A very plausible rumor doing rounds has it that Microsoft may sell "family-pack" licenses for its Home Premium (and perhaps Home Basic) variants of the upcoming Windows 7 operating system. The license allows users to install and use a copy of the OS in three PCs in the same household, while being priced significantly less compared three individual copies or paper licenses. Last week, a blogger noticed an interesting term in the license agreement of a pre-release version of Windows 7 Home Premium which read:

b. Family Pack. If you are a "Qualified Family Pack User", you may install one copy of the software marked as "Family Pack" on three computers in your household for use by people who reside there. Those computers are the "licensed computers" and are subject to these license terms. If you do not know whether you are a Qualified Family Pack User, visit go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkid=141399 or contact the Microsoft affiliate serving your country.

Today, an American e-tailer started accepting pre-orders for Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade "Family-Pack" (manufacturer product code GFC-00236). It is priced at US $144.99, a mere $25 more compared to its single-user retail price of $119.99. If this sort of a pricing scheme stays on with the full-version retail pack too, it would sweeten the deal many fold. Three fold to be precise.