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and which runs on a cheaper and more open hardware platform

Actually, Vista's DRM prevents such "Echo cancellation" from being implemented. See the "Indirect Disabling of Functionality" section in this document:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html

Hm, you seem to think Gutmann's posts and rebuttals are slashdot comments. I'm referring to the article A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. This is the work of a notable security expert, who has analysed and written a report on the AACS specification and its implementation in Vista. This is not some evangelist slashdot post, it is a serious paper, heavily based in fact by a noted security expert. It's become extremely popular.

This therefore is not a criticism of AACS in general (though it is horrible) - this paper criticises the way in which Microsoft has implemented AACS in Vista. Now this is completely irrelevant of whether or not MS were forced to do it - it doesn't matter when you see the lengths they have gone to to compromise computer stability, security and efficiency at every level - it is simply inexcusable that they have done this (even if it's the only way to implement AACS).

Please read the paper. It explains that this is not just going to affect people who play HD content. It isn't just going to affect people using Vista, or Windows. Microsoft is instrumenting a fundamental change to every level of hardware and software. They are mandating that graphics cards (which fully comply with Vista) must not disclose parts of their binary interface, for example (now THERE is a big advantage for MS, since it will make it impossible to write open source drivers). They have basically changed the way the entire computer operates, increasing the cost of all components, just so that you can play HD content in Vista.

So the bottom line is: Even if Hollywood put a gun to Microsoft's head and said "If you want to play our movies, you must implement AACS exactly as we say", the responsible thing for MS to do would have been to say "No. HD content isn't that important for PCs anyway, since most people will view it on standalone players. We refuse to make such an utterly irresponsible change to the PC architecture." Instead, they accepted, due to the obvious appeal of making Vista "the future of multimedia". So it's a marketing thing from MS. It's basically the only thing Vista has going for it, and it's come at an enormous price - not only to MS, but also to hardware manufacturers (who won't benefit from this at all), and most of all consumers (who will only benefit in the least if they wish to play HD content).

In my book it is absolutely inexcusable what MS have done, regardless of whether or not they had to do it to play HD content. They have not only ruined Windows, but have brought the entire PC platform down with it.

Mostly I'm just kind of disappointed that we weren't able to release KDE 4.0 or a stable version of Debian etch before this day.

Otherwise, I can't see how the consumers who have bought into Vista so far will have much to cheer about. It'll be a lot slower than XP, since the recommended hardware requirements are so much higher than for XP. Aside from the new interface, its supposedly improved stability and security, Vista is really all about DRM: preventing people from playing protected content, including in cases of fair use. What they get back in return for these heinous constraints is the possibility of playing high definition content on their PCs.

However, that last part isn't going to happen any time soon, at least not legally. To play high definition content on Vista, your graphics card and your monitor both have to be HDCP compliant, but according to this article, which is less than a month old, only two monitors tested last year were HDCP compliant and not a single graphics card. When will HDCP compatibile hardware start to appear? According to the article, many monitor manufacturers haven't even heard of it and can't say anything about it, while the graphics card manufacturers (nVidia, ATI) could do it, but haven't seemed to have found the incentive yet to do so. For the latter it seems to a be a chicken and egg story: no content? no support. And even if the manufacturers do decide to start making their products HDCP compliant, remember what Peter Gutmann had to say about the ridiculous guidelines M$ gives them: they're "fundamentally impossible" to comply with.

The future is also looking increasingly bleak for DRM. Even if Vista does well, it's content protection will not make much difference to the content industry if people can buy super-cheap Chinese media players that play every known file format without any restrictions whatsoever. Hell, only last week we heard that the music companies seem to be thinking about ditching DRM. If so, then Vista will become rather uncool in this respect and M$ will start to play down the protected content issue as DRM begins to disappear from music and movies.

