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Will Microsoft Code-Checking Plans Cripple the GPL?
Infonaut was one of many readers to point out that "Thomas C. Green at The Register seems to think Microsoft is after far more than the 'ubiquitous security' they're pitching to the mainstream press. In this lengthy article, he contends that Microsoft's latest plans are in many ways an attempt to kill Linux by rendering GPL'ed software unusable. Yep, that's freedom to innovate, I'd say."
Sorry, you can't get there from here.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Thomas, if so, can you reply to this so that we may ask you questions in this forum ?
Don't worry about Microsoft. They're on their way to being a footnote. I chuckle that they think that when forced to choose between MS and GPL, people will go with MS. That's not a safe assumption to make... not a safe one at all.
Just keep coding. Millions of happy hackers > politics and license agreements.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
The general thrust of the article is that under the new security system, GPL programs will not be able to be "trusted" by MS' hardware/software security system, so GPL based systems (like Apache web servers) will become unusable with mainstream computers.
I doubt this will happen.
Because, frankly, the invisible success of opensource is too widespread. I haven't looked at server statistics recently, but a significant percentage of webservers run on some manner of opensource program. Microsoft isn't going to be able to force half of the web servers in the world to switch over, and if people know that buying this new board from MS/Intel (which has few tangible benefits) will render half of the internet unusable, nobody is going to go for it. I'm not even beginning to think about the various governments that have begun to standardize around Linux, the opensource core of Apple's OS X, etc. etc.
Frankly opensource is too big. If Microsoft renders its systems incompatible with the GPL, then it will be Microsoft, and not the OS community, that suffers.
I say, let 'em try.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
People, ie my Dad, will use whatever comes on their pc which will be sold with a sticker saying 'more secure web security in this box'.
He will use online vendors that support the new web security etc in this box.
The vendors will use windows servers because they help deliver that security.
Vendors will only use linux boxes if they can do the same thing as the market leader. This has always been true with linux, even in markets where ms was not the leader.
Who cares what M$ says? I'll still be running Linux because I know it's the best deal for me. I'm even beginning to convince my girlfriend that *nix is a descent alternative to windows...
From Websters we find:
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin, from Greek palladion, from Pallad-, Pallas
1 capitalized : a statue of Pallas whose preservation was believed to ensure the safety of Troy
2 plural palladia : SAFEGUARD
So, with that in mind...I'm sorry, just what were we going to be protecting again?
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
It all makes perfect sense to me, and explains something that has long puzzled me--namely, why Microsoft's approach to stability and security was certification. Do I "always trust code from Microsoft?" Do I "always trust code" from ANYONE? No, I want stability and security to be based on good engineering in the OS architecture, not the reputation of a large company that has many different departments with varying skills...
Certification, however, makes perfect sense if the real object is to enable Microsoft to exercise administrative control over other companies' code. And, incidentally, to raise the barrier to entry so that only large organizations can afford to play in the game. While providing a modest fee income to Microsoft in the process...
First Microsoft's new privacy product must gain pupularity. Untill the average home user thinks he needs this extra protection (if it can be called that), then linux will still work with the majority of computers. Also, seeing how many (1/3 I believe) webservers run Apache, Microsoft can't just stop open source in its tracks. It would take much more than a new product to kill linux.
Fault loves the past, worry loves the future, but content enjoys the present.
Those that "know" wont use longhorn, and will still be able to use the software.
Those that dont, probably wouldnt use the software in the firstplace.
Me? Im sticking with 98se and w2k.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
However this time they really win the game if they're succesfull. This is because if they can really implement this, they actually don't have to do the work of bastardizing the standard interfaces, they've inherintly done it.
What they're trying to do is make it so that a common interface is a MicroSoft interface from the start.
How many antitrust lawsuites do they want brought against them? I guess $30B can buy a lot of lawyers.
"Everybody knows the moon's made of cheese," Wallace.
IF this was only about trustworthy computing, an open source GPL OS with current hardware would be fine. The 'trust' is completely verifiable by the person who is issuing the trust, the user.
But that is not what this is about. This is about 2 things - DRM and the upgrade cycle.
With DRM, the OS and the DRM maker can trust each other, and milk the user for more money to view copyrighted material. They can truly prevent copying using appropriate encryption. The speakers/monitor will have hardware decryption built in. The user will not be able to view the RAM used in the process (being in a 'protected' space), and the only time it gets decrypted is at the playback device.
The other thing is the upgrade cycle. With such a plan, everyone would need a new computer to view copyrighted material online. New MOBO, new monitor, new speakers.
So, hardware makers win, Microsoft wins, RIAA and MPAA win, and guess who loses ???
This means that they have weighed in all the involved costs (migration, maintenance, training and so on), and they are not likely to go backwards to a proprietary M$ solution in 5 years (which would involve another heap of money for training, data migration, etc.)
Since M$ is not going to release any major rework of its flagship OS for the next 5 years or so, I see a chance for Linux and other free software OSes to dramatically increase their respective user bases in the meantime. And if the users turn out to be major organizations / administrations / companies, they will be in a position to negociate an open-source (or at least, much less restrictive) alternative to M$ Palladium from the contents providers / secured businesses they might have to deal with.
Just my 0.02 euros anyway...
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
In other news MS has decided to get into the meat packing business. Their first products will be Gnu and Penguin burgers. Rumor has Bill Gates himself helps butchers the animals and is under investigation by the ASPCA.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
I really hope that this doesn't happen, but I can see them trying. My hope is that the chipmakers balk at some point, or at least one of them does for each of the necessary parts.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
My next machine almost certainly won't be an IA-32/IA-64 box anyway.
In 10 years time, I'll happily be running Linux 6.6.12 on a CPU whose whole design is under the GPL, and fabricated by fellow hackers.
using VMWare it won't be very hard to spy on communication between all the system components. It took about 2 months for this system to be cracked on the x-box, and I for one think there are very little hackers working on the x-box.
Contrary to what you may think, if you can randomly pki encrypt stuff, where you have both the cleartext and cyphertext, the block size is trivial to guess (with statistics), when the block size is known you can start building conditions your key must satisfy, choose those conditions well (there are ways to guess bits) and you'll soon have a range the key must be in. And, once we find a single key, the whole system can be emulated and thus will be broken.
Then, people just don't want this. They did not ask for it, they will not pay for it and they will not buy it. It does not add any value to the product.
Then, Linux will adapt fast enough. If this really affects internet-applications, then it wouldn't be viable without Linux, Linux runs the majority of Webservers, remember?
I dismiss this thing as "Microsoft strategy of the week". It's the next Hailstorm.
Sorry but m$ release there new ISS server with better encryption than ever i just upgrade my apache a,d all is better. Now m$ want some type of chips? Well if they want to.... but im shure i can live with my old pc. They do what they want, i dont mind, ill stick with my pc and ignore them.
Really makes them powerless.
I think we have to be careful not to assume that this scheme by Microsoft wont work simply because of market forces alone. Infact it may just be those forces that cause it to be a success. You can bet the MPAA and RIAA will sign on to this one, they want to protect there digital rights so having a system which just does not allow the end user to copy a music file (even if it is within fair use rights) will be a big plus to them.
Then what? You have a PC which you can either use to gain (limited) access to audio and visual materials distributed by an official source, or you can install and Open Source OS, such as Linux and *BSD etc, on it and never see any content again, even if you want to pay for it. I think its a fair bet that most people would find the latter option unacceptable, and as MS has the only desktop OS that supports this system then what are they going to do?
As for server, I'm sure MS can easily make sure that this system can get into server OS other than its own (think Solaris, AIX etc) and probably make a profit out of it in the process, and still make sure that Linux never comes close to getting support for it. This also would alow them to say that there not in a monopoly because other server OS's have support for it.
This has to be the senario that MS is looking for to kill off the Open Source competition, and actually get away with it.
Watch out people, the next big "inovation" from Microsoft could just kill off the general purpose personal computer for ever.
Issues:
Privacy - Guess who's overseeing your data in this scenario
Freedom of expression - Control of data propagation
Monopoly / Anti - competition - Nuff said
Now is time for the EU to tell M$, Intel and AMD to PISS OFF!
Scenario: Tell Intel to piss off first by removing manufacturing rights to ARM processors. Invest vast amounts of EU money into the development of ARM and the porting of all Linux apps to ARM architecture.
Next set up chip manufacturing plant in Eastern Europe and use european universities and private businesses to develop ARM based Personal computers. Peripherals from the the far-east already exist and can be exempt from the big piss off action.
Set up large Uni based porting groups to crack M$ file formats from Office etc. to ensure that users of the new machines don't have any compatibility issues, paying "open minded" software companies one off hits to ensure that formats like PDF etc. stay open enough to clone.
Then, once Wintel has been sidelined by superior technology and software in Europe, propogate it around China, Russia and as much of the globe is possible to isolate M$ and palladium to the US.
Obviously, no restrictions should be put on exports of the new technology allowing US buyers to join in if they don't want Billy Boy controlling their lives. Dubya would no doubt threaten a trade war over this one but the only appropriate reply would be the one M$ uses, i.e. stick fingers in ears and carry on regardless.
Carried out correctly, this would ultimately lead us to a position where we could all take trips to Redmond and piss on Gates while he lies burbling in the gutter where he belongs!
GATES YOU ARE SCUM! You have no concept of ethics, morality, honesty or any of the facets that allow humanity to claim it's place at the top of the food chain. Truly a giant turd floating in the cesspool of humanity.
I feel better now:-)
I think its a chicken or egg problem.
If there were no PC's, this scheme might work because there is no "untrusted" installed base.
But since there are already billions of PCs out there already that can't or won't work with this scheme, they it can't be adopted because a merchant or web site owner would risk locking out huge portions of their customers.
This reminds me of the whole Passport authentication scheme that had everyone in an uproar last year. In the end it amounted to NOTHING because it never had critical mass.
I agree with most of the analysis, I just don't think anyone has enough control over the computing ecosphere to make this work.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Why does everyone always assume that all of Microsoft's actions have a sinister undertone in them? I admit, I will look at these new security measures by MS with scrutiny, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
Yesterday, as we all know, Microsoft fed an 'exclusive' story about its new 'Palladium' DRM/PKI Trust Machine to Newsweek hack Steven Levy (a guy who writes without irony of "high-level encryption"), presumably because they trusted him not to grasp the technology well enough to question it seriously. His un-critical announcement immediately sparked a flurry of articles considering what this means to the Windows user base.
And that's as it should be. But my question is, what does it mean to the Linux user base?
Well, of course no one knows yet; the Levy article is long on generalized promises but very short on details. We know that some hardware element will be involved -- some hardened slice of silicon on the mobo which will identify the computer and the user, and recognize other computers and their users. It, or a companion chip, will interface with some manner of PKI, current or future, so that only 'authorized' applications may run with privileges. MS wants us to think that the 'authorizer' will be the user, but we know better: there will undoubtedly be a DRM element in it, and its authorizations will override yours. There will also be a networking component, involving an elaborate PKI and vast data warehouses run by MS and its trusted partners.
So let's say Intel and AMD begin shipping Palladium-compliant boards as MS begins shipping the software to OEMs and shops. And let's say that the Redmond spin campaign, persuading users that this is actually for their benefit, takes hold, and consumer demand for the scheme begins to grow and it eventually becomes a de facto standard, like SSL today, for example.
Got root?
All right then, how do we get Linux and open-source servers and apps to work with networks using this master scheme? What changes will be necessary?
The first thing that comes to mind is the difficulty of getting my Apache Web server to work seamlessly with Harry Homeowner's Windoze box when he comes to my site for some eminently trustworthy business. Everything I download to him (and this may even include Web pages -- the scheme is that far-reaching) will have some manner of digital cert which MS and its family of cronies will have established beforehand. I don't see a problem here. The certs will be embedded in the content and I'm merely providing space for it to reside. Even pages and images can be digitally signed and Harry's box can simply accept them or not according to rules he's worked out for himself.
But what if Harry needs to transact business and/or send me something? Then I think it gets tricky for two reasons. First, I have to be able to assure him that I can't read what he sends (and neither can the script kiddies who root my site monthly), and second, I'll probably have to pass part of it along 'safely' (as defined by MS) to some other network under Redmond suzerainty where the bulk of Harry's whole life's data is stored and continually updated. And of course I'll need access to that data so I can be sure Harry is Harry and his Mark of the Beast (or whatever MS will call his Uniform Identifier) is valid.
So to validate Harry, and to update his Master Data File -- two bits of business integral to the Palladium scheme -- I'll need hardware, an OS and a server compliant with Redmond specs. Now MS says they're going to make the sources to the core of this technology open. But considering Microsoft's white-knuckled terror of Linux and open source products in general, combined with its established penchant for mining its products with hidden little pissers for the competition, I don't think it's paranoid to imagine that I may have to turn to a packaged product from a major MS partner/collaborator or a Linux distributor who's gone to the bother of obtaining certs for the kernel and the apps. But either way we'll have major GPL problems, as we'll see below. Indeed, this is going to be something of a reductio ad absurdum.
