Originally Posted by xda-developers

I read your last mail. From reading it seems like Microsoft would like us to remove _any and all_ ROM images that have MS software inside of them, even if they are operator ROM images for any of the phones that our community has ever been interested in. If this is indeed the case then I would like to plead with you and your firm to please reconsider this.

Our unique collection of ROM images is an extremely valuable resource for developers and enthousiasts trying to make the most out of their HTC phones. As you may be aware the product development cycle in this field is such that by the time a phone hits the market the OEM is already spending 99.9% of its resources on other phones. At present, both HTC and the MS developer programs for handheld devices sadly seem to ignore key needs of third-party developers. This is much unlike a desktop OS which might find development well supported for as much as a decade, and where the OEM doesn't add much custom stuff to the OS. Our community has played a key role in supporting the development of much software and many tools for these devices, thus in turn helping to sell many phones and thus many Windows Mobile licenses.

IMHO the practical value of these ROM images for any meaningful infringement is virtually nil, since only a technically adept minority of users can use these images on hardware that has already had its Windows Mobile license fee paid. I fear that us taking these images offline would lead to sadness amongst the developer community, less development/enthousiasm for these devices and really not much else.

As a side note we have in the past taken offline all images that contained 'test-versions' and/or unreleased copies of the OS or anything else that was a particular bother to MS, and we will continue to do so.

I am a technical person and as such I do not have any legal training. But I suspect that from a legal standpoint you are probably fully within your right to demand that we remove _all_ the images. Nevertheless I hope the above will give you cause to reconsider. I am purposely not informing the community or making a public point out of this at this time because I know any public situation would probably force MS to take a legalistic stand just to avoid setting unfavorable precedent. I guess what it boils down to is this: I'm hoping that we can silently agree that the current situation, although admitably somewhat dodgy, fills an important niche and actually serves Microsoft's interests quite well for the time being.

Originally Posted by Microsoft

Microsoft has limited redistribution policies in place for a number of products, from desktop applications like Office, to downloads such as Windows Media Player and Windows Live Messenger, to Windows Mobile products. The licensing terms for Windows Mobile products also varies between versions and is different for each device depending on the features included by the OEM. As you may know, Microsoft is dedicated to protecting its copyright and other intellectual property rights.

I do know XDA-developers.com is home to many device enthusiasts; however I’m not in a position to debate the legitimacy of any specific piece of software hosted by this site. We have received feedback from several sources on the software hosted by XDA-developers, including mobile operators with customers requesting support on “unofficial ROM images” and media agencies reporting on unreleased ROM versions to name a few. From this feedback, legal review of the sites content, and misconceptions; we concluded we should inform you of the actual Microsoft policies through my original email. These policies are consistent for all non-licensed channels.

We do appreciate the feedback you have given us in the past.

I can assure you we have teams focused on improving Windows Mobile developer’s experiences and if you have additional feedback I encourage you to use the Microsoft developer newsgroups or I would be more than happy to forward this on.

I regret that I’m the bearer of bad news, however we do appreciate your understanding of this matter and trust you will remove our content, including “ROM images” containing our content, as originally requested.