Of course, for M$, the MPAA and the RIAA were never what the DRM was about: they really only added it to Vista for their own benefit. M$ is always looking for ways to milk more money out of its stagnant share of the market. For years now they've had only two options: raising prices and fighting piracy. Of course, with Vista they're doing both. Now all they need is for it to catch on. However, I'm not so sure it'll be that easy. Their plan may backfire on them. Why? I know a lot of people who have remained satisfied with Windows over the years only because they've been able to run so much software on their PCs -- pirated software. If they're no longer able to do that, I'm not so sure they're just going to roll over and start paying for everything they'd like to continue to use. I figure we're about to see the arrival of a new wave of Linux newbies as a result. Perhaps not a flood, but I figure it'll be enough to offset any financial gains M$ planned on making. Most important of all for consumers, M$ will lose market share.

Question: Will the Windows Vista content protection board robustness recommendations increase the cost of graphics cards?

Answer by MS: evades the question, but suggests the answer is no.
Answers from an ATI presentation:

"These costs are passed on to the consumer"

"This cost is passed on to all consumers"

"This cost is passed on to purchasers of multimedia PC's"

"Costs are passed on to consumers"

"Costs are passed on to consumers, especially early adopters"

"We were only following orders" has historically worked rather poorly as an excuse

1. is not on:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html

2. is a joke. 2000 wasn't up to the job when it came out; it's pathetic these days.

3. is a reasonable strategy.

4. is probably the worst option. I found the most recent Ubuntu installer will delete your \system32\hal.dll file and its support for wireless cards has got WORSE not better.

If you are concerned about DRM, please vote for Peter Gutmann's A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html
According to this guy, there are several reports of people that can't watch HD media on their monitors if they aren't HDCP compliant. Isn't that a sign that ITC has already been activated? Is there anybody that has non-HDCP that can watch HD-DVD or BD? These are not rhetorical questions, I'm genuinely curious.

"People criticize MS for removing ActiveX, so..."

Not "people", bonehead. The Korean Government.

And the Korean Government didn't "criticize" MS - they advised their citizens to hold off on Vista just yet.

But if you want criticism of that semi-criminal, corrupt, dishonest organization, Microsoft, here's some:

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm

http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html

What people should do if they ever want windows is INSIST on XP instead of Vista!
If we hijack the Windows bandwagon from Microsoft, then Microsoft will be like a BIOS vendor when it comes to Windows. Anyone remember "IBM compatible PC"?

If almost everybody stays with XP and DirectX 9 and doesn't move on to Vista, then Windows XP+DX9 could become a defacto standard that even Microsoft can't get rid of! Just like Intel can't get rid of x86 - they tried and failed with their Itanic, and when IBM tried to switch to MCA.

Then the jobs of people doing Wine, Crossover office, Cedega and more become a lot easier - they have a fixed target instead of multiple moving targets.

Be realistic and ignore the fanboys out there, there are many valid reasons for wanting Windows. XP will continue to make a good substitute for Vista, unless more and more people start switching to Vista.

There really is no Linux substitute for Windows yet, BUT if enough people stick to XP, it becomes far more likely for there to eventually be one.

Just a look at Vista will tell you that Microsoft is no longer improving things significantly or meaningfully, so we might as well freeze Windows, and be able to spend more time and resources on innovating elsewhere.

So everyone, start telling Dell, HP et all to preload and sell XP instead of Vista, and tell your friends to insist on XP instead of Vista.

There are already other valid reasons to prefer XP to Vista, for example: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

Read and learn.

All thought this debate are statements like "Vista requires that any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality that passes through it if premium content is present." (That's straight from Gutman's paper under "Decreased Playback Quality".) Now, I can understand downgrading premium content if it hasn't been paid for, or if it's passing through an unprotected output path which might allow unauthorized copying, but these statements make it sound like premium content always has to be degraded. So what's premium content for? Are there any circumstances under which it can be viewed undegraded? (I'm sure there are; I'm sure I'm missing something here.)

1. The original paper was mostly FUD.

2. Vista only does what the copyright holders tell it to do.

3. If you don't want your life negatively impacted by DRM-encumbered content, don't buy it.

Point of fact: the source for that claim was not Slashdot, but New Zealand computer scientist Peter Gutmann. See http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html.

