[XeTeX] Free download: Microsoft Office 2007 beta 2

[Adam Twardoch]

Bruno Voisin wrote:
> What I meant was that, given MS Office 2007 Beta installs only on  
> Windows, there was no way to use the OpenType fonts that it provides  
> with XeTeX, on either Mac OS X or Linux. 
>   
This depends on the End-User License Agreement that comes with Office 
2007 beta. The EULA applies to the normal Office software and also to 
the fonts included. EULA contains two relevant passages:

"You may install and use one copy of the software on your premises to 
test how it runs with your programs."

"The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some 
rights to use the software.  Microsoft reserves all other rights.  
Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you 
may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement.  In 
doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software 
that only allow you to use it in certain ways.    You may not
• disclose the results of any benchmark tests of the software to any 
third party without Microsoft’s prior written approval;
• work around any technical limitations in the software;
• reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and 
only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this 
limitation;
• make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or 
allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
• publish the software for others to copy;
• rent, lease or lend the software;
• transfer the software or this agreement to any third party; or
• use the software for commercial software hosting services."

The other passages of the EULA are not relevant IMO. There is no 
information about that you must use the package in Microsoft Windows 
only. The EULA reads in a way that you'd be allowed to install the 
software on Windows, make a backup copy of the fonts that it installs 
with, uninstall the software on Windows and then install just the fonts 
on a different system -- as long as only one copy of the software is 
being run.

> Actually I was suspecting your message was a troll, something unusual  
> on this list. Glad to know this is not the case!
>   
It's sad to see such deep preconceptions (that whenever "Microsoft" 
appears somewhere, this has got to be a troll.) I'm slightly 
disappointed but will get over it.

I guess where I differ from some people on this list is that I don't use 
open source software because it's open source, I use it because it suits 
my purpose. I use Microsoft and Adobe and other commercial applications, 
and I use XeTeX, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Python, FreeType and other open 
source applications -- depending on which one fits my needs better. I 
don't use OpenOffice since it doesn't offer me anything that Microsoft 
Office wouldn't, and with Microsoft Office I get excellent support and 
documentation. On the other hand, I use XeTeX because it allows me to do 
things that I couldn't do in other applications.
> Thanks for the link, that looks interesting. I'll have a look at it  
> when time allows. I must admit that I feel fairly skeptical towards  
> anything coming from MS, and I have difficulties in believing in  
> their good will, but I'll try to look at this paper with fresh eyes  
> and an open mind.
>   
Similarly, I'm often fairly skeptical towards open-source projects, and 
I have difficulties in believing that this or that particular project 
will gain enough momentum to find market adoption and survive over the 
next few years so that it would justify my investment of time and 
knowledge into it. However, I try to avoid that my skepticism 
overshadows common sense.

Best,
Adam

-- 

Adam Twardoch
http://www.twardoch.com/