Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[Peter T. Breuer]

In comp.os.linux.misc David Schwartz <davids at webmaster.com> wrote:
>                             . Microsoft said you can sell Windows and other 
> operating systems, but there will be a charge for every  machine you sell 
> without Windows -- if you want to be able to buy Windows wholesale. Someone 
> could comply with this by not selling any other operating systems at all and 
> never pay the fee. Therefore, this is a lesser restriction than saying you 
> can only sell Windows wholesale if you don't sell or offer any competing 
> systems.

No - you claim that allowing somebody (by contract?) to do Z at a
penalty is "lesser" than disallowing them from doing Z.  Sorry - both
are equal in market economics (where the financial imperatve rules).

Indeed, no contract can "disallow" somebody from doing Z - you are
always at liberty to break a contract! (See the RH Enterprise licence
as an example of a contract that you are at liberty to break by copying
RHE to more machines at the penalty of losing RH maintenance support- I
recently had this argument with Rick Moen). The penalty for doing so
is what is at issue. 

So your definitions are anyway without semantic content, and hence the
argument cannot proceed.

And even if the argument were too proceed, your use of "lesser" would
fail, because it appears to mean "is a (proper) subset of the ways
that" without having established what different (i.e. same) means, and
I'd submit that there is no diffence between the elements you exhibit
in the setting of market regulation law.

Peter