You're joking, right? There are tons of reasons:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.html

It looks to me that when creating Vista, Microsoft must have spent most of their time and energy on the new Windows Vista Content Protection. It is such an amazingly complicated system, that I can easily see why see why it would have taken Microsoft 5 years to create Vista. Most other new features that Microsoft had originally announced would be part of Vista were dropped, along the way, most likely because creating the protected environment for DRM was a difficult enough task by itself.

In Vista, many of the core operating system elements have been extensively reworked in order to provide DRM content protection. Vista goes to great extremes to block the owner of the computer from gaining access to unprotected content in any possible way either in the software or the hardware itself. One example is the extreme measures taken to make sure that computer owners can not access unencrypted content on a user accessible bus. To prevent that, they plan to use 128-bit encryption on the fly at high bandwidth. I don't understand most of the details, but apparently it partly involves keeping the content encrypted as it goes from one hardware component to another. Vista is so insanely paranoid that that it also goes out about 30 times per second polling hardware to try and catch anyone playing games with any component. The system is so incredibly complicated that I don't plan to ever try to understand how it all works.

I also wonder what effect all the extra overhead required for various components will have on hardware requirements. It sounds to me like Windows Vista itself largely was designed to be a secure DRM delivery system that Hollywood and the music industry can trust. Apparently for some reason, Microsoft did not show the same level of effort and paranoia in making Vista computers secure? Apparently protecting user's privacy is not as important. Below are three articles that are critical of the effect that the various new Windows Vista DRM features might have on hardware requirements. At the top of the first two articles there are also links to mp3 versions that are also available. The last article has already been discussed on Slashdot recently.

• Digital Rights Management (DRM) Part I
• Digital Rights Management (DRM) Part II
• A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

It's a shame you are a "slash-shit" unable to see past your own nose!

Haven't you read this article?

DRM WILL COST HUMAN LIVES IF ALLOWED TO PROLIFERATE UNCHECKED.

I entirely agree with you on this one and there was a great cost analysis published earlier this year by Peter Gutmann I will quote:

... a graphics chip is integrated directly into the motherboard and there's no easy access to the device bus then the need for bus encryption (see "Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption" below) is removed. Because the encryption requirement is so onerous, it's quite possible that this means of providing graphics capabilities will suddenly become more popular after the release of Vista. However, this leads to a problem: It's no longer possible to tell if a graphics chip is situated on a plug-in card or attached to the motherboard, since as far as the system is concerned they're both just devices sitting on the AGP/PCIe bus. The solution to this problem is to make the two deliberately incompatible, so that HFS can detect a chip on a plug-in card vs. one on the motherboard. Again, this does nothing more than increase costs and driver complexity ...

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

When will it be enough?

Geez, the iPhone must have scared the crap out of everyone in the industry, seems it's Anti-Apple FUD since the iPhone was announced.

I own an iPod (3rd gen or something), works great with the hundreds of CDs I own and ripped. I bought 1 song on the iTunes store. The article lie in implying the iPod is limited to FairPlay music. This is not the Zune, iTunes doesn't add a DRM layer to your music. It plays non-DRMed songs just fine.

I own a Mac, plays all the fansubbed unlicensed anime series I get on bittorrent. Works even in FrontRow. And on the video iPod and Apple TV if I batch convert them to H264. Again, non-DRMed video plays fine.

So, allow me not to be scared.

If you want to worry, check the big brotherish content protection in Vista:
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

Anything that your computer plays / outputs through speakers, can be recorded. And easily too. And in quality indistinguishable from the source, if you have the right equipment. Those facts will never change, no matter what DRM is used.

Most newer audio cards, for example,
feature TOSlink digital optical output for high-quality sound reproduction,
and even the latest crop of motherboards with integrated audio provide at
least coax (and often optical) digital output. Since S/PDIF doesn't provide
any content protection, Vista requires that it be disabled when playing
protected content [Note E]. In other words if you've sunk a pile of money
into a high-end audio setup fed from an S/PDIF digital output, you won't be
able to use it with protected content.

Didn't find this the first couple passes of digging around, but I believe you were indicating this content: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt - from - http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2689 97

Biggest DRM clusterfuck ever? Vista!

