Is it OK for Microsoft and others to forbid disclosure of benchmark results?

[Monty Harder]

Ray Hanes <high_tech_hanes at yahoo.com> wrote:

>Man I just looked at this for the first time today.  What this ignores is
>the fact that you can not sign away basic rights granted by the
Constitution
>in an agreement. This is clearly an obstruction of freedom of speech.

 Uh.  Yes, you can.  Having the right we call "freedom of speech" includes
the right to decide how to exercise that right.  And contract law is the
mechanism by which people agree to exercise their respective rights in a
mutually advantageous way.  To deny to someone his right to agree to
exercise his rights in this way is wrong, and short-sighted, to boot. Our
own GPL grants a license to use software under terms that place restrictions
on free speech.  Granted, those restrictions are in the form of requiring
flow of information rather than prohibiting it, but the principle remains
the same - people entered into an agreement that said that others are free
to "speak" their code only under certain conditions.

  =IF= the non-disclosure provisions of a software license are clearly
disclosed before someone agrees to it, then it should be binding.  Then you
should ask yourself why anyone in his right mind would buy software which is
forbidden to be benchmarked by an independent tester.