Easy IE installer script

[Mike Hearn]

On Tue, 2003-12-23 at 21:29, Ivan Leo Murray-Smith wrote:
> They come with apps because the vendors of those apps have a license from M$ to
> redistribute them. You need such a license before you can redistribute them.

What about people who redistribute those apps in turn?

For instance, if I write a public domain program that uses the MFCs, and
include MFC40.DLL and upload it, then somebody else emails it to a
friend - are they redistributing without a license? I don't know.

> As I don't think you developed the
> script with a M$ tool that comes with a license that allows you to distribute M$
> dlls for whatever platform, this is irrelevant.

I seriously doubt you have to write every piece of your code in a
project using MS tools in order to be able to redistribute a DLL. Even
if the license did say such a preposterous thing, it could certainly be
ignored.

> The antitrust case about this is not over, actually Bill testified at it
> recently, and maybe D.C. and the ten suing states will win. If they do, there
> may be builds of windows without OE/IE/MSN, but I don't think there will be
> OE/IE/MSN that can legally run without a windows license.

They can't tie MSN to Windows, regardless of how it's shipped, MSN
doesn't have a monopoly.

> dll-files is a illegal site, M$ doesn't do anything about it but it stays
> illegal, so it may be a problem because I think the DMCA says you can't link
> illegal software (I suppose that's why nobody in the US links to linux dvd
> players with decks)

No, the DMCA does not say that (as far as I understand), it says you may
not distribute (and maybe link to) code that breaks encryption for the
purposes of circumventing copy protection. IANAL etc. YMMV :)

thanks -mike