As the first high-definition format to reach the U.S. market with support on Windows Vista, HD DVD will offer consumers unrivaled picture and sound quality, extending the entertainment experience far beyond that of today's DVDs. HD DVD will offer new levels of interactivity and the ability to stream HD DVD movies across a home network or enjoy them on portable video devices...

Mind-boggling.

I have to admit that even though Peter Gutmann is a respected computer security expert while I know virtually nothing about Vista, I was inclined to think his analysis just had to be wrong. He had to be misunderstanding something, or positing a hypothetical situation that would never arise with real-world commercial gear, or something like that. Microsoft simply couldn't be that stupid.

Now it turns out that he's right, and that presumably-unintended but not-unforeseeable consequences of Vista's DRM scheme will prevent it from being used in the one way you'd think Microsoft would most want it to be used. It is precisely the enthusiastic with money to devote to their video hobby who are likely to be the early adopters of PCs as home video platforms.

Microsoft is coming perilously close to providing the platform that secures protected perfectly content by preventing _anyone_ from viewing it.

For anyone who's been following the recent debates about Vista, this is already old news. But now the mainstream seems to be picking up on it.

What the article doesn't mention is that, probably precisely for this reason, there seems to be an agreement between Sony and Microsoft that HDCP protection won't actually be required by Blu-Ray discs until at least 2010, maybe even 2012. Remember, it's the disc that actually needs to require it, the operating system only provides this as an option.

That doesn't make the system anymore pleasing though. I wonder how far Microsoft will actually get with it. Customers do seem to get upset with this, and it wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has had to make "concessions" because of public criticism.

Peter Gutmann's paper on Vista's content protection is really recommended reading, even if it's a bit polemic. And nothing beats Microsoft's own document, written by the same guy that was interviewed for Times Online.

I've read articles within the last year about how police have used this to convict child pornographers even after multiple-overwrites.

The only effective way to erase data from a magnetic disc that I know of is to microwave it. And just to clarify: burning it probably isn't enough---there are plenty of firms that specialize in recovering data from fires.

... and it gives some surprises concerning memory devices - http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_ del.html

No, it's possible to recover these data. It's not cheap, and for your trouble a single rewrite of your card is probably fine. If you're taking the kind of photos where you need to perform such a secure erase, go ahead. But do you really think you'll then feel like selling them on ebay?

Anyway, here is a good paper on secure erasure of magnetic media.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_ del.html

- Anonymous Coward (and my own great great grandpa)

In a nutshell, for hard drives, "If commercially-available SPM's are considered too expensive, it is possible to build a reasonably capable SPM for about US$1400, using a PC as a controller". So it is in the reach of the hobbyist to recover up to around the last 20 items recorded on any magnetic media (easier for floppies, harder as drives become denser). On solid state memory, I believe an electron microscope is needed for analysis. Still, data that has been in one location in RAM for more than five minutes is in theory recoverable.

In a nutshell, for hard drives, "If commercially-available SPM's are considered too expensive, it is possible to build a reasonably capable SPM for about US$1400, using a PC as a controller". So it is in the reach of the hobbyist to recover up to around the last 20 items recorded on any magnetic media (easier for floppies, harder as drives become denser). On solid state memory, I believe an electron microscope is needed for analysis. Still, data that has been in one location in RAM for more than five minutes is in theory recoverable.

Vista does not reduce the quality of audio, the various DRM schemes ie: windows media player, itunes simply stop you from playing the media.

Video, and this is the same under windows xp/windows 2000, restricts the playing of non-HD video based upon whatever DRM is in the product. For high defintion video being played through your video card to say your TV, the simple fact of the matter that Vista doesn't do the down sampling, your TV does. You easily avoid all those problems by simply component or dvi cables to hook to your tv. If you insist on HDMI you will need a HDCP video card (which would be required under any other OS for the same reasons).

This http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt is FUD because:
a) He implies Vista is evil and denying your access, which in fact it isn't. It is all your equipment, most importantly your TV.
b) He implies this is NEW with Vista, and it isn't. The playback of High Definition DRM'd media requires the same process no matter what OS it is on, except with earlier versions of the OS you need to buy 3rd party products to enforce the DRM.
c) The WGA isn't new, and it is much more lax in Vista than it was in XP.
d) As much as you would love to believe it, Microsoft doesn't make operating systems to make your life harder, they make them to make your life easier and it is the MPAA and RIAA that want you to pay to play.
e) While Peter Gutmann does write a convincing article, he misleads the reader throughout by skillfully entwining the truth with half truths and lies.

