New Chips Keep Tight Rein on Consumers

banannaslug writes "NYTimes (subscription, etc.) talks about Microsofts Palladium. The article addresses how applications of controlling technology affect competition as well as the consumer, can be used to extend monopolies to new markets and has very serious implications for what happens to user driven innovation. We'd have the people's operating system, the people's web browser and the people's media player, and 'computers' would be as useful to innovation as a bicycle to a fish. This is the kind of behavior you expect in a mature industry that tries to add 'law' to preserve failing market models dependent on a lack of competition. Next thing you know they'll want to force customers to upgrade periodically." Point it out to your boss.

Comments

Forthose who dont want to register with NYT.

[h4mmer5tein]

name : spamfree pw : spamfree

much more informative articles

[Ristretto]

Here's where the story was first reported in the mainstream press, with far more information, analysis, and interviews: Newsweek article by Stephen Levy. You might also want to read Microsoft's own take on this initiative.

Re:Hmm

[FuzzyDaddy]

Yes it does matter if it's GPL'd.

Remember Microsoft's "opening" of the SMB protocol? The license agreement stated it could not be incorporated with any code that used the GPL or similar license.

So they can very well open up the source code, but not allow it to be used in any GPL'd system.