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Whistler "Anti-Piracy" Tools Tie OS To Machine
Dredd13 writes: "According to this Yahoo!News article [note: the same story is also being carried at MSNBC and ZDNet] , anti-piracy features in Whistler "won't allow the use of the customer's product key on a PC different from the one originally activated"... which means that if you have that older computer and decide to try and move your Whistler license (that you buy at a retail outlet like Best Buy or wherever) to your new whiz-bang fast model, you'll be completely boned. The code won't actually activate without authorization from a clearinghouse first.
So much, also, for high security installations (where any connectivity, whatsoever, with the outside world is verboten)... without the ability to connect to the clearinghouse to "authenticate" the product key, they too will be unable to use their license.
Part of me is happy because this is obviously a Bad Move by MS and will hurt them, but what if other software vendors start to think that this is a Neat Idea? {yuk!}" It's not a new idea, and lots of software is already sold this way -- but this time it seems to have caught a lot of people's attention. Windows' ubiquity, and Microsoft's history of mostly looking the other way when it comes to illegal copying of their OS, may mean that a lot of eyes get bigger, soon.
Microsoft does not want us (or anyone) to buy Windows, or Office, directly from them. As other posters have said, who's really going to pay $600 for a new copy of Office? Or $300 for Windows? Can you imagine paying a fucking GRAND just to word-process your resume, or send an email? Neither can anyone else.
What Microsoft does want is for us to get all this software from OEMs. Think about it (you know they've thought about it, and they're not stupid) - every move they make, every change, makes it more difficult for Joe Consumer to buy a few parts, build a computer, and load M$ software on it. Why?
Like many, I know that one of the biggest advantages of building my own boxen is upgrading cheaply to stay on the curve, rather than spend $2,500 every couple years on a new Dell. M$ wants to stop this.
Short-term money isn't the issue with them, and it never has been. More than most US companies, M$ thinks long-term, and long-term for them is one and only one goal: domination. They want every piece of hardware that boots to boot into some flavor of Windows, and run some suite of M$ apps. The best way to do this is to remove any user choice at all - you buy a new machine, you get it with Windows. OEMs are easy to control (the "Make them an offer they can't refuse" type of control), and they only have to control a few to control the industry.
IMNHO, this attitude will bite them in the ass, and hard. They're saying, in effect, "We don't care if we control every computer, but we'll damn sure control every computer with our software on it." Even M$ isn't big enough to do this, espectially with Apple making a comeback and *nux heating up.
Ob. Princess Leia quote: "The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers."
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
What happens when the authentication server no longer exists? Do you still own the software? Did you ever?
>Paying for software sucks.
Yah, and paying for food sucks too, but you gotta eat.
You have two choices: Go to the grocery store (Microsoft), or plant a garden (Linux, BSD, etc.).
I am not sure why it's such a bad thing for Microsoft to lock their software to a single computer. Of course, customers should be told this *up front* and they can decide.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Reportedly, it's going to work like this. (I don't know for sure ... I've never seen it, and I haven't installed this build.) The MAC address of your NIC is trasmitted with your PID when you register. That's ALL. If you try to install the software with the same PID on another machine, and the MAC address doesn't match up, you're denied. If you have built a new machine, and need to install it, you've have a toll-free number to call where you can re-activate the PID. This same number can be used to register the PID if you don't have a modem line.
Now, in the Beta newsgroup, Micrsoft has specifically told us not to get our panties in a bunch ... most of the internet reports are WRONG (including mine above) in some form or another ... no one has it right yet, and not to believe them. We'll have more info closer to Beta 2. But the system is going to be non-invasive, and all of the arguments we're having have already been had within MS.
Personally, while I don't LIKE the idea, I understand why it's being done. They've let casual copying go WAY too long, and many small companies are not license compliant. Mine just bought over $100K in licenses that we owed through several buyouts. It's easy to fall out of compliance ... this should stop that.