This certification scheme will rip the guts out of the GPL. That is, the minute I begin tinkering with my software, my ability to interface with the Great PKI in the Sky will be broken. I'll have a Linux box with a GPL, all right; but if I exercise the license in any meaningful way I'll render my system 'unauthorized for Palladium' and lose business. So instead, I imagine I'll be turning to my vendor for support, updates, modifications and patches. And I'll be dependent on them for support services at whatever price they can wheedle out of me because I dare not lose my Palladium authorization. I wonder if the cost of ownership of an open-source system will actually be lower than the cost of a proprietary system under such circumstances.
If MS can't wipe out Linux, at least they can throw their marketing might and obscene quantities of cash into the project of castrating and controlling it by rendering the commons hostile to Linux users who still have their balls. They can in a sense create a huge market for open/closed hybrids, just as I imagined above: a system that comes with a GPL which I dare not exercise, and with considerable costs of both purchase and ownership. Even Dell might get into the castrated Linux act when they see what sort of stranglehold the Palladium scheme will enable them to place on it.
But here's the diabolical bit. Linux distributors are going to lose big time if they remain faithful to the GPL. Palladium will either break the GPL, or if not, break Linux.
Harry's lament
I fully expect to see Linux on the desktop growing rapidly in the next several years. The major distros like SuSE and Mandrake are coming along nicely with classic Harry features like automatic updates. Hardware detection is getting better by the day. Open Office is rapidly approaching the point where it imports from and exports to MS office without difficulty. The 2.4.x kernel is finally showing signs of the 2.2.x's legendary stability. The KDE desktop is looking sharp and working nicely now with version 3.0. Mozilla is coming along wonderfully. And now Red Hat says it intends to commit seriously to the desktop market.
As the obstacles to Windows migration fall away, inherent virtues like better security and privacy (your Linux box does not automatically connect to servers at Microsoft whenever you search your hard disk, for example), freedom to configure, redemption from the MS update crack-addiction, and low cost of ownership will strike more chords with the computing public.
This terrifies MS as much as the enterprise Lintel phenomenon. And it's not just cost rationale at play here. There's a revelation in store for users once they have something to compare their Windows eXPerience against. As home users come to use and understand Linux, they'll automatically begin to perceive what a parasite Microsoft really is.
The answer to this will be more parasitism: Palladium is a means of infesting the commons with hostile digital fauna. As these new services and applications become more plentiful, the need for the Linux desktop to deal with them according to Redmond spec will increase as well.
Kernel hackers will have their hands full figuring that one out. How do you make Linux interface with a security chip in such a way that untrusted applications are sandboxed without taking root away from the machine's owner? I think the answer is, 'you can't,' and I imagine Redmond thinks so too. And what will Palladium mean to application development? More overhead, that's what. Certification authorities charge for their services. Some applications in development may have to be scrapped due to the costs of certification.
Eventually, as Palladium contagion spreads, the home Linux box will need certified open-source apps to run DR-managed content. Here goes the GPL again. So I've got this certified app. Fine. I've got the sources. Fine. What happens if I decide to build my own binaries? They won't be certified. They won't work. So what does the GPL mean to me then? It means I can build, or modify and build, an application which will lack the digital cert which it needs in order to run the content it was designed to run. Only the binaries will be certified (as a moment's reflection will make obvious). This is a nail in the GPL's coffin. Yes, I can improve the app and give away or maybe even sell my improved version; but first I have to prove that it qualifies for certification, and second I have to pay for the cert. And when I release it, source and all, only the certified binary will function.
The entire concept of root will be out the window. If I build my own or re-compile my existing kernel, my certs won't work. I won't be permitted to log in to the Microsoft Digital Empire or any of its numerous colonies because that little chip on my mobo is going to freak out. Perhaps even my certified apps will fail to run. And I can no longer present my Uniform Identifier at the digital immigration turnstiles which MS will be setting up as I meander through cyberspace. "Sorry, we don't know who you are; you'll have to turn back...."
So how is this going to work in practical terms? Will the Linux distributors release certified kernels and apps and utilities? I don't see how they can avoid it. But what happens to the GPL in that case? Will the certification authorities decline to certify the distro if the kernel and app sources are included? Or will the machine simply lose its Palladium authorization and fail to work properly if apps or the kernel are re-compiled or built from external sources?
Either way, the GPL is perverted. Any GPL'd kernel, utility, application, whatever, that's designed to be Palladium compliant will have to be distributed without certified sources. There's simply no way to ensure that a source archive can only be used to build compliant binaries, unless GCC is deliberately broken in some radical way and the security hardware won't allow other compilers to run (except similarly broken ones).
Will there be a hybrid Linux/hardware package coming out to address this? A sort of black box -- a mere desktop appliance not unlike an X-Box or a Palladium-enabled Windoze box -- with no compiler, and only user privileges, and some hardware chip that prevents modifications to any of the binaries except by digitally-signed RPMs pre-approved for Palladium compliance? That means basically that MS has got root on my machine, and of course it would rip the guts out of the GPL to boot. [Reader Stephen Crane points out that Rule Set Based Access Control (RSBAC) might well suit such a product, which would then make MS not root but the 'Security Officer' of my Linux machine.]
It's the very fact that this appears insoluble to me that helps me realize that MS has put tremendous, careful thought into it. To make the commons Linux-hostile, MS is taking dramatic steps to make it GPL-hostile. Very clever and admirably diabolical.
Of course here I'm assuming Palladium won't become the next Microsoft Bob. It could meet with severe consumer rejection, as I hope it will. And so we end with a question for lawyers, not for me: is a technically-valid, letter-of-the-law GPL which you can't practically exercise violated or not? You've got your sources and everything in the distro is GPL'd -- only any binaries you choose to build on your own will isolate you from the commons. I think MS believes it's found a loophole here. Whether it will work or not is another question.
In any case, it's time for Tuxers to take the gloves off.
This will not kill Linux. This will Linux on x86 (or whatever platform Windows runs on). I can't imagine that Apple will go along with this. So if all the die-hard Linux users start buying Apple computers instead, the hardware vendors and retailers will feel it (they may only feel it slightly, but slightly is still money).
Bonus: If we're all using Apple hardware, we're dealing with a MUCH smaller set of hardware; less driver searching. Maybe Apple would even be helpful in writing the drivers?
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Look where Freedom To Innovate Network goes to...
People bitch about microsoft having an 'exploit of the week' and forget that that's what the UNIX world was like, not all that long ago.
People bitch about Microsoft trying to force their way into the console business using unsavoury business tactics, and forget that Nintendo pioneered that particular tactic, and Sony refined it.
People bitch about Intel putting a unique ID into their procs, and forget that most of the other mainstream processors have one already.
People bitch about Microsoft toying with the idea of having security support in hardware, and forget that x86 is one of the few hardware platforms that doesn't already have security provisions.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Here is an idea... make a business out of fighting Microsoft. Grab all the Free Software you can... pay developers to improve it... package it and sell it. Then, you can charge for service/training etc. Show folks how much they will really save. Don't rely on other's opinions, sit down and do the numbers yourself. Then, show how well you'll be able to communicate with all that other Free Software that everyone will use. Show them that Big Brother is watching, and that they own your life if you choose to use their software. There is a market folks... I know I'm going to get in the game, you should too!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The reason I say this, is that I do technical support for a local ISP, we have both Unix and W2K webservers on our system and a couple thousand customers that don't know the difference. I would say that most people wont even know they are getting these boards whent they purchase a new machine. Then they will be calling me up to find out why they cant view their favorite webpages. The answer, "Your hardware is restricting your access to the site" is just going to blow right over their head, they are not going to understand why. They are just going to be pissed at us for not being able to help them, probably switch to AOL or something before they find out the real problem, but by then it is way to late. They will just deal with it. Complacency is the name of the game, this is the same reason why companies offer rebates, because a good portion of the customers are not going to bother doing anything about it. Sure some will, or try to return their hardware, but most will not, they will assume it is the new standard and everyone else will have to change to meet it. After all, their stuff is brand new, how could it be wrong?
If it won't boot, Fsck it!
you have a chip ON THE mobo that tells you if you can run an application. what if you're disconnected from any network? the chip must have some key that, applied to the application, will make it usable. Or will decrypt the application. Or will act as a general key to allow the cpu to run some code.
.NET thing. Just marketing hypes, nothing else. We've all seen what .NET has become... bugs even before it was launched. Palladium is just a way to scare vendors which would like to try linux.
;)
Still, it is something you have ON YOUR MOTHERBOARD. Like the CSS key... it's there, it will be just a matter of time before those evil linux users will find a way to bypass it, fake it, and run whatever they want. Bringing havoc on the pristine, certified, public-key signed microsoft world. Like a cancer...
....or at least I hope so. I have much more trust in a 15-years old linux north-european user, than in any chunk of Microsoft Engineers that live in their golden world, without Windows (hah! pun!) on the outside world.
However, this palladium-thing looks like the whole
Those guys at Microsoft are just playing the scary-announcement thing: to scare people before they make the next move. Then make them wait, then provide them a lot of useless marketing, then -before they will realize it- they have been embraced. And the empire extends itself.
Whops! sorry folks, I don't believe a word of this palladium thing until I see a working chip, and I see that it works better than current systems. THEN we can start talking about that, and hacking it. Unless the new DMCA won't make it illegal and punisheable by death
cheers.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Once you can get more computrons per euro from a foobar processor, another OS, (probably Linux) will replace Windows. Simple.
Hands up who runs Windows NT (tm), on an Alpha(tm), Sparc(tm), PowerPC(tm), etc...?
Do you think that the 1984^H^H^H^H 2006 version of Windows(tm) will run on anything other than IA-32, or possibly IA-64? Maybe, but will anybody actually USE it on those platforms? NO, they will NOT, because there is no point whatsoever.
Hey. Since the open source community is bigger than Microsoft, why don't we start a campaign to buy them out. Buy their stock and when we get over 50% vote Torvalds, Raymond, Stallman, etc to the board of directors.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sounds like their Passport service didn't quite take off as expected. Now instead of "voluntary" sign-up, they want to embed it all into the hardware and make it mandatory for everyone to store their details with/get permission from MS. I like the thought that this would help eliminate viruses or whatever, but the reality is good coders can likely slip around this. Just my thoughts.
This is the Steven Levy who has been writing about computers for two decades now, whose books include:
Obviously, with titles like these, he must be an ignorant Microsoft toady. On the other hand, Thomas C Greene, who has never spoken with anybody involved with the project, knows everything about it and what it is really about.
You are right - this is NO surprise. So what can we do about it? Well, first of all, we need to get some hackers trained in the letters of the law. I'm a open source developer, and I'm hoping to go to law school next year. Our cause has less of a chance if we don't have well trained technologists who can analyze issues from a JDs perspective. MS has a ton of money to hire lawyers to attack us directly or indirectly, and we need smart people trained to counter that.
smd4985
.....its just that everyone is out to get them.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Given Apache's penetration, and Linux's adoption, what is to say that Linux can't provide all that Microsoft can. I mean, what Microsoft would get is a "Microsoft Network" of computers (incedentally all running .NET) What this OS would tell you is: "No, you can't burn these MP3s, No you can't view that content." Meanwhile the opensource half of the world will have *SOME* DRM capability, which will probably be something like "allow all." Now which OS are you going to pick? The one where the Media Mongers and Monolists control, or the free and open one?
This is just another nail in the coffin for Micrsoft, by Microsoft.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I think we would all agree this could potentially be a very dirty trick. I may disagree through and through with their plan and approach, but I can't totally blame them. Think about their perspective--
-Linux market share is gaining in every direction which means their market share is at extreme risk of dwindling.
-There is no one company to compete with and/or buy out to remove the threat.
-Even if they were able to keep Linux OS market share at bay, it will still continue to improve because the core development team can and will always exist.
When faced with an enemy they can't beat with their usual tactics, their last resort might just be to try something like this. Attacking from the back door could be their last hope at maintaining their dominance. Make no mistake about it, that is what they have to do in order to keep their identity.
It seems to me that Microsoft has realized the inevitability of software--it eventually reaches a point of commodity and finality. There is only so much you can do with a word processor to make it better. After that you are only complicating it. As the OSS alternatives quickly approach this state, there is no need to use the expensive version anymore.
Regardless of their initial intentions, it might be safe to say that if MS sees GPL and Linux suffering from this endeavor, they will try all the harder to push it. Be wary of any company that has everything to lose and plenty of resources to try and keep it.
to shit or get off the pot. If the implement this people will buy it, unless there's an alternative. RIGHT NOW THERE'S NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE FOR "NORMAL" USERS. We either have to turn out a product worthy of their use or shut up and realize that our great experiment failed.
