On Tuesday 19 March 2002 02h02, Michael Brown wrote:
On Mon, 18 Mar 2002, Phil Driscoll wrote:
Just spotted this on slashdot. It appears that the windows XP licence effectively forbins you from using VNC. This may be an issue which directly affects some of you! http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/03/18/020318oplivingston.xml
From the linked article:
Microsoft's XP license agreement says, "Except as otherwise permitted by the NetMeeting, Remote Assistance, and Remote Desktop features described below, you may not use the Product to permit any Device to use, access, display, or run other executable software residing on the Workstation Computer..."
The device is any "other" computer, terminal or workstation etc. (such as would run VNC Viewer), according to the licence definitions. It is allowed provided it is duly licenced (to M$) but affects not only VNC - what of any of the third-party viewers etc? How about accessing it if it is running a web server? Secondly, one may not use "the Product" to permit etc. The Product is XP. Is VNC Server the Product? Unlikely, I think. Also, it specifies "the Product running on the Workstation Computer", so run as a server it would be OK. Typical M$ perhaps but not a serious problem since it is patently erroneous in concept. Certainly, any suggestion that non-M$ products could not connect lawfully would be contrary to the anti-trust cases already held. It bodes well for Open Source and, particularly, LTSP perhaps? -- Best wishes, Derek