I strongly suggest you stop buying into crap like that.

Hi guys, and happy new year. Gutman wrote an article about this, which should be required reading when talking about vistas builtin idiocies.
It goes through how MS with Vista requires drivers to be closed source, hardware to be revokable and quality to be degraded.
It really should be required reading, before installing any version of Vista

If you take the time to read Gutmann's actual analysis, rather than just the summary on the Inquirer, you'll note that he gives several reasons to object to Vista's DRM requirements even if you never use a single DRM-protected file. For example:

The specs for DRM support in Vista specify that the OS has to encrypt any protected video data sent to the video card. "Ah HA," you say. "I'll just never use any protected video." Fair enough. But consider this: in the future, any new video card you buy will have to be capable of decrypting stuff even if you yourself never send it any encrypted content. That means that the company that makes the video card has to integrate cryptography capabilities into the video card. Which requires space on the video card's circuit board. That same circuit board space could have been, say, another pixel pipeline or two for faster video rendering - oh well. Congratulations, you're getting less bang for the same buck.

Except, of course, it's NOT the same buck; it's more buck. Integrating cryptography into a video card will require expertise (expensive), development (expensive), and testing (expensive). And naturally, some cryptography technologies are covered by patents, so the video card company will have to purchase more patent licenses (expensive). Guess who's going to wind up footing the bill for these new expenses? That's right: you, the end user.

Some of the patent expenses can probably be reduced. nVidia has patents of its own, as does ATI, and SGI for that matter. They can offer to swap patent permissions with companies who hold patents for cryptographic technology. (Assuming that the cryptography companies have any interest in graphics patents.) What's that you say? You're a small company? You don't have a massive portfolio of patents to bargain with? And your budget is limited? Sorry, friend, you're in the wrong line of work. Try McDonald's, I hear they need highly-skilled cash-register operators. (Not that there are very many small upstart video-card companies; breaking into that market is damn hard. Throwing in all this DRM stuff just makes the impossible a teensy bit harder.)

Slower development times, higher hardware costs, decreased competition ... all those affect you even if you never sully your system with a DRM-protected file. And that's just scratching the surface. Open source drivers are going to get harder to write; the DRM spec breaks Microsoft's own unified driver scheme, requiring a completely unique driver for every possible variant of every possible device; massively increases the required system specs; decreases system reliability; and on and on. It doesn't even do a damn bit of good in the long run; all it takes is one bright hacker with a compiler (and possibly a soldering gun) to figure out some way around it. One compromised system means that Hollywood's precious copies of Soccer Dog: the Movie will be smeared all over the net. And meanwhile, the rest of us poor schmucks will be paying more for hardware that does less. Great.

If there's no DRM on the file, Vista DOES NOT MESS WITH IT. Period. End of story. Unless you have some evidence to the contrary, quit spreading this FUD.

You see, modern computers have this thing you may have heard of called multitasking. Inevitably, this will lead to non-DRM content being processed while DRMed content is also being processed. The problem with Microsoft's implementation is that, when this happens, Vista will apply the downgrading of quality to ALL of the output--not just the DRMed content. And don't think for a minute that this will be an unlikely scenario either. Once proprietary software starts putting DRM on icons or splash videos, this type of interaction will become all but inevitable.

Here's the relevant part of Dr. Gutman's paper on this:

Alongside the all-or-nothing approach of disabling output, Vista requires that any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality that passes through it if premium content is present. This is done through a "constrictor" that downgrades the signal to a much lower-quality one, then up- scales it again back to the original spec, but with a significant loss in quality. So if you're using an expensive new LCD display fed from a high- quality DVI signal on your video card and there's protected content present, the picture you're going to see will be, as the spec puts it, "slightly fuzzy", a bit like a 10-year-old CRT monitor that you picked up for $2 at a yard sale...

