4 ms·
How come they can distribute binaries of an OS that belongs to a company? I mean, even though it is a failed project, it still may have valuable stuff, patents
by saganus 10y ago
How come they can distribute binaries of an OS that belongs to a company?
I mean, even though it is a failed project, it still may have valuable stuff, patents, etc.
So how come they are able to distribute without issues? are they going to potentially get a C&D? should we start archiving these just in case?
- chungy 10y agoThere's a few possible answers: * Microsoft doesn't know about it * Microsoft doesn't care about it * The website has ignored C&Ds * [insert other reasons] I'm actually most inclined to think "Doesn't care" is the correct answer. None of these builds are under support and it's unlikely that your necessary drivers or apps will run on it. They're alpha and beta builds of Windows Vista, for crying out loud -- even the full release is getting long in the tooth (and programs like Chrome and Firefox are dropping support).
- saganus 10y agoYeah, I definitely agree on the first and the third, but I'm not so sure about the second. Even though they might be unsupported or unusable that doesn't mean that the legal team would be happy to ignore them. Sometimes (most times?) companies are very aggressive when it comes to their IP, especially when it's a core product. Don't get me wrong. I think it's really cool that we have access to these things, just out of curiosity (although I doubt I'll ever download and install them, because of laziness). But things like the emails and such, just seems like a fuzzy/gray area. In the end I was hoping there was some other kind of answer like, Microsoft actually let them publish things or something like that, but I'm skeptical.