Present and future licensing

[x586]

Something that came to my mind this morning was software licensing. I started to put this in general software, but it's not about software, then I started to put it in general hardware, but it's not about that either. It's about license ad how they do it and what is and is not legal, and what companies try to do to protect their software and the legality of that. So since this is a current and future event post I put it here.

Lets say you run XP vista and Linux all on the same machine and they are all legal copies and lets say you bought AVG-Internet Security and Microsoft Office 2007and you intend to run AVG on all 3 OS and office on xp and vista. Well from what I've read in these agreements that is completely legal as the software is licensed to you to run on a single computer. However while AVG might not throw a fit and blacklist your license, I have a feeling that Microsoft (and many other organizations) would.

We also have mac-tels which can run xp and vista and linux and come with OS* (whatever animal mac is calling it these days), and virtualization to emulate just about anything you want. So as we get faster and better software etc... it gets even more complex the farther we progress. With virtualization you can create all sorts of virtual computers, and with dual and quad core cpu's you have more then enough speed to make it happen captain.

So is a virtual computer a computer ? If so then that would constitute you needing 2 license when for example you run xp and virtualize Linux and load AVG on both. As I already sort of eluded too, if you dual boot now that is deffinately not 2 machines.

Since all the tracking and activation is done through the internet and I really doubt it was designed to handle this sort of thing what are these companies going to do when tech-guy-1 dual boots xp and 2 different versions of vista and loads his 1 legal copy of office on all 3 of them ?

I want companies to make a profit, I don't think I'm special and that they should work for me for free, but I certainly can't see buying multiple license for a single product to run on a single machine.

Complicated ain't it ? So whats your take?

[Reflex]

Microsoft licenses per machine, not per user or per install.  So as long as the multiple copies of say, Office, are on the same hardware, then they will not throw a fit.  I do not know what AVG's licensing terms are, but I imagine its similiar.

[x586]

Right per machine, but I'm not sure you saw where I was going. Will office, avg, bla, bla, bla, program recognize that it is in fact on the same machine when running under 3 differant OS's.  Not to mention virtualization, which technically is on the same machine, but in a way it's not on the same machine.

In other words if the automated validation server revokes your code because your running 4 installs on the machine under 4 differant OSes using both dual boot and virtualization. You haven't actually broken the license agreement, but getting that straighten out with a major lawsuit could be a real nightmare.

[Reflex]

You would not get sued, your product would simply fail to activate.  To solve the issue you'd just call into the appropriate company like any other activation failure and explain what your doing so they could give you the codes needed to activate.  I've had this happen with VirtualPC myself and a phone call to explain was all that was necessary.

[x586]

Not you get sued, you have to sue them to get to use your product.

[Reflex]

Why would you do that when you can just make a phone call?

[Rocky]

Microsoft has actually been very good to me about my XP authentication code.  I have had to call them several times when I've had to reinstall or upgrade my computer.  They never give me any problem, they just ask me if Im telling the truth or not, and I say yea, then they say ok.

[Intuit]

One of the revisional changes done with VirtualPC, was to allow the installing OS to see the installation key... or/and some other things from the host operating system.  So they're ahead of you x586.