Criticisms
A 2005 court case strongly criticised the wording of a Microsoft licensing agreement related to portable devices. The license prohibited makers of portable devices compatible with Windows Media Player from using non-Microsoft audio encoding formats. Microsoft indicated that the wording of their license was poorly written due to an oversight by a junior Microsoft employee. Microsoft quickly amended their stringently worded license agreement at the judge's behest.
In a possibly related decision, iriver dropped support for Ogg Vorbis from their latest H10 portable music player (no longer available in retail) in order to market it with PlaysForSure certification. iriver has since added support for Ogg Vorbis (up to Q10), as well as a non-PlaysForSure service, Audible, to their Clix line of portable media players, which remain PlaysForSure-certified.
Read more about this topic: Microsoft PlaysForSure
Famous quotes containing the word criticisms:
“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)