Package: openoffice.org Version: 1.1.1-3 Severity: grave
Hello, This is a SEVERE thing. I installed Debian/Sarge's version 1.1.1 of openoffice. While doing backups I found: /home/xxx/.openoffice/1.1.1/THIRDPARTYLICENSEREADME.html which contains the full Microsoft EULA: (see clip below) As the license itself says: it is IMPORTANT. Please recall what IMPORTING something to ones conscience mind means. And I don't mind saying I'm angry that "some yoohoo" slipped that damned license on my system. However: I do have a rights to use it. I'm licensed to use a MS product meantioned and I paid for my copy of Solaris and StarOffice. No. My concern is the harm that can come to Debian - which is the largest and best compilation of truely "clean" of license linux. /////////////////////////// IF YOU AREN'T YET MAKING PHONE CALLS: I don't know if you europeans understand what that license means in U.S. language: it means they have rights to access all of your personal work on your computer systems and "have your ass" in any courtroom situation simply because their libraries are on your system - even if you infact didn't know they were there (because you negleged to look for the license). If any codes of Microsoft (including fonts or save formats) that the license referers to are in any part of any of your work: it is not your work ! until such time as you remove Microsoft's binaries (without looking at them, of course). Infact. Using Microsoft software you have no right to copyright or share the entirety of your work UNTIL IT IS PRINTED. That is, until it contains no Microsoft binaries of any form. And of COURSE: if you don't have license to use one of the meantioned products: they can sue you. And of COURSE: they can sue you for distributing anything containing the license indescriminantly. That is in fact what that license says specifically. That is how it would be treated. The President is from Texas (so gov workers now get Dell laptops). No coincidence: beleive me. Microsoft has their own judges and does an excellent job of "lobbying" our Congress. I feel quite confident that the double talk allowed in a case would be immense and favorative of Microsoft: If you don't know what double talk is and how it effects the reality of purpose you had best not even think of having a copy of the MS EULA anywhere on your HD. /////////////////////////// IF YOU AREN'T YET MAKING PHONE CALLS: Did you read that news article in the Washington Post about Sony raiding Microsoft's Japan Headquarters? Do you know why? Its all in the EULA. Read it again and again until the finality and the wideness sinks in. I keep thinking of "Lindows". The Linux for compatibility Windows. Forgive and forget, he liked to say. He liked to think the days of war between microsoft and linux were over. I've know that company at the assembler level since DOS. The war was allways there. Its still here and bigger than ever. Microsoft is cheating more than ever: I've read (or reviewed) most of their Developer's kit (included all but Xp). When I saw Microsoft suing Lindows I laughed. I knew two years before it happened. And if you didn't? You had best open your eyes: Microsoft is a city in the state of Washington which has (pays) its own U.S. judges. They are sprawling and have a lust for riches. Their is no sentiment which will calm their push toward monopoly, because it in part is the primal instinct to breed if it means ruining other cities - and this instinct is encouraged there in that "evil" city. And if you think those bugs aren't their so they can poke into your government's offices: your just loosers, so why send your family jewels to Redmond Washington now while the contribution is still appreciable? All you have to do is read phorums that Microsoft users from the Seattle / Redmond area have left on the internet to see that they seek to actively demolish averything but their own. (saw one such message about tricking linux users just a couple weeks ago while researching) Their source has been crooked since the DOS and ASM days. They've been sued and have ignored U.S. rulings since the DOS days. They've turned on every U.S. company that once considered themselves "ms insiders". And for the U.S.? MS is poision. It means more imports and less U.S. workers. Don't think we like it. No one in the U.S. likes "the phone company" or "big government". Allthough I think the goverment worker population now outnumbers the *real* workers in the U.S. You can't fight the bitch with ideas. Only with faith, GPL code, and brotherhood to your own; unix users. And that is where the Lindows guy went wrong. He trusted to faith what is not a matter faith. And he failed to (though I would have at his age) look into the Oracle of the past still in the aged Forums on the internet. It was called war then. People took it seriously then. Incidentally: I won't let this issue rest I'm afraid. I won't rest until there is NO MICROSOFT EULA in Debian. Respectfully yours, John D. Hendrickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] PS Being a 35 yr old Linux user since '92 (God I feel old!) I just thought I'd share a little OS history. It is the war between pulishers and authors. And that battle has been prominent all throughout history. Still not convinced that Microsoft is not to be trusted? Oh. That is too bad. I hope lady history treats you better than your unempathetic treating of her. Well what can I say if you don't think it's serious yet? Good. I'll keep my copy without software that has MS EULA's and distribute it when your in jail ;) -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.7-k7 Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (ignored: LC_ALL set to C) Versions of packages openoffice.org depends on: ii dictionaries-common [openoffi 0.22.27 Common utilities for spelling dict pn openoffice.org-bin Not found. pn openoffice.org-debian-files Not found. pn openoffice.org-l10n-en | open Not found. ------------------------------------------------------- john: snippet of license: IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLYThese Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") operating system components, including any "online" or electronic documentation ("OS Components") are subject to the terms and conditions of the agreement under which you have licensed the applicable Microsoft operating system product ("OS Product") described below (each an "End User License Agreement" or "EULA") and the terms and conditions of this Supplemental EULA. BY INSTALLING, COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING THE OS COMPONENTS, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE APPLICABLE OS PRODUCT EULA AND THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY OR USE THE OS COMPONENTS. NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALID EULA FOR ANY "OS PRODUCT" (MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98, WINDOWS ME, WINDOWS NT 4.0 (DESKTOP EDITION), WINDOWS 2000 OPERATING SYSTEM, WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL AND/OR WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION), YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO INSTALL, .... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]