Let's be honest here - Microsoft has trouble on it's horizon.
Microsoft has sold a lot of Windows 95 and Windows 98. And sad to say, these so-called "operating systems" are good enough for my mom and dad (and sister and grandfather and girlfriend and boss).
Now what? What is Microsoft releasing that would convince my family to upgrade their PCs? To be honest, nothing but hardware failure will convince them to do that. They're happy with their 5 year old PCs, and such longevity is sure to hit Microsoft's bottom line.
The answer? A new security scheme that makes it impossible to run new programs on old hardware. A scheme that also negatively impacts unauthorized vendors (including "open source"). And a scheme that forces users to upgrade on a period basis just so programs will work.
Let's be honest - microsoft has some of the best business people in the world. And they're smart. They recognize this issue and plan to leverage it for profit.... not for innovation or customer experience.
The answer? Disable Outlook - in my opinion, Outlook is the biggest computer security issue ever. It's a nice email client (in general terms), but the security issues have been out of control.
Bitter experience?
Microsoft are good marketers, however their code sucks
> MS will coerce chipmakers into putting circuits on ALL of their chips that require software running on those chips to carry out patented processes.
What, you mean SPARC, PowerPC, and whatever chips are used in System 390 mainframes will have to licence this scheme from Microsoft?
Micosoft's reach might be long, but it isn't that long.
To quote from one of my favourite books "The poor have occasionally objected to being governed badly, the rich have always objected to being governed at all". I think we are seeing the robber barons in their new guise, as thieves of land in the middle ages, thieves of the means of production during the industrial revolution and now thieves of intellectual and artistic achievement.
This is one more attempt to take away democratic freedoms that have been won by people all over the world. Rather than an attempt to defeat this individual attack on liberty it needs a concerted effort to defeat all such attacks.
How long has MS been in court with the Feds? Haven't they been *convicted* of obtaining a monopoly through illegal business practices? Isn't the European Union investigating them? Don't Russian government/military agencies use a lot of Linux and other GPLed software? Don't the Germans use a lot of Linux?
IMO, if they try to lock *any* software out of this scheme, they'll be busted by the Feds and completely dropped by other countries fasters than they can write their shitty, bug-ridden, insecure code!
The only value to this anouncement that I see is that it will slow down the adoption of open source. People will question the logic of converting existing systems from Window$ due to fear that they would have to switch back when this is finally implemented.
Stop adding to this fear!!! Only stupid people would adopt/buy this technology. Granted that there are many that are stupid but quite frankly I'd say that that would be under 10%
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Tomas Greene's article is as much FUD as anything else.
Microsoft has to get their technology onto the chip before anything else happens. Do you really think Intel and AMD are looking to get rid of the Linux market? Do you think IBM is going to let Microsoft kill the Linux market?
Second, any DRM support would be built into the kernel (probably as a module) or a library. Applications would call the kernel or library functions to perform rights verification. So, only the kernel (or kernel module, or library) would need "certification", not each application.
Third, there is and always will be a huge need for custom software for in-house applications. There's no way anyone is going to be able to require every company in the world to certify every one of their in-house applications. Therefore, there will still have to be non-certified, unprotected (or differently protected) channels.
Digital rights management will primarily affect applications that specifically request rights verification from the OS. Applications that don't request verification won't use it and won't be affected by it. Plenty of applications and network services will be happy to communicate with each other without DRM.
If anything, strict (cumbersome) DRM may actually drive more people to open source software. When people are getting nickled-and-dimed by every piece of software they use and every piece of media they review, they'll look for other options.
Didn't Intel try some part of this and fail with their PII(?). The general public didn't like the fact that their hardware carried a digital "Mark of the Beast" (as the author so eloquently put it). Why should MS have better luck?
Microsoft wants to do something untoward.
Microsoft is alowed to do something untoward by the law.
Microsoft is alowed to make the government do something to the law to alow them to do something untoward.
Microsoft can count on selling their products because people buy the marketing.
Microsoft can count on finding moralless marketers because of the society they come from.
Microsoft can count on society being too ignorant to buy anything other than what they're told to buy.
Microsoft can count on society taking no action against a bought off government because they're too ignorant.
Microsoft can count on finding legions of staff who'll do morally wrong things for money.
Microsoft can count on getting plenty of good media coverage because they can purchase good media reports.
Do I think the buck stops with Microsoft? No I don't.
Ya know, the more big media (and big biz in general) talk about DRM (essentially copy prevention), the less interested I become.
Occasionally, big media has come out with some real gems (like LotR:FotR), but frankly, most of it is crap. I used to listen to the radio for music, but I'm not too impressed by most of that either. Now all I listen to is NPR and an independent dance music station.
They can go and use all the technological means to protect their product (as opposed to art). As long as a few of us can still communicate together, I can keep using free software. As long as people still know how to sing and play, I'll still have music to listen to.
Maybe I'll still go to a movie in a theater once in a while, but I'm just about finished with big media. The more effort they spend to protect their products, the less significant it becomes as art.
Im not the slightest bit worried about it. It wont happen in that way. Its just paranoia. Remember back long before XP came out, and everyone was talking about how horrible XP was going to be because it was going to only allow you to run digitally signed applications? Didnt happen, and it wont. The average joe user wants to run fun little $5 and $10 games and apps that they download (think card games, personal diaries, system utilities, etc). They want to run these cute little freeware screen savers that friends email to them. Its not going to fly.
The article talks about digitally signing everything, all purchase transactions, etc. Again, it wont happen. People want to provide as little identification as possible when they are browsing porn sites, and face it...porn is pretty darn popular. So at the very least, you are going to have to leave open some holes for certain things to happen. But once you leave a hole open in your ship, there isnt much you can do to stop if from sinking. One hole is all virus writers and spammers need to get the nasty stuff through.
And doesn't anyone at Microsoft remember what happened when Intel put a simple processor serial number in their CPUs? People bitched up a storm about it. And that wasnt even a personal identifier (it identified your CPU...and if you changed CPUs nobody would know). Now they are talking about something that would identify you personally? Not gonna happen.
And another thing, did Microsoft even collaborate with anyone on this? I know they have agreements from Intel and AMD to manfacture chips, but as far as I can tell from everything I read, Microsoft has masterminded this whole thing on their own. Ignoring for the moment the fact that I dont think consumers will adopt the idea, I dont think Microsoft could be successful in addressing all the necessary issues on their own. Even if 50 of the top companies got together and tried to come up with something like this, it would still be extremely difficult for them to come up with something robust, secure, and that addresses all future possibilities. If Microsoft is masterminding this on their own, its going to be a million times more difficult to do so.
We'll all be so much safer. I'm glad MS is trying to help me. Maybe next they will help us with our Crime and Drug problem. I bet this technology can be applied to take guns out of the hands of criminals, why I bet it will make smile whiter and brighter. . . . :|
A quote from the GPL:
:)
"6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License." (emphasis added)
As there is no specific mention that the GPL applies only to source (it applies to computer programs, including binaries and object code, as specified in section 3), one can only take this to mean that forcing it to comply with Palladium would be imposing further restriction on the users ability to excercise the rights given to them by the GPL. This is itself breaking the GPL.
Just something for the GNU friendly legal types to chew on
This longhorned stuff isn't scheduled to come out in a few years. In todays market M$ might be able to pull off a trick like this, but if OS systems gain a decent market share on the desktop, M$ will have a much harder time forcing them all to switch. Even more so if some governments around the world get around passing laws that require OS stuff to be used in their administrations and/or multinational corporations realize that M$ is competing with them, and forbid the use of its products..
In Murphy We Turst
Now sound or video hardware that looks for signatures, that's another, harder problem
-- ac at work
Now, a private standard, as opposed to a government imposed one, has to catch on through market forces (OK, perhaps augmented by monopoly power). Still, this would leave room for a competing standard that was more open, and gave the consumer more choices. Perhaps a chip whose logic and firmware were open, so that it could be provably shown (to the user) that all it is doing is DRM. And at the same time, provably shown (to the content owner) that the DRM had not been compromised.
I know even THINKING about IMPLEMENTING DRM is anathema to most Slashdotters (WTF *ARE* digital RIGHTS, anyway?), but maybe the time has come.
How the heck are you going to validate (thru 'Da Man') when you can't talk to da man?
besides, if people are foolish enough to spend more money to get a crippled version of what they have now, they deserve it. me, i still have my old trusty 640x480 monochrome display laptop for just such times.
Watch them do the final abuse and lose their whole market...
The question is whether the customers will buy this. As far as companies go, what would such a move imply? Provisions must certainly be made to allow companies to keep running their own in-house code. And as for small independent development companies, they must sign their code as well. Who defines what can run on the computer? Who issues the signing certificates?
If this system does not allow companies to write and run their own scripts and programs, it's never going to fly. Remember, most of the world's software is still custom development...
free the mallocs!
Sure, maybe new systems would provide this security. However, not everyone is going to drop their old, perfectly working system, and go throw $1000 or whatever at Dell so that they can buy a book online.
So all vendors have to face the fact that people with older hardware (>5 years old, sometimes), want to buy things. Hey, they have to deal with old software at this point, which is much easier to upgrade.
So servers have to run compatibility with old systems at the same time as supporting the new. I have a feeling that most people are fine with the compatibility as is. And furthermore, wouldn't a new motherboard design cost more? So why would Dell, Compaq, etc move to it at all?
The bigger threat here is to embedded systems, where this security is of little concern to end users, but big issue to the DRM people. So what you'd have is unhackable Tivos, dvd players, etc.
I can't see this really taking off in the PC world, especially if these new chips affect performance.
"Buy our system! You can't do as much and it tuns slower, for more money!"
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Of course, to develop on a system with DRM, the developer has to somehow be able to compile their own code and run it asap. (Even on M$ OS). So that means there exists some kind of loophole to make doing that possible under DRM.
And it would just be a matter of enabling that loophole freely on our systems all the time to, for most practical purposes, ignore the whole DRM thing.
Is that they are a slow, relentless caculating beast, with the resources to hold out longer then anyone else.
It takes them a long time to, but in time they almost always do.. slowly move the mass market to where *they* want it to be, so the 'competition' becomes a non issue.
And these days they seem almost untouchable...
In a practical sence anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
From the NEWSWEEK article written by Steven Levy: "An endless roster of security holes allows cyber-thieves to fill up their buffers with credit-card numbers and corporate secrets. It's easier to vandalize a Web site than to program a remote control. Entertainment moguls boil in their hot tubs as movies and music areswapped, gratis, on the Internet. Consumers fret about the loss of privacy. And computer viruses proliferate and mutate faster than they can be named.
The fact that my Grandparents ( and every one elses ) are reading this and voting pisses me off. This is scare mongering at its worst. No wonder Microsoft leaks to this guy. It is useful to spread fear and misinformation among the populace before so they willingly hand over their rights.
Please don't consider this flame bait; unless you think I am trying to provoke the pro-NEWSWEEK crowd amongst us. Thank You
I still agree with the parent comment-
there will be enough on line sellers who don't trust what MSFT is shovelling. They will not move to palladium systems. In addition, larger on line sellers will have a palladium and a non-palladium site. Given that there are corners of the population that aren't Open Source advocates who are simply content to use what computer they have while it still works (i.e. my parents) they wouldn't dare alienate potential customers.
Also, this gives more work for internet programmers! We/they now have to develop sites that will seamlessly test what you have and send you to the appropriate site!
Or palladium may just be the next microsoft Bob.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
If people's home computers suddenly won't work with the internet, those people will complain to Microsoft, and possibly switch. "Should've bought a Mac" will be my response to anyone who pisses and moans about not being able to use the internet for anything other than hotmail.
This sort of technology is very interesting, conceptually, though given Microsoft's track record, it is questionable if they will come out with a decent implementation.
There does not seem to be much difference between being able to say "Only this certain person can play this music file in certain circumstances and not share it with anyone else" and "Only this organization can use this personal information I gave them in certain circumstances and not share this information with any other organization." The problems with DRM as currently proposed is that it is too one-sided, biased towards businesses, and a bit too specific.
In an ideal world, something like Palladium would be a step towards information management -- making sure a certain piece of information only goes to the people it is supposed to go to and no one else, that it is only valid for the length of time it is valid (either by life span or the ability to revoke), and that is trackable (just how many organizations out there do have copies of your credit information or home address, etc.) Right now, our information management capabilities compared to ability to acquire information seem pretty primitive. A real information management solution is probably a decade or so away at least, as it would require people to rethink how they handle their information and develop new processes/habits to do so.
Unfortunately, most people will probably look at this as a DRM attempt (which in Microsoft's case, this may very well be) and reject the entire concept of such technologies. This could very well be a problem in the longer run -- if we are in the information age, where information is our tools and our reality, then having the ability to manage and track our tools and reality will be a crucial technology.
