[2322] in Humor
HUMOR: Microsoft Exclusivity Contract
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathon Weiss)
Fri May 22 12:41:35 1998
From: Jonathon Weiss <jweiss@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 12:33:38 EDT
------- Forwarded Message
From: Steve Weiss <SteveWeiss@comshare.com>
The United States Department of Justice has leaked what is rumored to
be the full text of the exclusivity contract that Microsoft has
imposed on some of its customers and resellers. A copy follows:
I am MICROSOFT, thy Software Provider which have brought thee
out of the land of mainframes, out of the house of IBM.
1. Thou shalt have no other software providers before me.
2. Thou shalt not purchase unto thee any competing software,
or any browser that is from Netscape, or any applet that
is in Java, or any operating system that is like Unix.
3. Thou shalt not run them on thy computers or sell them to
thy customers: for I MICROSOFT thy Software Provider am
a jealous Software Provider, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto
millions of them that love me, and buy my software.
4. Thou shalt not take the name of MICROSOFT thy Software
Provider in vain; for MICROSOFT will hold him liable who
taketh his name in vain.
5. Remember to purchase all new releases, to keep thy software
holy. With the current release shalt thou labour, and do
all thy work: but the new release has the blessing of
MICROSOFT thy Software Provider: after it thou shalt not do
any work with the old release, thou, nor thy son, nor thy
daughter, nor thy customers, nor thy employees, nor thy
stranger that is within thy gates: for though the new release
from MICROSOFT be bigger, and buggier and though it be
burdened with more useless features, MICROSOFT blessed the
new release, and hallowed it.
6. Thou shalt not report bugs to the media.
7. Thou shalt not commit software piracy.
8. Thou shalt not reveal the terms of this contract to the
Department of Justice, nor to the media, nor to any competing
software provider.
9. Thou shalt not fling pies against Bill Gates.
10. Thou shalt not covet Bill Gates' house, thou shalt not covet
Bill Gates' wife, nor his employees, nor his cars, nor
Seattle, nor anything that is Bill Gates'.
------- End of Forwarded Message
