Coursey on Palladium

lrose writes "Check out this story over at ZDNet -- Microsoft is developing a secure operating system to be combined with hardware doing public key cryptography. The DRM aspect reminds me of something I read about an imaginary day in the not-too-distant future, where you can no longer install Linux on your own box because you don't have the necessary rights." Coursey's column is quite interesting, bringing a lot more of the backstory behind Palladium into public view. While geeks have been following and worrying about the TCPA, Microsoft has been working to spin the story with assorted columnists and journalists, so that when it broke it would be in the context that Steven Levy bought into hook, line and sinker: a scheme to protect you rather than one to prevent you from using your computer in unapproved ways.

Comments

Another John Gilmore quote

[splorf]

Be very glad that your PC is insecure--it means that after you buy it, you can break into it and install whatever software you want. What YOU want, not what Sony or Warner or AOL wants.
--John Gilmore (quoted in Ross Anderson, Security Engineering p. 413)

Looks like Microsoft wants to fix that and make sure you can't control your own computer. That which is not forbidden will be compulsory.

"That story you read somewhere"

[cananian]

I believe that "that story [the poster] read somewhere" was Richard Stallman's "dystopian short story" The Right To Read. I'd recommend giving it a gander, as it appears RMS was remarkable prescient: his story was published five years ago in the Communications of the ACM.

Re:Interesting

[Jucius Maximus]

"The problem with this thinking is that many American consumers remain entirely ignorant about what's under the hood as far as their OS is concerned. From Windows 3.11 to Windows XP, if it came on the PC, it was called "Windows", and it just sort of was there. Thus, if PC retailers buy in to Palladium, the vast majority of consumers will pick it up too. MS will get their cash, the [RI||MP]AA will get their DRM-based OS, and a lot of folks will get screwed in the process."

In the midst of all this, I can't help wondering about Apple. They just started their hardcore 'www.apple.com/switch' campaign with TV ads where people talk about how they switched away from their 'horrid little PCs.' Maybe the timing was not by accident. Perhaps they are trying to gain critical mass so they can facilitate a mass switch at the time they estimate Palladium hardware will appear in real machines.

The strategists at Apple must be following this news very closely -- they are probably working on their strategy right now. Rip/Mix/Burn is probably only the beginning. I expect that they will try to equate MacOS with Freedom while Windows == The Borg or something similar.

Yes, Steve Jobs is licking his lips right now. He and his team are laying the foundations right now in preparation for a possible mass exodus from windows, wanting to make sure Apple's arms are waiting and open and they have critical mass in users so popular opinion and word of mouth will divert former Windows users onto MacOS. (I certainly think that this is more likely than a mass exodus into Linux!)

I think that things are gonna get interesting.

Linux and the desktop front

[Dalcius]

Disclaimer: opinion follows. Notice sig.

Once businesses change over to a Linux desktop to avoid subscription licensing fees, software lock-in, and improve interoperability (read: open standards), people will learn Linux. They will see how fast, easy, stable and simple it is to use for normal applications.
*Note: before you debate me on these points, please take the time to use a RH 7.x system with Ximian GNOME - install and usage really is simple for the avg. joe. At least it is for my family and friends.

Once employees see this, they'll want Linux at home. And the Linux desktop market will develop, much like it did with Windows in the early 90's. Wal-Mart and Fry's already sell lower-end Linux based PCs. I've heard speculation for a long time that the retailers would never sell a Linux box until a market developed.

Honestly, I don't see a feasible market at the moment, besides selling to Linux junkies like myself. Over about 95% of all desktops today are running Windows, a few percent are Macs, and even fewer (desktops, mind you, not total boxen) run Linux. Even so, Wal-Mart, a very large company, is investing in a tiny sliver of the desktop market.

Maybe they're willing to take a greater risk than many of us thought? Maybe their ITs have more insight into the future of the desktop than many of us thought? I can't find any other reason than those -- if anyone has any ideas, please say so.

One thought is that Macs are still around and don't have but a few percent. Although this is comparable to Linux, Linux is new and there is no guarantee of returned money on an investment. Mac junkies have been around for quite some time, and have continued to purchase Macs.

In either case, two years ago, I didn't think Linux was for anyone but developers. Now my mom can use it, and she's not even average when it comes to computer literacy. Linux has come so far in the last 2 years that I don't see how it can't go further. The user and developer bases are growing, and it looks like Linux is here to stay.

Stability and options have been here. Features (e.g. virtual desktops) have been here. Openness and freedom have been here. Ease of use is becoming more common, and the user base is growing. The only thing this Linux junkie sees missing is application/file-type support, but that is coming as well, and quickly.

I forsee Linux busting into the desktop market and becoming a serious contender within two years. Of course it will take time for a large change, but I think it's coming.

No death of commodity PCs

[GCP]

I'm assuming that by "commodity PC" you mean a standard x86 machine onto which you can install a non-MS x86 OS.

If the chips/BIOS are set up in such a way as to literally prevent the installation of a non-MS OS onto the bare machine, then there will be enough market demand for machines without this restriction that the market will fork. I'm not claiming that it will fork half-and-half, just that there will be enough demand in the world to create a market. The market may be too small or politically sensitive for the likes of Dell or HPAQ, but some Asian manufacturer(s) could make a good living off that market.

More likely, the existence of the extra crypto hardware can be accommodated by new designs in Linux/*BSD/etc. and might actually become quite useful to a user with complete personal control over its capabilities.

Installation vs. Usage - Mac 10 Windows 7, Linux 1

[schmaltz]

install and usage really is simple for the avg. joe.

Installation of a Windows or Mac software package is *nothing* like on a Linux box. Flame me if you will, I just don't know what to call this expectation on the part of Linux jocks -egoism, chauvinism- but downloading and manually building a package and its dependencies, sometimes rebuilding the kernel. It's just not the same as an installshield-type GUI installer, and I won't apologize for it.

Debian comes closer on this -this is my daily system. Even though I love it, I could never, ever expect family members or non-tech friends to support their own system. If they lived under the same roof, yes, of course. But to hand somebody a CD and say, go ahead, you can replace your Windows installation, is just silly. Your typical non-tech won't make it past disk partitioning unaided.

Take, f'rinstance, video formats. Yes, there is a package now for viewing AVIs under Linux. But to get it working is another matter. And compare Mac TCP/IP versus Linux -a single, simple dialog box versus the commandline (yes, I know various distros have dialogs too, but they mostly suck, and I'm talking about Linux common denominators here.)

In order for Linux to "rule" the desktop (as many hope it will), there needs to be the same simplicity in setup, maintenance and use as its competition- MacOS and Windows. Otherwise, Linux will never get more marketshare.