This is not to say such a system would ever be perfect or uncrackable, but even though a firewall is not a perfect solution, it is still useful to have. Oddly, such a technology would probably completely fail in a DRM situation in the future because for most people they probably would not care if a music file was authentically signed/certified or not -- but it gets much more interesting for issues of business email/contracts, financial transactions, medical records, etc. If you could apply DRM-type technologies to the personal information you submit to other parties such that it would limit that information to only being read by those parties, then that could, potentially, be an interesting issue. (i.e. A person gets denied a loan/medical insurance -- demands to see why. The business claims that the information on the person indicates he's a bad risk. Person asks to see the certification on the information, since he never gave that information to the business. The business only has uncertified information on the person -- all the DRM-style information stripped out. Scenario: Either another organization stripped off the privacy/DRM on the information and passed it to the company, or the information is invalid. Being able to track/challenge such information could make things more interesting.) Again, such a system would never be bullet-proof, but it could add some value if done properly.
If information is the next economy, then information management tools will be the next banking technology, so to speak. They will undoubtedly arrive in some form.
Anyone remember what the nail in the coffin was for the Clipper Chip? It was when Matt Blaze found a technical hole in the implementation that meant that spoofing the government's PKI was a trivial effort.
So... two things to undermine Palladium...
1) A competing open standard for consumer-level trusted computing. That means convincing Intel and AMD to deliver specs on the hardware standards they'll implement for the Palladium architecture so that it can be mimicked in an open source environment. It also means establishing a PKI without a single trusted root -- since Microsoft's will be almost entirely dependent on trust of MS itself.
2) A concerted effort to attack Palladium and find a weakness in its implementation -- and there will almost certainly be one, since it's a closed source implementation. Of course, this effort may have to be focused offshore, since it's in violation of the DCMA. But it might also make great grounds for a test case on the DCMA as it relates to privacy rights. MS claims that Palladium protects use privacy; reverse engineering is required to determine the truth of this claim; if the claim is false then MS is violating a number of corporate privacy statutes and precedents.
Another angle that's key is that this will only become an effective infrastructure if it's embraced by corporate customers, who represent the vast majority of purchases of Office -- MS's current cash cow. Well, it's easy to get a corporation to avoid embracing something -- just get their legal department involved and point out that there might exist some threat of liability for them. If company XYZ implements a Palladium web infrastructure and it turns out that some attacker accesses their transaction information, is the company liable to their customers or vendors? If so, then shouldn't the company be using products that they can certify are protected?
Of course, this last point is usable even now. Given the number of Slashdot readers and general open source advocates that work in corporate IT departments, I'm stunned we don't see this approach more often.
Just because 'GPL BAD!' has been high on the company's (im-)propaganda hymn-sheet for the last few months doesn't mean that everything announced during that time has been constructed specifically to advance that agenda.
And whether or not this scheme will fly is another matter entirely: the resistance from other large businesses to Passport's original intent of giving MS the lion's share of authenticated e-commerce gives grounds for hope.
Okay, here's how Palladium's supposed to work: You have an encryption chip and an OS that talks to it. OS monitors the binaries you run, network connections, you name it. The OS contains the code that denies access to the user. The OS is written on the hard disk, and before that, on the installation media.
As far as DRM implications of this go, do you all really, honestly believe that the same thing that happened with XP's registration (Cracked By l33t h4x0R) won't happen again?
As for the network services, the server will accept whatever you wire it through your network card. Meaning, certified binaries mean squat over the network.
--
I refuse to use
Why do you hate America?
Microsoft has enough money and enough clout that something like this getting implemented is a real possiblity. Switching over to a different OS might be feasable for some people, but for the vast majority of users, it is not. If palladium is implemented and microsoft does succeed with it, what will happen?
Since we will lose alot of interoperability, the computing world will be split into microsoft and non-microsoft which end up roughly indipendent from eachother. As I see it, there are three possibilities depending upon how deeply the hardware manufacturers and government get invoved. Either those who use microsoft are cut off from those who don't use microsoft, those who use x86 are forced to use microsoft (or at least their authentication system), or it becomes illegal not to use the system and everybody is forced into microsoft's death grip. None of these possibilities are very appealing.
The only way things won't completely suck is if this is never implemented, but if they have as much industry support (and presure from the bill formerly known as SSSCA) as I think they do, then the outlook doesn't look good. That is why microsoft's power should be limited, why they should be punished, and why they need to be monitored to prevent them from doing things that are anti-competitive (even if not overtly so). That is why I hope that, in the end, MS recieves at least a slap on the wrist from the antitrust suit, if not something slightly more meaningful. Of course, with Bush in the white house, I have serious doubts...if only more people realized that just because something is good for a big company doesn't mean that it is neccesarily the best thing for the economy or the citizens of the country...*sigh*
Why the hell else would they name it that? For the fun of it?
There will be compilers for the OS. Those compilers will "certify" the software that it generates. Simply compile gcc and make it certified. Next, write a certification program for gcc to make it's output certified, and your done.
sure.. it will be bad software you paid for because you were told it is better...
have you been brainwashed man?
The greatest right given is the right to be wrong...
The author of the linked article states that even with GPL'd source code, the binaries you build would not work because they aren't certified. How, then, would a developer develop anything if they can't run binaries? Or would all binaries run under the same cert on a particular machine? This whole scheme seems to be simply unworkable.
This could also cause problems with Windows Shareware and Freeware programs. How much is it going to cost to get a binary certified ? How many Shareware programers will be able to afford it ? Why would a Freeware programer pay for certification when he gives the program away for free ? Who will be in charge of certification ? Microsoft ? Wouldn't that be conflict of interest, in that they would have the ablity to deny a competitor, say Eudora, entry into the market, by denying them certification or pricing certification out of reach.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
The resulting hue and cry wouldn't be good for ol' Mr. Softy.
This scenario would be such a blatant anti-trust violation that even the Justice Department couldn't sit idly by. You would
See a legal onslaught against it in the courts.
See an illegal, group hackfest to reverse engineer it. Faced with such unethical Big-Brother-ism, otherwise ethical IT people would feel perfectly happy about slinging a pebble or twa at the forehead of Goliath.
One hopes that cooler heads prevail in Redmond, and a stable operating point is reached between the Open- and Close- Source worlds. Both thoughts have merit, and a place in the economy (no apologies to RMS), and extreme 'solutions' help no one.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
That's gotta be the most polite request to cease and desist that I've ever read.
- Given the reliance on hardware encryption, Palladium requires everybody to buy a new computer to use it.
- Given that an encryption system that can stand up against attack through time has never been accomplished in history, the MS plan has little chance for truly ensuring "private data".
- Given that the United States government want to be able to look at your data because you might be a terrorist (or just an enemy of the state), "private data" opposes Big Brother, and is therefore not likely to give any *real* privacy at all (unless you just have blind trust in the govenment
;P).
The good news is, I don't think the 'commons' are buying into Palladium, at least not yet. Besides, real paranoids don't use Windoze.If no binary can run without certification by some outside agent, it follows that users can't write programs and run them without getting them certified (If they could, there'd be no worries about Open Source). Good god. Can you imagine what that is going to do to my debugging efforts?
This scenario is not going to happen. Because even mostly clueless M$-running people will listen if you say, "Hey, you realize that if you run Palladium-based architecture, your darling children won't be able to use their computer for some very important learning purposes."
Read Bujold. Free (as in
Think about this in conjuction with their plans to make Longhorn debut in 2006 as a radically new OS. Do you know what "radically" new says to me? It says completely incompatible. And not simply with Unix/Linux/et al, but with former Microsoft products as well.
Bear with me for a minute.... let's say for a minute that Longhorn is to Windows XP what Mac OS X is to OS 9 - a complete rewrite, completely incompatible, and arguably 100 times better. But adoption is slow. People are entrenched in thier current OS of choice, OS 9 or even 8 for some. So when Microsoft prepares to move the masses to their radically new OS in late 2006, a great deal of segmentation will occur.
Now let's pretend that Linux is ready for the masses (on the desktop) by 2006, and it has a stronghold in the server market. Now you're looking at two paths (at least for corporate types): 1. Continue to allow MS to shove upgrades down your throat and keep following the Windows donkey cart. Further, subject yourself to the new DRM of Longhorn and face issues of your free software and possbily other commercial software (IE Oracle and other DBMS) not working correctly. 2. Switch to Linux or maybe Macs. When companies are forced off Win 2k/XP and forced onto Longhorn via MSFT, we'll see how many are willing to comply. Continuing to use XP/2k may not be an option, but ditching MS entirely may be a reality in 4 years.
I know it took a long time to get to my point but it's a complex issue. Far more complex even than I have portrayed above. But seriously, I think MS is going down a road to making themselves irrelevant. However, never count out the power or marketing! What MS lacks in software reliablity they make up for with a powerful marketing department and an unfortunate following of corporate weenies.
This is retarded... there are tons of extremely gifted people that will figure out a way to circumvent any BS that's thrown our way... It's been done before and it'll be done as often as needs be. This is exactly the reason i hate microsoft. they wanna rule the damn world and control us 'peons'
It seems to me that the guys up in redmond are getting desperate... i wonder how long they can keep up this "our way or no way" ideal...
wasnt there a recent report that MS is loging around $150 on each X-box it sells?
is it just me or does it seem like MS is crumbling? (or maybe REALLY BAD growing pains)
p r m t h s
At least that's what I've heard said every time that "If only Windows made a 100% pirate-proof OS, the users would flock to Linux en masse". Well here it is. Tied in with M$ big database of what data you're allowed to see (trust me, it's about their control over you, not your control over the computer),
I'm sure pirating it won't do much good because you need to connect to the big database(tm) to do/see/hear anything useful, and with hardware crypto maybe the crackers will have some trouble too.
IMO it'll go one of two ways, either there'll be free (as in stolen beer) content and noone will bother with the crlpplecontent (alot like today), or there'll be just cripplecontent and people will basicly say "screw you", stick wiht their old windows or change to linux.
Either way I don't think it'll be a hit.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If MS starts this scheme in 2 years, it will take another 7 years until 90% of their users have it (and that's still not enough because 10% is still too much to lose).
Microsoft can afford to take the long view. The biggest driving force of Palladium/Longhorn will be the DRM technology. People want to consume media and the media companies will require rights management. The media companies can also afford to take the long view. They only need to keep crushing P2P upstarts through sheer weight until the laws and technology to support DRM are widespread.
If only "trusted" apps running on a "trusted" operating system can play music and video, then people will buy those. Remember the vast majority of people aren't interested in their rights - and before anyone starts, I didn't see any groundswell of ordinary people defeating the DMCA.
There is no "Linux" to defeat this. There are only distributions. The big commercial distros are the ones that will end up on ordinary people's desktops and they can either play along or not play - it'll be that simple. When it comes to pleasing shareholders I can guarantee that they will chose to play along.
You just can't afford to be complacent on this issue. This is the biggest failing of the Open Source movement - there is no movement, just a bunch of people writing open source software. This works fine when there's no threat to the freedom, but when there is there's no organisation.
The closest thing free software has ever had to a movement with principles and goals is the Free Software Foundation - and look at how ridiculed RMS has become.
People like sitting on their butts and whining a lot more than they like actively campaigning.
you didn't read the article, did you?
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Those guys at Microsoft are just playing the scary-announcement thing: to scare people before they make the next move. Then make them wait, then provide them a lot of useless marketing, then -before they will realize it- they have been embraced. And the empire extends itself.
OK. Given.
But if it works, that's a toehold, a foot in the door, a step towards the (assumed) end-goal of eradicating Open Source software. How many steps will it take to make that happen? How many more steps can they afford to finance and/or cram down the suggestible public's throats?
Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you requested. The page might use standard HTML or CSS.
If Microsoft didn't know they could use it for this purpose allready... they do now...
;-)
Companies behave as consumers demand. Boycots are a powerful weapon that can be used against immoral companies. Your problem is that you are in the minority, and therefore, the majority is amoral by your standards. And your personal boycot of Microsoft hasn't been too effective. What if we based morals on property rights instead of the principles of sharing you learned in second grade. In that case, a company should be able to whatever the f~~~ it wants to a product before selling it to you. If you don't like your choices, again, it's because you are in the minority. You have your property, money, to spend however you want, and the company has it's property, computers or software, to sell however it wants. Profits are the main reason the world progresses. Industrialization, which drastically improved the quality of lives for humans, was the result of profit seeking. The Americas were discovered by Europeans due to profit seeking.
The only fair thing is fair market value.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
What, you mean SPARC, PowerPC, and whatever chips are used in System 390 mainframes will have to licence this scheme from Microsoft?
Of course they won't. Apple will have a field day if MS tries a stunt like this. You'll see so many folks buying Macs that Apple will be able to buy back all their stock that's now owned by MS. Heck, I'd even probably by my first Mac then.
Embedded security into a hardware device to restrict its use? Sounds similar to me.
