Unless they change the EULA, retail have always been transferable in the past. For what its worth, I upgraded from an OEM Windows 7 to Windows 10 Preview and the Windows 10 key shows as Retail. As far as showkey is concerned anyway. What happens when I upgrade to the final release is anybody's guess. And that's what most are doing as Microsoft hasn't officially released all the details yet.
Windows 10 is a brand new ball game. They can change to EULA to read whatever their building full of Lawyers tells them to put in it.
If your a pessimist, anything they do is doom and gloom. And it seems free will never be free enough for some people. That's life I guess.
Well Microsoft cannot unilaterally void your owned retail license. That license, according to its terms upon purchase, is your personal property. After upgrading, it will retain all its original definition - which means transferable but can only be used on one PC at a time.
OEM keys are meant to be tied to a particular system's hardware, and so the life of the license is equal to "for the lifetime of the device". But in the case of a retail key, the license is good permanently for one machine. If the license has received upgraded status, then it has upgraded status. And if Microsoft provide an upgrade to that license for use with Windows 10, then that upgraded status is the new definition of the personal property which is a retail license, and it is no longer for Microsoft to say whether or not that license may be transferred, because Microsoft does not hold domain over a person's retail license.
A license purchase is not a rent, or a lease. An owned software license is a personal property - not over the software itself, but over the right to access and use a particular software. Transferable, single-PC use is already the identity and definition of a retail license, and Microsoft cannot take that from a retail license owner, because that license is not Microsoft's to make such unilateral changes over.
If Microsoft wishes to provide an upgrade to that license, that is Microsoft's call to make. However, it is not in Microsoft's power to amend the terms of the retail license from what they were at the time of their purchase, because, again, that licenses originally-agreed-to rights is the legal property of the purchaser, and not the company who sold those particular rights in a license-agreement.
An upgrade to that license still preserve's the license-agreement as a right of the purchaser.
That's the legal reality.
The upgrade is free - the eligibility for the upgrade, and what it is that is upgraded, was not free. What is upgraded is an existing Windows license. It is for Microsoft to decide that they want to provide a free upgrade (which is to get people using the MS store and make things easier for MS), but it isn't for Microsoft to choose whether the existing licenses that are receiving the upgrade lose any of their authorizing definition.
For Microsoft to change the usability terms of an existing license, the ownership of the original bought license would first have to revert back to Microsoft and become their property again, with a new license and agreement being then delivered from Microsoft. If a license reverts to Microsoft, that would have to happen through an explicitly clear legal agreement - but then there is no upgrade taking place, and rather a barter, an exchange of one license for another. But who would knowingly exchange their forever-lasting Windows 7 / 8 retail license for a very temporary Windows 10 OEM license? Even just changing the advertising for Microsoft's Windows 10 offer at this point could be worthy of a class-action lawsuit, for people who would get confused and hand over their full retail license under unexpected terms.
Microsoft doesn't hold the legal authority to claim that a person's license is now their property anymore than a car salesman who sell you a car could unilaterally claim that the car they sold you has once again become their property.
Therefore, OEM licenses should upgrade and still function as OEM licenses (lasting for the lifetime of the device), while retail licenses continue to function as their purchased agreement stipulated (install on one machine, transferable).
If some people have been using Windows under the impression that their bought licenses are not actually their property, then that's a misunderstanding on their part. But would they make the same mistake regarding a house they buy, or clothing they buy?
It's language I deal with often and regularly regarding law to the extent that I know commercial law is not whatever a company decides they want it to be at their arbitrary discretion. An EULA is not law, but an EULA is subject to the law. Also, a software license is a personal property. EULAs can change arbitrarily, but a license purchase is a matter of legal and binding contract, and that cannot change by one side's unilateral action.
"You are posting all of this legal stuff as to what MS can do and can't do."
Would you feel the same if someone told you any other item you bought wasn't yours to choose what to do with? Would you respond as if you expected you had no rights to your property (thereby meaning it is not your property at all, and that you have no property) and that someone would have to prove to you that the businesses you bought stuff from weren't your overlords?
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