The same deliberate degrading of playback quality applies to audio, with the audio being downgraded to sound (from the spec) "fuzzy with less detail" [Note G]...

Beyond the obvious playback-quality implications of deliberately degraded output, this measure can have serious repercussions in applications where high-quality reproduction of content is vital. For example the field of medical imaging either bans outright or strongly frowns on any form of lossy compression because artifacts introduced by the compression process can cause mis-diagnoses and in extreme cases even become life-threatening. Consider a medical IT worker who's using a medical imaging PC while listening to audio/video played back by the computer (the CDROM drives installed in workplace PCs inevitably spend most of their working lives playing music or MP3 CDs to drown out workplace noise). If there's any premium content present in there, the image will be subtly altered by Vista's content protection, potentially creating exactly the life-threatening situation that the medical industry has worked so hard to avoid. The scary thing is that there's no easy way around this - Vista will silently modify displayed content under certain (almost impossible-to-predict in advance) situations discernable only to Vista's built-in content-protection subsystem [Note H].

-Grym

If you're playing a "premium" audio or video file (or Windows thinks you're playing a premium audio or video file) in the background at the same time as you're working with your own audio or video files, and your hardware doesn't support HDCP in the way Windows wants, then the overall system sound and/or video quality will be affected - e.g. your screen will be made fuzzy intentionally. Here's a link: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

Why do people keep insisting that hardware-enforced DRM (like Vista's) is somehow optional, like Active Desktop or ClearType fonts? IT IS NOT.

Now, I don't expect the OP to read the technical documents behind Vista's "premium content protection" methods and I don't even expect him to read the expert analysis he references on the subject, but for God's sakes, I can't believe he's acting as if he's somehow informed on the matter when he says things like:

There's aren't evil DRM gremlins in Vista that are going to try to screw you over and mess with your media... you needn't worry about an evil gremlin applying DRM to your files while you sleep. Gutmann is just one of the many out there that dislike MS and are spreading FUD related to Vista.

This is a complete strawman argument. Nobody knowledgeable on the matter has ever claimed this. I specifically implore anyone to find me where Dr. Gutman ever claimed that DRM would be applied to non-DRM files. This mis-characterization of the opposition is academically dishonest in every sense of the phrase.

Old apps run fine,

This is not true. Not even MICROSOFT is saying that. In fact, here's what they have to say about it: "We have made tremendous investments in Windows Vista to ensure backwards compatibility, but some of the system enhancements, such as User Access Control, changes to the networking stack, and the new graphics model, may require code changes on your part. You should work hard to run as standard user." (emphasis mine)

It may indeed be true that the DRM'd media files will suck and be low quality, however if you just don't use them then you'll never have to care.

The fact that the vast majority of hardware you'll be able to buy (regardless of DRM or OS) will be more expensive, less reliable, slower, and fundamentally vulnerable to DDOS attacks is of no concern to you? Well I guess as long as it looks pretty, why should you care, right?

-Grym

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

Read that and prepare to be surprised to the extent that MS has gone to implement DRM.

No part of Microsoft's Digital Restrictions Management is "opt-in".

Vista is a dog. :o(

These are very scary times in the computer industry. I can see my rights and freedoms being sucked away by corporation. I'm glad I use OSS, especially Linux. But, if this is true then it doesn't really mater what you run, everyone will suffer.

I presume you're confusing all variants of the GNU/Linux operating system with the Linux kernel, in detriment of all the good folks work, in favor of a select few kernel developers.

As long as you continue to confuse a kernel with a full operating system, then you don't even hold a credible opinion either on the matter of the adoption of Free Software: you don't even know what you're talking about!

What is holding back the adoption of Free Software is pure and simply the concertated actions of companies like Microsoft, trying to hold on to their monopolies and power over all subjects, or users if you prefer...

I'm sorry, but this isn't the rosy world you seem to live in. They *are* out to get us.

In the paper I linked, it is described how Microsoft recommends hardware makers to not disclose any information of their hardware, because other people might make other drivers...

When did the "Linux community" get so vitriolic and spiteful?