:)
I wonder how many firmware/BIOS patches will show up that disable or fool the hardware device like how you can disable region locking in your DVD drive -- not that I would ever condone such behavior
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL
There's a computer available, that doesn't use AMD or Intel products, so it's immune from Palladium.
:D
It's got a 500MHz processor, PGX64 graphics accelerator, 128MB of memory, a 20 GB 7200 HD, Ethernet, floppy, 48X CD, smart card reader, and... Solaris 8 Pre-loaded? All for $995. (Yes, that's a SPARC processor).
To me, it looks perfect. We get a high-speed 64-bit RISC processor, really the only RISC architecture that hasn't morphed into Itanium (poor Alpha); we get reasonable basic specs, and just about everything short of the proc/mobo can be upgraded with standard parts from Pricewatch; and finally, because Freedom is of the utmost concern, any version of Debian that you can run on x86, you can run just as well on Sparc.
And if that isn't enough, if you absolutely *need* to run Windows applications for some reason, in addition to using Bochs, there's another option. If you don't mind keeping Solaris on your computer alongside Linux, you can even buy a $500 PC-within-a-PC card, with a 733-MHz non-Intel x86 processor; because it lets you run Windows and Solaris apps side-by-side, it's essentially a perfect cross between VMware and Wine.
Don't know about you, but my next computer's a Sun.
I do wonder what Microsoft would think if large numbers of people did this. On the one hand, they might love it; if all the Linux users bolt to SPARC, then Microsoft is left with 99.999% control of their platform, complete control for computer built in the last 3 years, and the power to make hardware manufacturers do whatever they say. On the other hand, it means that their Windows-is-better-than-Linux arguments now have to account for the fact that Linux is running Sparc, and it becomes that much harder to get Linux users to switch back.
And for us, it means that the ugliest and slowest port of Linux, that for x86, is all but gone; and most time will be spent developing one of the cleanest, SPARC.
Just because a binary file is certified doesn't make it a GPL violation. Yes, the binary has to be distributed, but if you can also distribute the source, anyone can validate the binary you distribute by building a clone of it, right ?
No, they can't.
Linux will replace Windows just like the open PC-platform replaced Apple and Amiga.
It's just a matter of time, but it already started to happen. Walmart selling Linux-PCs and South-Korea deploying Linux on 1/4 of their desktops is just the beginning.
Microsoft knows that, even when the average slashdotter is busy whining about the evil Microsoft-monopoly which no longer exists anyway.
The biggest driving force of Palladium/Longhorn will be the DRM technology.
This is a contradiction in itself. DRM is no driving force, it's a roadblock.
It has been tried. Remember the hardware "DivX" player?
People want to consume media and
Wait, there is no "and" in this sentence. People want to consume media, their interest end after that. They don't want to pay ridiculous amounts for subscriptions and fees.
the media companies will require rights management.
Well, and I demand a million $ from you.
Sometimes you don't get what you demand. Especially when you make unrealistic requirements. I would guess the chances of the media companies getting bullet-proof DRM is about as high as I getting a million from you.
"Hey, I got an idea for a quick million or two as pocket change. Let's sign on with Microsoft on this Palladium scheme, hit them for consulting fees, and them tell them it can't be done after they pay!"
"What about AMD?"
"We can fool them. 'Smatter of fact, I bet they're already planning the same thing."
Could've fooled me...
You don't impose anything on the user. "requires Palladium-enabled PC" would be right up there with "requires Windows(c)(r)(tm)". It's a system requirement, not a licence requirement. You're required to provide a compatible environment yourself.
Don't think it'll fly. However, you can demand the source (unless supplied), disable the Palladium crap and compile it yourself. Which presumably means you won't get it signed, and it won't run. But you're still free to copy, distribute and modify it, which is all the licence requires.
It's very much like your right to fair use. You got them, but there's no law saying it must be easy. Or should I say used to be? DMCA makes it a crime to actually exercise that right, not to mention expanding copyright to infinity (No, you can't break a DRM scheme legally even after the copyright has expired because it'll be protecting other, newer works still under copyright.)
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Here's why:
Paladium is pure speculation by Microsoft. They cannot afford to release this to the public, because they would lose their monopoly on desktop operating systems if they did.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
What is the free equivalent to this? I propose the following:
Microsoft is banking on the fact that companies will trust it to authenticate good software because they trust the Microsoft reputation. Historically, Open Source has developed its trustworthy reputation by banking on actual users who state that the software is trustworthy.
So here is a Free alternative to Palladium - a public trust clearinghouse. Much as DCC authenticates spam, and the GPG repositories authenticate public keys, a public trust clearinghouse could be an expression of the corporate trust of software.
As an example, imagine giving each member of the Wilshire 5000 a number of votes equal to 10000 minus their position in the Wilshire 5000 (IE, the biggest company gets the most votes). Each can submit any mix of those votes to the "trust this software" and "don't trust this software" bins, and can move them as the wish. New software would have very few votes. Established software would have many votes. The decision to trust could be based on both the number of votes and the percentage of positive votes.
Yes, I think using the Wilshire 5000 is a requirement, because corporations don't trust the general public with business decisions any more than you and I trust Joe Six-pack with firewall settings.
The question then is how to incentivize corporations to participate. Perhaps a license requiring that those 5000 companies submit a certain number of votes per month to be allowed to access the trust repository... just spitballing.
Regardless of how it is done, I think Microsoft has hit on a genuine chink in the O/S armour - it does not have any officially responsible party. Coming up with a way to state authoritatively to business that version 3.142 of SuperDaemon is trustworthy would go a long way to countering Palladium if it catches on. And frankly, I would be far more likely to trust 5000 parties who are objective on average than to trust the manufacturer of the software.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Bruce Schneier says of Palladium: "If this works, it will be the first time in the history of computing that it works... lots and lots of encryption is broken all the time because it's done wrong. The odds are actually zero this will be secure."
At worst, it means dialog box hell during startup.
Until then, the solution is NOT to have a "rootless" box. There's nothing inherantly difficult about switching to root to install software, especially if it's just a cute little dialog box that asks for the root password. The problems from software management come from a lack of standards and decent packaging software - not unix security.
Correct me if I'm wrong - but dont all the arguments about the impossibility of working with GPL'd software on DRM systems also apply to anyone developing *any* code on such systems?
ie - if you want to test the code you just compiled because you are a legitimate developer, you must have some way to do so? (Arguments that it will only run on your own machine are weak. That won't stop distros like gentoo from working, nor is it good enough to work in dev shops where you be compile for a test team). This may suggest that M$ will charge more for developer licenses, on unrestricted platforms?
Secondly - if you can build a VM that runs on a DRM system, but doesnt require signed bytecode, then you can run anything you want anyway? And is Linux not just a big VM when it comes down to it (for everyone except the kernel developers)
My point is, if there is no way to develop code in small cycles, MS will find this a very hard sell to software houses and IT depts of corporates.
It seems to me that the only way this can work is if the system 'can' run untrusted or self-signed code, but will not run signed code unless DRM lets it. None of this prevents GPLd code working.
-Baz
And, to top it all off, in the past 30 years or so, incidences of stress-related mental illness has increased by something like 500% (I forget which study I read that in, but anyway).
And what do we have to show for it? Do we have more time to spend with our friends and families? No, all we have is a few new toys (although, as a geek myself, I have to admit that they are fun toys). If we see an average person working one day a week and making enough money to support themselves and their families, then that would be a massive improvement in quality of life.
In fact, we have seen the opposite; the two-income family is so common that it has become difficult to be one-income anymore. The quality of life has decreased enough that the average two-income family now lives about the same as an average one-income family in the 1920's.
Remember, those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
This will fail because it limits freedom. SPAM is a problem, but it's inherent in the freedom we have. Open Sourcers fear marketing like biological warfare. "Our enemy will succeed because they have marketing" ( for warfare, insert smallpox ). There have been plenty of companies who had marketing yet still failed (e.g. WorldCom "generation D"). Some would like to blaim Microsoft's previous success on marketing, instead of good enough products coinciding with good timing. This will make their products much worse. They are trying to shoot the moon and solve all the problems in the world. It's too impractical. RSA encoding, there was a solution to a problem that was not too ambitious. Like the pandlers selling snake oil before them, Microsoft will not be able to sell this product for very long.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
I thought MS said the future of computing was in web applications and XML this and XML that, blah blah blah. So how is Palladium gonna provide security on a web based app? Is every website gonna need an MS approved certificate to be seen on a Palladium equipped box? This whole idea seems like a load of FUD.
Sound waves should be free!
This, more than any other protection mechanism, is NOT PRACTICAL.
Secondly, vote with your feet. It is not serious to suggest that you can legislate that a consumer is not free to choose what they buy. So buy something without DRM (if DRM ever appears, which I doubt). Don't believe me? What about those foreign places where they won't dream of DRM because they don't bow down to the RIAA etc? Suddenly the almighty American IT industry is losing money to overseas companies. Dangerous for any government to comtemplate...
read the subject line
this is random crap i typed to make up the rest of the stupid 20 second timer.
Look, lets not get our knickers in a knot. It may happen, but it's never going to be the only, or even a high-level verification method. Obviously not, it's embedded in hardware.
Anyone with half a brain can tell you that an identification code embedded in hardware is going to be cracked, and in short order. What happens to Charlie consumer when he finds that his version of Word no longer works because some cracker has a hold of his unique identifier? Or that his personal information is subject to manipulation by a cracker, or that microsoft is giving away his credit card number to anyone who can spoof his identity?
It's a common failing of software manufacurers to think that new hardware can solve problems that software cannot (CF pretty much every dongle ever made) Just let MS run with the ball until they realise that the same thing can be done in software at a fraction of the cost.
In addition, I think it would die in Anitrust. Imagine buying a car, that could only be refuelled at with BP petrol, but not being told about it at point of sale. Just wait until those computers start being returned, because they won't play nice with my operating system of choice, and watch Intel turn on a dime.
Would someone care to explain this? I'm a bit vague on what this means.
Not that I care, but aren't the register articles generally biased?
Or is it me?
Real wealth has increased, that is undeniable. Today we have access to better quality food, clothing, housing, transportation, environment... (it's true that 100 years ago the atmosphere was more unhealthy than it is today. Burning wood for heat is not good and leaving horse crap on the street isn't healthy either) Teh work day has decreased. We work a 40 hour week, whereas during industrialization it was 50 or 60.
I find your phrase "North American excesses" humorous. Wealth is tied directy to productivity. The more you produce, the more you are worth to some company or customer, the more you earn. The lack of industrialization in those countries is exactly what's causing the problems. Those people are unproductive so they are poor. (Productivity is a measure of efficiency, not effort)
There has been an increase in reporting of stress-related illnesses which may just mean that more detection occurs. You really can't blame that on companies, it's more the fault of people addicted to work.
It's difficult to be one-income family if you assume that you need some ammenities, like a roomy house, two or three roomy cars (public transportation is an option), vacations, gaming systems for the kids, designer clothes, large tv's, cable, the list goes on and on. It's a list of excesses that our wealth allows us to have. You just make up stats about the 1920's. Do you know how much time was spent on chores (cleaning clothes, dishes) back then? A lot. Now it gets to be used otherwise.
Finally, throughout history, people have been claiming that we are heading down hill. In 1920, i'm sure that there were people who thought those times were the worst times ever. Where do you draw the line, when did we hit our peak? Your answer is arbitrary and innaccurate.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
This whole MS crap is getting to me and has been for quite awhile. This is probably vaporware but i'm sick of having to read about it. I'm off to buy a mac.
> People buy "crappy DVD players" that happen to have region free hacks because they're cheap, not because they're region free. 99% of the US market couldn't care less about non-region 1 DVDs.
;-).
You're probably right about the US, I don't know. You also have a good point since at least half of the (DVD) market is US centric.
On the other side of the atlantic ocean, however, "region free" is a *major* sales feature found in many advertisements. US citizens would care if they had to wait some extra months for many movies to become available. And to people regularly traveling to Japan, Signapore, Hongkong there's also the issue of market price.
A major point of difference wrt. copy protection in general however, is that the Palladium thing isn't primarily targetted agains copyright violation, but rather "secure" software distribution. Companies like Philips that expressly sell devices to copy CDs (or DVDs) gain from opposing conpy protection stuff, but in case of Palladium they're not a party.
However, the major obstacle on Microsoft's road to world domination are consumers. And if it's not MS's licensing that's going to turn against them, this may be it. Don't underestimate consumers' ability to judge both apples and oranges
... that Microsoft will lobby to make their security extensions mandatory on Turing Machines, thus extending their influence to most of present day computer architectures.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
THe real reason why Microsoft is doing this is they want to be the DRM gatekeeper. All digital media will end up going through them, and they will come up with new standards and schemes to get a percentage on all of this information. Look at the new Mpeg 4 standard - they are planning to charge for the data stream. It's where MS wants to go today.
