Actually, I had pretty good access to a number of licensing resources who confirmed what I said in the article (and I have personally been involved in negotiating a number of large Microsoft license deals for DOS and Windows, OEM and end-user, going back to 1986, so I'm not exactly "a random bloggy"), and by the time we actually went live with the article on ET Microsoft was on the record as confirming that there was no agreement. As you point out, it is unlikely that Onlive perceives itself as pirating on this scale, so I suspect it has a different interpretation of the legal issues involved which it will either use as leverage to help force a deal or in court. But since it won't talk about that publically, it is hard to know. But to repeat, Microsoft has specifically said it believes Onlive is not in compliance, so the article is hardly speculation.--David

Actually I did speak with sources familiar with Microsoft licensing before writing the article, and did not rely on the linked article. And of course on the now public blog post directly from Matz. So I'm not sure what your huffing and puffing is all about. If Microsoft has given you a Windows 7 license under SPLA, bully for you. But they are publically denying that there is such a thing, so that's the way it is going to get reported until someone provides actual facts to the contrary.--David

Sure, but are they Windows Server or Windows 7 desktop instances?

The URL for that PDF didn't translate very well. Here is a direct link to the Microsoft SPLA Datasheet stating that Office can be licensed per processor. Any information on whether (and under what conditions) that is actually possible would be helpful: http://www.scribd.com/doc/23123212/Spla-Datasheet

Actually, there are several different Microsoft documents which say precisely that Office can be licensed per processor. However, I couldn't find anyone who had actually done it that way. So for the article I listed the license as a possibility, since I couldn't exclude it, but not a probability, since no one could confirm it. For example, the SPLA datasheet explicitly cites Office as being available per processor: download.microsoft.com/download/7/a/a/.../spla_datasheet.pdf. If you can prove that the datasheet is wrong, we can certainly update the article, otherwise the insults ring pretty hollow.--David Cardinal

FWIW, Hawkes has been involved in one way or another in just about all of the deepsea subs. For my money, Cameron is hugely ahead of the Virgin project as far as reaching insane depths, although hats off to Branson & Virgin for creating a very cool sub that would be awesome to pilot at any depth and will have plenty of value over time (most of the ocean is much shallower than the Challenger Deep). I'd be money that Cameron's team will be the one, and only one, to return to the Challenger Deep any time this decade. -- David Cardinal