There is no vitriol in the parent's post. The term 'enemy' is only as emotionally charged as the listener wishes it to be. As it's easier to hate an 'enemy' than to understand and accept an opposing point of view, this is probably not the best choice of words in a constructive dialogue.

This isn't some ideological war that is being fought, and shame on you for trying to make it into one.

The parent is simply making an observation. Free Software is an ideology just as capitalism is an ideology. While not mutually exclusive (hence efforts being made to monetize Free Software both on the part of "Open Source" startups and established commercial vendors), these two ideologies do conflict in several areas.

Microsoft is [an] enemy?

<executivesummary>

While an organization as large and diverse as Microsoft will never be entirely focused on activities that impede or overtly threaten the F/OSS community, it has interests that are not and may never be compatible with those of the Free Software community. For that reason, MSFT is directly and indirectly engaged in activities that hurt and threaten the F/OSS community, not out of malice or even by choice, but in simply fulfilling obligations to its shareholders. It's just business :).

</executivesummary>

"Microsoft's thawing toward Linux is now easier to understand when faced with such data - even as Windows continues to grow as the other main server platform of choice."

And some quotes from the recent paper "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection":

Possibly for the first time ever, computer design is being dictated not by electronic design rules, physical layout requirements, and thermal issues, but by the wishes of the content industry. Apart from the massive headache that this poses to device manufacturers, it also imposes additional increased costs beyond the ones incurred simply by having to lay out board designs in a suboptimal manner.

Everything has to be custom-designed and laid out so that there are no unnecessary accessible signal links on the board. This means that a low-cost card isn't just a high-cost card with components omitted, and conversely a high-cost card isn't just a low-cost card with additional discretionary components added, each one has to be a completely custom design created to ensure that no signal on the board is accessible. This extends beyond simple board design all the way down to chip design. Instead of adding an external DVI chip, it now has to be integrated into the graphics chip, along with any other functionality normally supplied by an external chip. So instead of varying video card cost based on optional components, the chipset vendor now has to integrate everything into a one- size-fits-all premium-featured graphics chip, even if all the user wants is a budget card for their kid's PC.

Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server).

...the spec requires that the operational details of the device be kept confidential. Obviously anyone who knows enough about the workings of a device to operate it and to write a third-party driver for it (for example one for an open-source OS, or in general just any non-Windows OS) will also know enough to fake the HFS process. The only way to protect the HFS process therefore is to not release any technical details on the device beyond a minimum required for web site reviews and comparison with other products....the spec requires that the operational details of the device be kept confidential. Obviously anyone who knows enough about the workings of a device to operate it and to write a third-party driver for it (for example one for an open-source OS, or in general just any non-Windows OS) will also know enough to fake the HFS process. The only way to protect the HFS process therefore is to not release any technical details on the device beyond a minimum required for web site reviews and comparison with other products.

And now some quotes from the Slashdot article where this was discussed, translating this stuff a bit more into layman's terms:

>I don't know why Microsoft is bending over for the media companies. They're not. Microsoft has a monopoly. They can tell anyone to get lost. But "compliance" with "requirements" of the RIAA and MPAA is perfect cover for their real game plan, which is to eliminate Open Source (Linux, etc). If Microsoft simply pressured hardware manufacturers (video cards etc) never to release specs, an

this article tries to explain why you shouldn't go from XP to Vista.

...nothing more. The whole point of coining the phrase "Wintel monopoly" was to out the practice of upping hardware demands for the next OS so people have to upgrade. Vista is simply more of the same MO.

A quick perusal of the excellent Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection shows how Vista CPU demands will skyrocket in all ways, at all times, across all devices. Never mind anything else, this is more than enough to force upgrades.

The last time something this blatant happened was WinME turning on drive indexing by default, making Windows 2000 seem like a performance king in head-to-head comparisons.

CPU usage is Microsoft's friend. They don't really need to have people playing HD-DVDs but they see an advantage to themselves and are pursuing it intently.

As for actually playing HD-DVDs on PCs, I think this will not happen. Period. People will very quickly realize it is not workable, or takes too much effort/cost, and they will play their HD-DVDs on their standalone players only. Making the **AA and Microsoft very happy indeed. Microsoft will have found a way to use up 80% of a modern computer's CPU cycles and the **AA will have stamped out the rampant DVD piracy.