Killing Linux and the GPL is an added benefit.
-asb
Linux will replace Windows just like the open PC-platform replaced Apple and Amiga.
...
I'm not going to hold my breath on that one. Especially since Apple has a substantially higher percentage of the desktop market than Linux and Apple has apparently been "replaced".
Wait, there is no "and" in this sentence. People want to consume media, their interest end after that. They don't want to pay ridiculous amounts for subscriptions and fees.
This is foolish in the extreme. People pay ridiculous subscriptions and fees everytime they buy a CD, a DVD, or a player for either of those media. It is because of this that P2P scares the media industry so badly. They currently make vast profits out of people who don't realise that they are being ripped off. They will do - and already are doing - anything to protect that.
The media companies have already managed to come up with a film format that only their approved players can play (DVD) and make it illegal for you to reverse engineer your own (DMCA). Just how stupid do you have to be to think that they won't do the same for music and broadcast video.
Well, and I demand a million $ from you.
The difference is that you clearly don't have a monopoly over anything of value to me, nor the ability to buy a law to compel me to give you anything. This is not the case for the MPAA or the RIAA.
Microsoft will win because they know which side their bread is buttered on. If they help the MPAA and the RIAA then they'll get their massive financial and political support. That's why Microsoft care about digital rights management. If Microsoft can deliver 90% of the desktop market to the MPAA and the RIAA then they will happily hand Microsoft a monopoly right to the media.
Sometimes you don't get what you demand. Especially when you make unrealistic requirements.
My point is that to most people the demands don't appear unrealistic. Like I say, most people don't give a damn that they're getting screwed. And of the few that do give a damn, the majority of them can't think of anything to do but whine on Slashdot.
So far I haven't seen anything to suggest that the future I suggest here won't come to pass. The DMCA became law and no legal challenges to it have succeeded yet, the RIAA just killed independant Internet radio, the MPAA have pretty much successfully killed the open source DVD player, the MPLA are suggesting a fee structure for MPEG4 that will kill independant video streaming, Sony are bringing out computer-proof CDs, various attempts by the Senator for Disney to install DRM into hard drives and onto motherboards,
Sorry, exactly when is Linux or the open source movement going to change anything?
One thing I liked about this article was the reference to the Mark Of The Beast. I'm not the most devout Christian around, but even heathens like myself know about the Mark Of The Beast. And if this isn't pretty much the same idea, I don't know what is. If MS tries to patent this stuff they'll need to list the Revelations of St. John The Divine as relevant prior art.
Sound we need a mod chip for the PC
I'm probably gonna get flamed, or modded as a troll for this, and it's probably a bad idea, but I'm gonna say it anyways. So, here we go:
The article says "Of course here I'm assuming Palladium won't become the next Microsoft Bob. It could meet with severe consumer rejection, as I hope it will." And I hope it's right. But most average Joes (or Bobs) are just going to use what's best hyped and most redily available, even if the hype is false and only intended to make you paranoid about everything else. Of course, we have to take into account the fact that this could backfire because of all the Windows software that exists now, which, obviously, isn't certified for Palladium. But we all know how famous Microsoft and it's cronies are for releasing patches and updated versions. So, here's an idea, to make sure it backfires- Every self-respecting linux geek who has any good feelings towards Open Source and/or GPL simply refuse to have anything to do with windoze for a while. Of course, it's not possible, because programs can lie if thet're told to, and then there's your boss who is one of those average Joes and forces you to work with windoze, but you could keep interaction down to a minimum. Now, either two entirely separate tech communities will form, one ruled by the users and one by Microsoft, or all the MS junkies will just get sick of it all and convert. Siege tactics, see? And both outcomes aren't all that bad. Unless wars start braking out between the two communities, but heck, that's as good as happened already.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
Well, in Europe Linux already overtook Apple by a large margin. On many German sites, people browsing with Linux already make up 10% or more.
I still don't get it why Walmart is selling their Linux-PCs exclusively in the weakest Linux-market on the planet (USA)
This is foolish in the extreme. People pay ridiculous subscriptions and fees everytime they buy a CD, a DVD, or a player for either of those media.
What? DVDs and CDs are popular because there is absolutely NO subscription involved. Because you "OWN" the movie/music (yes I do know that it's just a license in court).
Every scheme that takes away ownership from the user has failed so far, I don't think that a scheme that takes away ownership of the PC (which is even more severe) will succeed. Yes ownership includes the "doing what the hell I want with it" - factor.
It is because of this that P2P scares the media industry so badly. They currently make vast profits out of people who don't realise that they are being ripped off. They will do - and already are doing - anything to protect that.
The media companies have already managed to come up with a film format that only their approved players can play (DVD) and make it illegal for you to reverse engineer your own (DMCA). Just how stupid do you have to be to think that they won't do the same for music and broadcast video.
How stupid do you have to be to think people care about what's illegal?
You can get almost any movie on the net you can get in stores. Correction: You can get A LOT MORE movies on the net than you can get in stores. That's a fact.
Sorry, exactly when is Linux or the open source movement going to change anything?
Well, Opensource made it possible that you can spread your "Microsoft will win - FUD" here. Because if it were not for Linux, Apache and BSD, we would all run proprietary MSN connections and only big corporations could afford going online with webpages. (Big corps don't like discussion, so there would simply be no such thing as slashdot.)
Opensource has already destroyed Microsoft's plans. Microsoft is fighting a losing battle.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
Yes, everything that happens everywhere must have everything to do with the GPL, or specifically, Linux. Did you ever sit and think for a moment that maybe someone is trying to prevent security issues using time-tested methodologies already implemented on other platforms? Oh wait, that would require thinking, and that violates the GPL.
RE: "We don't blink at the thought of putting Palladium on your Palm... on the telephone, on your wristwatch," says software architect Bryan Willman.
- - - I sure as snot will blink at that!
RE: "I firmly believe we will be shipping with bugs," says Paul England. Don't expect wonders until version 2.0. Or 3.0.
- - - Hmm, that doesn't really make me blink.
A message to all open source, or any, developers out there, "Do not make this work. Do not try and hack a Linux solution to make this work. Make sure your stuff doesn't work with this new system. Make sure your site doesn't work with these whacked mobos. Do not allow Microsoft to succeed."
If we hack out a solution that will kinda sorta allow Linux to function in this system of stupidity, we will be forced to deal with it for ever. The best way to fight this latest attack is to make users uncomfortable. Don't allow your apps to run on systems that MS has locked down. People will quickly get pissed when they can't get to their favorite pron site or whatever.
M$ != trust. While at first blush these allarming "revalations" from M$ scared me; I got over it. The big picture is that they want us to rely on them to safegaurd our computers and information. This is from the company that CANNOT even secure an e-mail client.
Besides even if they did manage to get these machines into the main stream we could always get a MOD chip. How long did it take to crack the X-BOX, like a month?
I remeber a qoute from a long time ago, "it takes a year for a 30 year-old to figure out how to protect something and a 14 year old kid 15 minute to crack it". Felt tip pen anyone?
I think tha main push by the wicked wizard is to try and lock out the far superior products developed by open-source. But in the end he will fail, M$ is already hemoroging market share on the server side and with their new licinsing extortion racket will begin on the client side. They are a doomed company and will wither and die eventually.
"First they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Ghandi
We're coming to the climax of phase three.
This whole thing just points out the absolute urgency to get "Desktop Linux" to a point where your mother would use it.
It will take MS a long time to implement Palladium because it is so ambitious. Minimum of three years: 1 for hardware to be available, another for MS to have shippable software, another for large scale deployment. In the time that it takes for them to get to that level, Linux MUST achieve at least 25% market share of new desktop OS sales. If this can be achieved, then Palladium won't matter because the monopoly will be broken enough to assure that other solutions survive.
I believe this is an achievable goal in an achievable timeframe. Some of the key gaps that have to be close to get there are:
1) OpenOffice has to improve and offer comparable MS Office compatibility to what Microsoft offers when they upgrade. (current progress: B+)
2) There has to be a robust set of games available on Linux (current progress: D)
3) Mozilla has to be clearly superiour to IE (current progress: B)
4) The LSB standard has to be widely and uniformly implemented so that software installations are turnkey for compelte boneheads (current progress: B)
5) MS Outlook has to have an equal among open source competitors (current progress: C)
6) More vendors need to offer Linux pre-installed machines. (current progress: C-)
Another thing that would help is that proprietary software vendors have to steer towards cross platform languages (java, delphi, etc) so that their niche market products run on Linux as soon as they run on windows.
How stupid do you have to be to think people care about what's illegal?
...).
You can get almost any movie on the net you can get in stores. Correction: You can get A LOT MORE movies on the net than you can get in stores. That's a fact.
As with most Slashdot weenies, you're confusing yourself with "people". Most people buy CDs and DVDs. Any system that has looked like it might reach too many people has been ruthlessly destroyed (Napster, AudioGalaxy, Kazaa, DeCSS, net radio,
Well, Opensource made it possible that you can spread your "Microsoft will win - FUD" here. Because if it were not for Linux, Apache and BSD, we would all run proprietary MSN connections and only big corporations could afford going online with webpages.
No, you're confusing "free beer" with "free speech". The value in open source is in the fact that the source is open, not that it's cheap. OSDN could easily purchase Sun, IBM, or HP boxen bundled with free application servers. The cost of the bandwidth, hardware, and support easily dwarfs the proprietry software costs anyway.
Open source does not enable Slashdot. Slashdot enables open source. It would be hypocritical if Slashdot ran on Microsoft software, but it wouldn't stop it being a forum for the free software community.
You have to snap out of your complacency. Freedom isn't something that you can sit around and wait for, it's something you have to fight for.
No, you're confusing "free beer" with "free speech".
Huh? OpenSource enabled the Internet, it would be impossible without it. That was my point. Maybe you should answer to my point instead of switching topics.
You have to snap out of your complacency. Freedom isn't something that you can sit around and wait for, it's something you have to fight for.
Yes. But helping Microsoft by sprewing FUD ("Microsoft has 40$ in cash and can destroy Sony and Nintendo - whohooo") is a bit counter-productive, don't you think?
What a wonderful M$ idea. Now that they've killed that idea of .NET and everyone giving all their info to M$ for (not)safe keeping. Now that M$ has given up on .NET to SAVE THE WORLD. Now that M$ has launched the trustworthy computing initiative. Now M$ is wonderful and secure. I want them to have my balls, credit card and addresss. NOT
Now they come along with this bullshit! Its just a repackaged Hailstorm. The public has vetoed this once. I am shakily confident they will again. We need to help. I said that this was a them or us issue in the last post about this shit. Make sure its us.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
Can you show me anything that demonstrates the first technical understanding?
Newsweek is prolefeed. You are an offtopic troll.
Paladium includes DRM chip on board. We can be sure that such a thing will make any machine with it into an appliance. That's fine, but it's not a computer. Hopefully someone will continue to make computers that work.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
If I had a possibility of a secure, dignified life without working my ass off, I would grab it, though.
It seems that you don't view waste management as dignified. If you are a work-a-holic, it seems unlikely that you would a accept a job where you didn't have to work your ass off. The point is, you could get by doing less work.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
M$'s marketshare is firmly rooted in people using pirated software. My personal guess from experience is probably about 1 purchased application to 1 or 2 pirated applications.
Take away the ability to pirate, and Microsoft takes away half, or more, of their marketshare. And since their marketshare is the only driving force they seem to have left, they shake the very foundation of their company.
If Microsoft has it's way, what makes you think that everybody is going to switch to Linux?
I know that most users, given the choice, much prefer working in Aqua than in KDE or Gnome.
Granted, there's the hardware issue, but I personally don't see a mass exodus from Windows to Linux happening anytime soon.
I think, therefore I am an Atheist.
From the CNN article:
The FBI has indicated it rarely encounters scrambled information during investigations, but making such technology as ubiquitous as Windows could invite use by criminals or terrorists.
If they do "play along" and support Palladium they can, pardon my French, go fuck themselves. Who cares? That is the wonderful thing about freedom, you don't need to save them and they don't need to listen to you. They are free to give away their freedoms left and right in exchange for a few shiny gadgets, and we (meaning anyone who values their freedom more than they value the latest pop single) are free to use, modify, develop, and play with open source and its derivatives.
I'm not saying that this issue is not serious, but it is not that serious. All of the FUD is built around the idea of a rock solid authentication mechanism. Since when has MS done anything in a rock solid manner? Uh...never? If there is enough of a reason to want to defeat this new affront to liberty, it will be defeated. There is not need for a monolithic idea of community and there is no need for some sort of united action to stop this.
But then again, I've always been too lazy and self-occupied to consider Victory a pre-condition for Freedom.
"I think we should tax people who stand in water! " - Mr. Gumby
I saw the press release in Newsweek. Oops, I mean article.
