They can send the PC police over, however, without a search warrant,
you don't have to let them in. If they can convince a judge of
probable cause, then they can get a search warrant. It is doubtful
that they will pursue this for a petty theft charge (1 Window
license). Now if there is a dozen or a hundred computers, it's grand
theft and now you are talking real money.
IANAL,
Jeffrey
Quoting Stuart Powell
Hello, everyone.
I just wanted to see what trouble I could stir up this evening with an article I found this morning. I'm surprised Fred didn't send it on. If you don't think of MS as the Evil Empire yet, this may well push you over the edge.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/18589.html
This article raised many questions in my mind. Predominantly, though, is this: Just how far can Microsoft go in its pursuit of pirates without overstepping the mark ? How much of this power can be wielded beyond US borders ?
Let's say that I buy a shiny new PC from Gateway, for the sake of argument. I order it without an OS, since I intend to install a lovely fresh copy of SuSE on it, and don't want to have to pay the MS Tax. A vigilant Gateway employee then calls up MS and says "Stoo just bought a new machine without an OS. Please add another point to my score, as I am trying to win my own yacht from the MS 'Shop Your Customers for Profit' promotion". The next thing I get is a phone call from a drone in Redmond. The call goes something like this...
Drone - "Mr. Powell, it has come to our attention that you just bought a whizz-bang new Gateway PC without an OS. We will be sending the PC police (http://www.bsa.org) over to make sure you bought a valid Windows licence for that PC."
Me - "Sod off ! It's running Linux."
Question; can they still send the PC police round to check and see if I actually have Linux on the box ? What about the other PCs here that may or may not be running Windows ? Can they check those just because they're here and they feel like it ? How about my friend's PC in the corner that I will be upgrading with a new processor in a couple of days ? I don't know if he has a valid Windows licence or not. I certainly can't produce one for it myself.
And finally, how long is this kind of behaviour going to be tolerated before someone sees the light and puts a stop to this kind of thing ?
Let the battle commence...
Stuart.
-- I don't do Windows and I don't come to work before nine. -- Johnny Paycheck