I predict the need for premium content removal tools so that hackers can get back the cpu cycles they paid for.

Have you even looked at the content protection schemes in Vista? Haven't you heard about all the hoops that hardware vendors are having to jump through if they want to be able to output HD content and what happens if HD content is ran on unapproved hardware? Microsoft is forcing hardware vendors to either jump on the "Vista bandwagon" or be left behind, and, in doing so, is going to increase headaches for everyone. When MS starts dropping support for 2k and XP, businesses won't want to run unsupported operating systems. If you think DRM, AACS or HDCP is bad, wait until Vista is forced on businesses and users.

Read this if you think MS/Vista is playing nice with everyone.

Check this ... http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt
It should be a main article though.

You're missing the point of the original question. With Vista, you *will* have TC support, or you're not going to be able to play "premium" media, period, no choice.
Sure, you're free to pick a system without TC support, but that's like saying you'll be free to pick a system without a hard drive or processor.
Unless you don't care for music or movies or news or games or whatever, you've got no choice with Vista.
See this article for example (also posted on Slashdot recently):
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

Where is the mention of TCPM or Trusted Computing? I did a search and nothing came up.

Honestly that article is an excercise in what could be. There is no proof that any of these horrible outcomes will come to pass. In reading it there are certainly some aspects that are concerning such as driver revocation. However disrupting the user experience is NOT in M$'s best interests. I have a hard time seeing many of these things come to pass.

A broader range of choices, but Microsoft is still calling the shots. They could refuse to support some hardware and engineer the OS to accomplish this (as they have, occasionally, with software). It sounds like there will be extensive support for doing this sort of thing in Vista.

The hardware vendors develop the drivers, not Microsoft. Why would MS ever pull the plug on anything but defective, malicous, or insecure drivers? They are not a hardware company and cannot be.

Apple can do the same thing - they can realease an "update" that disables a particular piece of hardware, but why would they?

In fact, on a theoretical rather than practical level, there is actually *more* freedom in the Apple ecosystem, due to the fact that the
basic operating system is open sourced.

The basic OS is, but the GUI, which is effectively Mac OS is not and never will be anything close to open source. Also, Apple has shown that they are willing to close Darwin (they have done this in the past) if necessary. Darwin on it's own is just another BSD, and there are better BSD's out there.

I'm not sure why everyone likes Apple so much they are a mini-monopoly, they have some of the worst manufacturing practices in the industry and they don't give a cent back to the non-shareholding world. What a great organization!

> This is all well and good. However, when you put together a Windows system you have the choice of selecting a system that has/does not have a TCPM in it. In fact, you can > hand pick your hardware down to mother board and ram modules. You cannot do the same with Apple.

You're missing the point of the original question. With Vista, you *will* have TC support, or you're not going to be able to play "premium" media, period, no choice.
Sure, you're free to pick a system without TC support, but that's like saying you'll be free to pick a system without a hard drive or processor.
Unless you don't care for music or movies or news or games or whatever, you've got no choice with Vista.
See this article for example (also posted on Slashdot recently):
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt

The remainder of this statement (conserning motherboard/memory) is somewhat off topic, but I'll respond.
My view is that it's a difference of _variety_ (with Windows winning
of course) but not a difference of _kind_. You can install 3rd party memory in Macs, and there are 3rd party processor upgrades.
On the Windows side, you have the choice of exactly that set of hardware that is supported by Windows. Which is tautological of course.
A broader range of choices, but Microsoft is still calling the shots. They could refuse to support some hardware and engineer
the OS to accomplish this (as they have, occasionally, with software). It sounds like there will be extensive support for doing this
sort of thing in Vista.

In fact, on a theoretical rather than practical level, there is actually *more* freedom in the Apple ecosystem, due to the fact that the
basic operating system is open sourced.

Of course the customer pays through the nose for all of this, both in direct cost for the hardware required to protect against copy protection, and indirectly since the resulting system is less robust, as it must interpret any glitch as an attempt to hack the DRM, and lock up accordingly.

Peter Gutmann published a great writeup on this yesterday.