They got one thing right, that there was considerable doubt and uncertainty that people would jump at the chance to own a chance to truly be owned.
The thing that occurs to me, however, is that a lot of software is going to take a performance hit has it does PKI work, encrypting data, checking keys over the network, etc.
That, and the complexity of software will needs increase. As if current software is so trivial and simple that two five year olds could debug all the problems in IE within an afternoon.
No, there's a word that describes Palladium.
That word is "Bob".
"Provided by the management for your protection."
>the worst sources are the ones that seem to be "fair," because they tend to make you less alert to the bias that inevitably exists.
My vote for this category would be "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer."
Fair and balanced == corporate milquetoast
If MS makes sure every pre-Palladium windows is buggy and full of security holes, then users will have to upgrade to get a usable system. The shear entropy of all of the viruses out there will make any old version of windows unusable after MS drops support.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Why not be sure that every threat to privacy (be it microsoft or gpl'ed software or whomever) is explained clearly (for the layman)in a press release and faxed out to major news organizations and sympathetic (or possibly sympathetic) governments. If there are more than three or four a week, it would probably be best to group them together and to send them in a single report to avoid verwhelming them.
In particular, it would be good to note whenever it applies how fast the open source community has come up with a response.
Counter FUD with openness, clarity, and publicity - after all microsoft and similar corporations have things like CNN and MSNBC.
And when all those AOL/Longhorn/Noob! users, which account for better than 60% of the computer users, can no longer shop at thier onlibne stores they'll stave to death until they "upgrade" to a Palladium-okayed system.
Never forget that over 90% of all Internet "users" surf with Internet Explorer. When IE stops talking to non-Palladium sites, thos sites are screwed.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Palladium is fatally flawed, and it will never succeed. Why? The current situation of our computers and the Internet demands mutual distrust. That's a very good thing. It's true that newbies tend to be trusting, but it's part of one's computer and Internet education to learn to be suspicious. Palladium is a radical change; it departs from mutual distrust to complete trust. A world of complete trust is an entirely new world. Anything that would have an impact on trust must be carefully controlled. It's that need for control that will cause the technology to be rejected.
A wise man once said, "Shut Up And Show Them The Code"
... and every system that included "pay-per-view" or subscription was not accepted by the market. Which was my main point
That depends on who is doing the paying. The demand on pay-per-listen is what just killed independant Internet radio and I didn't see anyone storming the gates with torches and pitchforks. People will just switch to listening to the "approved" streams of the corporations that own the media.
Huh? OpenSource enabled the Internet, it would be impossible without it. That was my point. Maybe you should answer to my point instead of switching topics.
I'm sorry, if that was your point you didn't make it very well since you wrote:
Because if it were not for Linux, Apache and BSD, we would all run proprietary MSN connections and only big corporations could afford going online with webpages.
which appears to clearly indicate that you believe Slashdot uses open source out of monetary concerns.
Yes. But helping Microsoft by sprewing FUD [...] is a bit counter-productive, don't you think?
I don't believe that I am helping Microsoft, but I do believe that people who dismiss concerns about the power they wield with empty statements like "Linux will replace Windows" are helping them. You are encouraging people to sit back and wait. By then it will be too late to repair the damage.
Open source is anathema to control freaks. Therefore they won't ever aid it. The media companies can only control the media with proprietary formats, protocols, encryption, and rights management. There's only one company capable of delivering that scale of proprietary system to them.
Like I said, Microsoft will win because of the MPAA and the RIAA. The only way to stop them winning is to stop the MPAA and the RIAA from controlling the distribution of media. Linux won't beat Windows because it's better or because it's free. Open source can only thrive in a free environment. We need to protect our freedom first. The DMCA exists because not enough people cared about their freedom to stop it.
ummm - you just posted to slashdot .... which runs on GPL'd software ...
I thought microsoft was in the process of wrapping up anti-trust lawsuits, and here we are talking about the monopolistic power of their new system. Will they learn? or do the fines and cost actually scratch the beast at all?
If they do "play along" and support Palladium they can, pardon my French, go fuck themselves. Who cares? That is the wonderful thing about freedom, you don't need to save them and they don't need to listen to you. They are free to give away their freedoms left and right in exchange for a few shiny gadgets, and we (meaning anyone who values their freedom more than they value the latest pop single) are free to use, modify, develop, and play with open source and its derivatives.
Gah! I don't seem to be getting my point across very clearly. Let me try again:
Consider DVDs and the DMCA. As we have already seen it is now illegal in the US to write an open source program that can decode, and thus play, DVDs (DeCSS). If it is illegal to write a particular program then the noo-sphere (as ESR would call it) has been contracted ever-so-slightly. Yes, you are free to continue to play in the remaining space, but you have lost some freedom. Similarly it will be illegal to write free software that circumvents Palladium and any other DRM madness that the media companies come up with.
In small increments we are slowly giving up freedom. You can say "who cares! I didn't want to listen to the Spiderman soundtrack anyway" (which has been copy-protected by Sony so that it can't be played in a computer and ripped to mp3), but as a community we have lost something. If you don't defend other people's freedom then you will slowly lose your own.
To make my point another, more controversial, way: RJS wants Linux to be called "GNU/Linux" not to boost his own ego, but to recognise the freedom that the Free Software Foundation has fought so long for. Remember the FSF isn't Stallman, it's everyone who has ever contributed to the GNU project. They have collectively increased the space of our noosphere with tools, documentation, licenses, political lobbying, legal action and support, etc.
Complacency is the rot that eats away freedom.
But then again, I've always been too lazy and self-occupied to consider Victory a pre-condition for Freedom.
*sigh*
The article (and the discussion) assumes that if Microsoft dominated US consumer (and US market) then Linux would end and the world would end with it.... I think the world is rather larger place than US, and Linux is not completely US product (even though GPL is).
It is absolutely inconceivable that foreign governments and businesses will allow Microsoft (and Holliwood, or whoever) to establish back door into their offices and collect information on their consumers. In the EC, for example, Microsoft Passport initiative has already met legal challenges. And in places like China governments encourage "local" version of Linux for official use.
This has nothing to do with freedom, of course. Governments think of national security, and non-US businesses want to "own" all personal data on their local Joe-The-Consumer (or Jose-The-Consumer...).
So, relax, you American folks. US is not ruling the world yet (and judging by your stockmarket will have to wait a bit longer), and Microsoft may kill GPL but who cares, and US companies will not be able to enforce ridiculous patents and rights for Brothers Grimm tales in foreign courts.
Vive la différence!
--
Ramble on...
It should be as simple as do not buy palladium compliant hardware. Hardware manufacturers need to make a buck too, and if no one buys parts with this, MS won't be able to use it.
We, the OSS community, may not pay much money for much of our software, but we *do* have to buy the hardware. There's no way I can download a new motherboard, and neither can anyone else, so there is no gratis replacement. Even if some of use don't vote for OSS with our pocketbooks, we *will* have to vote for/against something like this with them.
Imagine an app as "killer" as Napster was when it first came out. Now, imagine this app as an "untrusted" binary in the MS-Palladium world (ugh!). Imagine also, that No trusted versions of this app be made available. Close the source and patent if you have to! A few super-popular closed-source/standards apps are a meager price to pay for torpedoing an idea as insidious as MS's / Intel / AMD's latest final solutio ^Z^Z^Z^Z^Z I mean security features.
The basic idea is that you need to be able to run executable code under OS-enforced restrictions that are similar to the restrictions on Java applets. A legitimate Active-X control, for example, needs to talk to its window, its site, and the instance of the rendering engine for the current page. That's a jail-type application. FreeBSD has this now, but browsers don't use it.
The LOMAC system is more general. It's like Perl tainting, for the whole OS. You can download some application from the Internet, but it can't do anything to data that didn't come from the Internet. Games, for example, fit well into this model.
Rather than whining about Microsoft's sign-everything approach, the Linux community needs to develop security technologies like these that provide real security. This is better than what Microsoft is proposing. And most of the hard work is already done. The main task is to get the browser people to use it.
This makes a lot of sense for the Mozilla project to do, making them a superior alternative to IE. But their code base may be too big to try this easily. The process architecture of the browser, at the "who talks to what" level, needs to be redesigned with security in mind. Basically, the rendering engine for each page needs to be in a separate process with limited privileges. This has impacts on many browser features, although the main rendering task isn't impacted much.
Think of it as a firewall inside the browser.
Jesus, this has everyone running scared, doesn't it? Why is it that a community that has managed to engineer so many computing marvels by way of Linux now running like beaten dogs when Microsoft rattles its cages about some far-reaching plan that will likely not see the light of day before 64-bit becomes standard?
One million code monkeys can't be wrong, and if that day comes, there'll be more than enough folks willing to send themselves into battle to write what needs to be written to get the job done.
Besides, they still haven't been able to create the "One True Windows" yet, and that's been what...eight years now?
There have been quite a few reports about MS/DRM in the last few months. How come MS is so actively developing DRM features? Why are they so keen to protect the interests of the media companies and artists?
I copied this sig.
Evidence?
Embrace and extend. Like with Kerberos. This isn't alarmist, it's MS Standard Operating Procedure. Unfortunately the remedy for their criminal behavior probably won't take this into account.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Back in the early 1990s the US government was trying to push a similar security-on-a-chip scheme called Clipper. The idea was that communication between two Clipper devices could only be understood by the two devices ... or a Federal agent using the secret law-enforcement key. The technology and legitimate non-government security communities were all up in arms over this, but the law enforcement and spy agencies had more influence over Congress than we did.
Suddenly, the whole thing fell apart. First, (though officially neither-denied-nor-confirmed) the top-secret law enforcement key was rumored to have been one of the things sold to the Soviets by a highly placed mole. Second, a researcher at Bell Labs figured out how to "vandalize" the chips so that they still worked with each other but the law-enforcement key could no longer decrypt the conversation. Clipper vanished overnight.
This story underlines some key failings of Palladium: 1. The Feds won't allow it unless they get a back door. 2. Someone's going to steal the Feds' skeleton key. 3. Someone's going to break the chips at the hardware level.
I can't see this working. The black hats will have enormous incentive to break it if it does.
Unfortunately, our "leaders" in business and government are too easily coerced and/or purchased for us to trust them not to go along with it.
It takes a lot more than a busted gasket to kill a car, too. But if a gasket gets broken, and the driver doesn't do anything, the car would eventually run out of oil, and sieze up. Chances are, you won't drive the car again.
It takes more than a new product to kill linux. It could take a new, incompatable product with a parasitic distribution scheme and a few years, though.
- probabilistic expert systems and user assistance (think "paper clip")
- the file system as a database
- a VM and runtime to unify all programming languages
- all data contained in its own data vault
- etc.
Every idea, however hare brained, that some computer science researcher has come up with, gets put into Windows because it's almost the only place where you can put it.But without being tested, alone and in combination, in the market, nobody knows whether any of these ideas help or hurt. Microsoft is stumbling along like the central committee of the old USSR, trying to plan for the next ten years. They are going to be no more successful in terms of results: their systems are already far from what a free market would produce, and it will only get orders of magnitude worse. The only question is whether, like the USSR, Microsoft will be able to hold on to their power through coercion and eventually fall apart in a great crash, or whether they split up voluntarily and operate in a free market before then.
Just like the Microsoft Network killed the internet...
If only "trusted" apps running on a "trusted" operating system can play music and video, then people will buy those.
What are you talking about. Most people get all of their media from MS-untrusted apps like kazaa, gnucleus, or limewire. There are damn few trusted media content providers out there now.
As a general rule, the longer a technology is out, the cheaper and more ubiquitous it is, and the more chance of variety. Basic economics. Economic models go towards more variety, not away from it. Reagardless of what MS does.
No one is going to get me to ever buy another MS based OS. I run 98se AND I am never ever buying anything from them again.
Matter of fact, the only reason that I am even on 98se is that I want to play games. After that point changes... I'm getting a distro.
> Ok, but this will be done by installing a
> certificate (i.e. a signed public key) into the
> mobo, not a secret key.
And this is the weakness. The signed public key will be immutable, in the hardware.
Can you imagine how many people will immediately start trying to crack it to get the secret half? Imagine: 50% of the world's computers running a distributed cracking client going after the MS Palladium private key...
Well, folks, something happened on the 11th of September that changed the rules here. It was on TV so you've probably heard about it.
Hermann Goering said that and I think we can all agree that he had some insight on the issue. It applies to more than "hot" war and to more than just governments' propaganda.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
problem solved...
next?
I honestly don't understand why everyone is so ready to give Microsoft the benefit of a doubt(?)
This is a company that has consistently demonstrated that they will use any and every means available (illegal/inethical - doesn't matter) to gain market power.
Based off of their existing track record, it's more reasonable to assume that they will do something *sinister* if they have the chance than to listen to Bill when he says "just trust us..."
