao]

Do you have a reference for this? Best I could find is:

https://www.msregrefurb.com/RRPSite/Information/LicensingGui...

I think it says the OEM license remains valid after recycling as long as the recovery media accompany the computer (or are obtained from the OEM), but doesn't otherwise? So by that argument, he really does need the new license? I'd read the contract if I knew which one applied (since that's what actually matters, and not Microsoft's possibly self-serving summary...).

If that's accurate, then it's a pretty weird policy. I guess the license survives if you don't lose the media because they're afraid that anything else would seem completely unreasonable, but they're hoping most people will lose the media? And using the recovery media that they themselves provide (as a download) is supposed to be noncompliant?

[syshum]

Recovery Media has not been shipped with new systems in almost a decade now. At best there is a Recovery partition that consumer can use to create Recovery Disk themselves before the system fails. Obtaining Recovery Media from places like Dell and Lenovo is a Pain in the ass unless you are the original purchaser of the system of an official retailer and you only want 1 Copy of the Media.

The problem is most systems of value sent to a recylers are from off lease buys and corporate refreshes, Most IT shops I know of do not bother getting, storing or collecting Restore disks because we are VL (Volume Licensed) and do not use the OEM image at all even though we pay for it. The first thing that is done on a corp device of any company that has more than 10 or 15 systems is to wipe the entire factory disk and install our own customize version of windows. We also tend to toss any Documentation, CD's and other items that were to come with the system in the trash

So Recylers get thousands of systems annually that are perfectly serviceable, fully licensed with windows but they can not use that license because there is no restore CD and they have no way to obtain one. Thus MS does them a "favor" buy selling them a new license for $25 instead of just providing a way for them to restore the system

[WorldMaker]

It's not that weird, software uses physical totems for all sorts of policy decisions. Look at the weird complicated nature of discs in videogame consoles this decade, for instance, (and which PCs did for a couple decades before). The game software is often running entirely from a hard disk, but if you bought the game as a physical disc (Blu-Ray), the console still wants the disc in the drive for a proof of continued ownership. (All to appease the pawn shop habits of many videogame players.)

It's all just variations on Two-Factor Authentication. Proper two factor is using a hardware device you own to be a physical totem as a factor to access an account.

Here Microsoft is saying that a proper license of the software for a given machine is both the license code (something you know) and a physical disc (something you have) as a simple two-factor equation.

Microsoft giving the benefit of the doubt to the average user that perhaps they might lose a disc for boring reasons like "It's in a box somewhere in the attic, I just don't know which one" or "I tossed it in the garbage not realizing it was valuable" or "My dog thought it was a Frisbee" (and these days even and especially "I didn't realize I needed that partition when I repaved my idiot OEM's install"), offers the rough equivalent to the SMS two-factor password recovery on their website (by interacting directly with them, and presumably only them, to download an "emergency" copy). Just like SMS recovery, it's not a great 2FA replacement, and is likely to have false positives from bad actors, but it is better than nothing.

So it makes sense that Microsoft would have problems with disintermediating that exchange, because A) they can't track it, and B) as it scales, it increases the likelihood of bad actors abusing it. Even if this particular recycler wasn't collecting and reselling the proper copies of recovery discs alongside the counterfeits, the next one might.

Returning to the 2FA analogy, there are somewhat equivalents to the "Forgot Password" flow for a system to remember its old License Code, both in the system itself and on the recovery disc in some cases, not to mention that there is also the Microsoft licensing hotline where you can ask/beg/social engineer a human representative to restore your license.

So concerns that selling machines without the original recovery disc is possibly someone selling both the original recovery disc and the machine to different buyers to "split the licenses in half" is a quite valid concern, whether or not that was the actual intent here.

(...and the actual intent here is so entirely muddied by the trademark infringement and effort put into the counterfeiting, it's hard not to wonder if there was a fire beneath all the smoke.)

[hennsen]

Wouldn’t the appropriate comparison be collecting the free cheese test pieces in a bag and selling them outside at a cheese booth?

[lolc]

Not even that. The appropriate comparison would be copying the marketing pamphlet verbatim and bringing your own cheese to the booth.

Microsoft is arguing that the cheese could have been poisoned. And that people were buying less cheese because of his efforts.

[tialaramex]

The government, whose prosecutors brought this case - aren't arguing that the cheese "could have been poisoned" except in the sense that we have no idea what counterfeiters might or might not get wrong in the process of knocking off a product and we _don't want to find out_ which is why counterfeiting is a criminal offence.

Their argument is that Lundgren's product, a CD that says it's a Windows restore CD from Dell, but is actually a counterfeit produced by Lundgren in China, is (duh) a counterfeit of the Windows restore CD, which sure enough Microsoft sells for (depending on which version exactly) $25.

If you sell your cheese, saying this is a Buxton Blue, (a protected designation) but it isn't, that's counterfeiting. You have counterfeit cheese. Saying "Oh, well I saw them giving cheese away in a supermarket once, so it's free, so there shouldn't be a penalty" doesn't wash. Are you giving it away as a promotion in a supermarket? No. You're selling it, saying it's Buxton Blue. So the right question is, "How much does Buxton Blue sell for?" and the equivalent here is exactly the question Microsoft was asked, "How much do you charge for these CDs?" to which the answer is $25.

Lundgren is a counterfeiter. It's sad how many people are buying what is literally a sob story from a convicted criminal as though it's a neutral third party discussing the case.

[lolc]

As far as I understand the accused trafficked forgeries of Dell recovery CD. These CD do not include a Windows License and Microsoft does not sell such CD either. The article is lamenting that very misunderstanding was made by the court.

Now you're saying the court got it right and the accused was actually selling Windows licenses. Who is right?

[code_sloth]

> Referring to Microsoft Windows as "free software" is just wrong. Microsoft Windows is not Free Software.

Free has many meanings. Look up the dictionary [1]. In the context of the situation / article, it is free. As in $0. As in costs nothing. Context matters, and the FSF / open source context does not apply here.

This ridiculous insistence on the "one true pure" meaning and rigid interpretation of words is a like cancer of stupid infecting humanity.

[1]: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/free

[lolc]

"Free software" has an established meaning within our field. Notice how I was complaining about the title, where naturally the context is very broad.

[lovich]

Free software has always had two meanings. "Free as in speech or free as in beer", is a phrase used commonly in software development for a reason