IBM's AS/400's have had chips that encrypt everything for a while now. They are actually just 486 chips on the AS/400 with special encryption instructions. I have no idea however what Intel and AMD plan to use.
Does anyone else think that the Fed Gov't will see this as a further monopoly try? Even I think that this is blatantly messed up...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,282114, 00.asp
"However, the AMD-Wave whitepaper also postulates the need for multiple protection schemes, something that Microsoft's limited public statements have not addressed."
looks like AMD had this idea 2 years ago,
Lapey
I emailed Thomas C. Greene about some nasty writing habits of his last year, and thanks to his outraged reply, I can report that he signs his name "T.G.". Maybe he's changed to signing "tcg" -- or maybe that poster ain't the real Tommy.
the best way for a buyer to be sure that he's buying quality software is to check whether or not it's sanctioned by Microsoft!
What? DVDs and CDs are popular because there is absolutely NO subscription involved. Because you "OWN" the movie/music (yes I do know that it's just a license in court).
Just a nitpick - that's not entirely true.
When you buy a physical object like a book or a record, you own it. If I take your book without your permission, it is theft.
However, the material in a book or record is copyrighted and the copyright holder has certain exclusive rights regarding what you can do with that content. For example, making copies of the book and selling those copies on the sidewalk would be copyright infringement.
Also, it is not "just a license" in court. You have not signed a contract that tells you what you can and can't do with the content. It is copyright law - and not a license - that set down the rules regarding how you can make use of the content.
(With software, it is a bit different. Also, with click-through licensing becoming more prevalent for online shopping we're bound to see more copyrighted works 'sold' by license in the future. It is still unclear how the courts will rule regarding how legally binding such non-negotiable contracts are, but I digress.)
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Don't get all worked up over this. Nearly every large corporation runs software that they themselves have created, and which they never release or even mention to the outside world. This is usually called "in-house" software. If Microsoft manages to create a system that won't run any in-house software, then no large corporation will buy it.
Clearly, if a corporation can create its own software and run it, so can anyone else, whether they compiled it themselves or downloaded it from the net. At worst, you might have to run a little script to "bless" a binary that you downloaded from the net, by resigning it with your own key or something.
Ha! I'm a control freak -- and I adore Linux. It lets me control my box right down to the level of individual bits!
There are two kinds of control freaks -- those who seek to control others, and those who seek to control themselves. The latter are those people who compulsively arrange their sock drawers. The former are those who compulsively arrange other people's sock drawers.
Is Bill Gates a control freak? Seems pretty likely. Is he the kind who compulsively regulates his own behavior? I don't know. I do know, however, that he (and his company) do seem pretty compulsive about wanting to regulate my behavior, particularly with regard to my computer. And that's scary; a computer is a hell of a lot more personal than a sock drawer. My sock drawer contain bits of cloth that I encase my feet in. My computer contains my financial records, my phone numbers and address, my schoolwork -- in short, all of my most private personal information. Controlling my computer is a short step away from controlling me, and is therefore completely unacceptable.
Just look at my parents:
They complain that they did just great at computers back when it was all DOS, CLI and stuff... ever since this newfangled Windows crap came along, they've just been kind of lost...
Not like they care to learn Linux at all...
read "Diamond Edge", read "Godel, Escher, Bach",
read "Cryptonomicon", think about turing machines
and computability...
AND, OR, NOT, XOR, at the very basic thats all you got... theres no magic bullet out of which to build this socalled secure system...
Oh forget it...
read "Synners"...
microsoft... learn from your own success...
firewalls get in the way? build soap...
css encryption gets in the way, crack it...
locks get in the way, cut around them...
cant walk on the floor, walk on the walls, cant walk on the walls, walk on the ceiling, cant walk on the ceiling, walk IN the walls...
use scripting tools to build metanets on top, moores law is your friend, whats too slow today is plenty fast enough in 3-5 years time...
whats microsoft going to do, outlaw programming, ban scripting, if you have a scripting engine you have a turing machine, hell if you have a spreadsheet, you can build a processor, it'l be slow, but who cares...
write a ray-tracer in dos batch, or a p2p tool on top of email transport or http or soap, transport bits in the sequence nos of tcpip packets...
use tcp address spoofing to use third party sites to forward your packets for you...
distribute mp3 files encoded... steganographics...
chaf/huff codes...
how is a drm going to recognise a mp3 file thats
distributed as an XLS file with bytes of the file in consecutive cells of the spreadsheet?
or even simple CSV, or some XML schema...
how are you going to embed a drm watermark in something such that there is no way to transmit it... not possible...
gotta go...
Even then, there are numerous flaws in the idea, IMHO, simply based on the way Jo Public uses her PC. Check out my more lengthy response to this article here.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT after you.
My question is what happens when someone invents a virus that spreads through outlook express (imagine that) and just flashes the bios. If the ditial ID changes on the computer suddently the computer will be unusable because ms has to many checks to make sure it's not unlisenced hardware. At that point will consumers start to have a problems with it? If a whole company can't use their computers cause everyone opened an email called "natalie portman naked" will people still be jumping on the MS bandwagon?
ahh, the egg in the basket..
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
joe loser isnt going to know how to do that
That law's so stupid, there's no way congress could pass it. (DMCA, 1997).... Oh wait.
That law's so stupid, there's no way congress could pass it. (PATRIOT ACT)..... Oh wait.
That law's so stupid, there's no way congress could pass it. (SSSCA/CBPTA)..... Um, are you sure about that?
Indeed I can't see China, for one, being happy about having such an environment taking over their own security. Add the interest in Latin America and Europe in Linux and their continued distrust of Microsoft, and you have just the thing that could flatten M$ outside the US. Could be awful for Linux in the US, but the best thing that ever happened to it everywhere else...
My emphasis:
..."
"So far I haven't seen anything to suggest that the future I suggest here won't come to pass. The DMCA [US law] became law and no legal challenges to it have succeeded yet, the RIAA [US organisation] just killed independant Internet radio, the MPAA [US organisation] have pretty much successfully killed the open source DVD player, the MPLA [US organisation] are suggesting a fee structure for MPEG4 that will kill independant video streaming, Sony are bringing out computer-proof CDs, various attempts by the Senator for Disney [US govt] to install DRM into hard drives and onto motherboards,
Get the picture? This is a very serious issue for the USA, but there's a whole world out there whose governments are sick of paying protection money (and possibly importing security back doors) to Microsoft and whose governments aren't as totally in corporate pockets.
This is going to end up another US vs EU battle. I can see China on the EU side; who's going to side with the US? {Oh, wait, another job for Australia, with our Prime Minister quite rightly referred to as an "arse-licker" after his recent todying (sp?) trip to the US).
Justified to share holders by the persuing Linux as the only way to compete. The truth is more likely to be anti-linux... I don't use linux at the mo but i REALLY like the look of gentoo linux when I get broad band!
Thats it - the threads pretty dead - i had better sleep at some point...
Personally, I get by just fine without Windows. I don't don't run any version on Windows on my machines, or any Microsoft applications, with the exception of IE 5 which came bundled with MacOS X, and has long since been dumped in favour of Mozilla.
I don't understand why people are so upset over this. It's a free country where i live, and MS should be free to implement whatever stupid scheme they feel like.
It doesn't matter to me because I have chosen to invest the time and effort into finding myself a workable alternative precisely because i don't like the way MS operates.
That doesn't mean they don't have the right to operate, within the boundarys set be law and common decency, as they see fit.
The majority of the posts i see on this topic are bleating about how terrible this is and how motherboard manufacturers will only sell palladium-equipped motherboards, making it impossible to do certain things.
Well, This reminds me of Slot-1 from Intel, widely hailed as the death of AMD, when really it was the move that saved AMD, forcing their adoption of a different architecture, and bringing a real alternative to Intel on the desktop.
Or Rambus, which was widely hailed as the death-knell for the SD-RAM industry, when RDRAM was basically expensive, proprietary rubbish that put a huge dent in Intel's P4 strategy, again allowing AMD a big window leading to further inroads into Intel's desktop CPU domination.
Plus, there is the ridiculous irony that the only reason Microsoft is so successful is because of the minimal-to-non-existant anti-piracy measures implemented in all versions of windows up till XP.
People use Windows because they can happily warez the copy of Office their friend bought with ease and impunity. Take that away, and Windows is not nearly so attractive to Joe User.
In fact, it will likely drastically lower the gap between PC and Mac prices, making the Mac's higher hardware cost insignificant in comparison to the huge wad of dough you have to spend on apps anyway.. And since the Mac doesn't have palladium, well, you get the picture.
Linux exists in it's own little world of free/open source software, has got this far despite M$ and Apple, and doesn't seem to being going away any time soon due to soaring, unprecedented popularity never before seen from a non-commercial OS, and I really don't see how this affects it. You want GPL apps, and you can't get them on Windows - What do you do?
From the posts i've been reading, it seems that most people just go 'waaaaaaahhhhhh bad, bad M$', instead of taking a step off the slippery M$ slope , using one of the several capable alternative OSes, and ignoring this latest floating turd 'Palladium' in the constant stream of raw sewage that has been flowing out of Redmond for over ten years now.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Hailstorm failed for one BIG reason: No one in their right mind trusts Microsoft with security sensitive data. Corporations from AmEx to the average joe consumer didn't buy the claim that Microsoft would protect all this confidential data.
Now, we are to trust Microsoft to develop an all encompasing security platform? How do those bone-heads at Microsoft Marketing/Engineering think anyone at all will buy into this?
It takes a very long time to build security into your products, and an even longer time to build trust with customers. Microsoft has not done either, and this security platform will fail without the support of hardware vendors, software vendors, and people like you and me.
-ted
This could backfire badly on MS and turn them into the next AOL. Real internet users will have non DRM machines and OSs. The uninitiated will not. Granted the sheep are a big slice of the pie but people that provide services and run the internet will not allow themselves to be corraled. Imagine the root DNS servers being rejected by your box as unauthenticated.
AOL has a ton of users but no where near even 10% of the whole internet...
The wind blows.
Firestorms ravage the West.
Microsoft makes money.
Q: What do these things have in common?
A: They all have nothing to do with the GPL.
We've got to change our attitude and stop seeing doom around every corner and behind every bush. Why do you think that MS is going to such great lengths to cut Open Source/Free Software out of the picture?
The Open Source/Free Software communities pose a *very real and tangible threat* to the likes of MS and they will lie, cheat, steal, bribe, seduce and kill to maintain thier position.
We need to be tenacious, but we also need to stop spreading doom and gloom all the time...
BTW, one note on the use of the word "Palladium". In mythology, a statue of the goddess Pallas Athena stood in the city of Troy. It was believed that this statue afforded safety and security to the inhabitants. Two words: TROY FELL!
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
You'd better hope that quantam computing advancings I think.
Did I convict anyone? Sorry, I don't have that power. I accused them, and provided my own evidence. You don't buy the illegal patterns of behavior? 'Sokay, the court did. They've been convicted, more than once.
To your second point, criminals often have their rights curtailed. Particlar remedies are often applied to prevent criminal behavior in the future.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
I believe (on no basis other than my own suspicions) that Bill Gates just wants to be the Alpha Geek of the World. That's all that he's ever wanted, and in fact, if not for UNIX, one could say that he's got it. To every non-geek in the world, he's the Alpha Geek. To a lot of serious geeks, he's the Alpha Geek.
To everyone else, he's just a pathetic loser who never really wrote anything good on his own. He has no 'street cred'. Those people give Bill fits because they force him to confront the ugly truth.
Bill doesn't want to be 'irrelevant', so they come up with Palladium to lock everyone up in MS's monoculture. Maybe once all the competition is legislated out of existence, Bill will finally be able to live comfortably in denial of his own inadequacies.
Oh, sure, there are plenty of business reasons for Palladium - the RIAA and MPAA will love it, it will enforce licensing and increase revenues, yadda yadda. But I don't think that's really what they care about over in Redmond. They already have all the money in the world. Revenues don't mean squat to them. It's the (illusion of) supremacy that MS (and Bill) need.
So what can you do? I say, see MS and Bill for what they are - geek wannabes. What happens when you give billions in revenue to a script kiddie. Pity them. They are not worth your fear.
Because, you know, being seen as pitiful, is what THEY fear.
Said product will be marketed as "New and Tasty!" ;D
Because if it were not for Linux, Apache and BSD, we would all run proprietary MSN connections and only big corporations could afford going online with webpages.
which appears to clearly indicate that you believe Slashdot uses open source out of monetary concerns.
No it doesn't... at least, not to me. To me it reads pretty clearly that without free software the entire internet would be proprietary and require mega amounts of cash to participate in - too much for, say, the hobbiests who started slashdot. He DOESN'T say Slashdot HAS to use free software because proprietary is too expensive right now.
Toadying...
:)
I'm impressed - the only misspelled word in your post has an (sp?) after it! Hooray!
Actually AOL had far more to do with the failure of MSN than Linux did.