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Malaysian Police Not Roping Longhorn Rustlers
Artifex writes "CNN/Reuters reports that an early release of Microsoft's next operating system, 'Longhorn,' is already being sold openly in markets in Malaysia, with local police doing little to stop it. Microsoft's response, of course, is that consumers should steer clear. I'm sure this chaps their hides, as crashing copies of this as-yet-unreleased product are sure to cause dilution of branding."
It seems that the utility of such a release would be limited at best. Perhaps the publicizing of this simply serves as more proverbial "egg on the face" of Microsoft than any other purpose.
StyleChief
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! -M. Python
Malaysia is one of those countries that is official Islamic, and punishes those who do not worship the Muslim god. If Longhorn were known as a Jewish OS, you'd have maniacs burning install CD's in the streets and laws being passed to ban it.
Look, if you buy alpha-grade software from ANYWHERE and it starts to crash or behave oddly then you don't get a chance to complain to somebody.
When I played through Half-Life 2 a while back and monsters didn't render I didn't post my disgust to any online forums; I just realised that I was playing an unreleased, buggy version of the software and should be glad for what I saw at all.
The only solution to piracy in the third world is free, open-source software. Many countries being harassed by the various shady trade organizations for piracy, such as China, Brazil, and Vietnam, are switching over to open source as much as possible. There is no way that people who live on a dollar a day are going to be able to shell out hundreds of dollars every year for proprietary, closed-source software, and software companies are foolish to worry about it.
In fact, the Malaysian authorities punishing such persecution, usually at the indirect prodding of US corporations and the US corporate government, will backfire. If there's no persecution Windows is 95% pirated, then Microsoft makes 5% -- if they are persecuted and forced to switch to free software, and FreeBSD gets used for everything, then Microsoft gets 0%. Supporting punishment of third-world pirates, thus forcing them to switch to free software, is actually good for the open source movement.
I mean, the definition of the word "piracy".
It is very obvious to me that this Longhorn system is not something people can use today, as it is. I mean, MS will still work on it for a long while before it can be trusted upon (if then).
So, what use are they except as a "preview" of what MS is cooking ? And, as a "preview", how much different is it from an article about it ? And how much can it hurt ? Everything that looks good will be "wow", everything that looks bad will be "can't wait for them to fix it"!
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Microsoft have to say "oh, we wish this wasn't happening". If they didn't say that, the west would get annoyed, and complain about unfairness. (because we all know how badly off the west is :-)
Microsoft can get enforcement whenever they want, but in poorer countries, the market saturation is more important. (and that these illegal copies will train people to know Microsoft).
When they want to flip the table, they complain to the US govt, the US govt threatens to put malasia on the 301 Watch List (list of countries where the US aren't happy with "IP enforcement). Once they go on this list, people are afraid to trade with them, the IMF stops loaning them cash, and the World Bank stops rolling over it's existing loans. This happened to Korea already (and it was Microsoft that made it happen).
Add to this that the US delegation to the WIPO summits always contains Microsoft representatives (as "industry experts"), and you have a lot of control, without being visible, whenever they want.
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If, indeed, the police are treating this issue as secondary to illegal pornography, then I would say they are on the right track.
Not that I am against pr0n as such, but a lot of human suffering goes into producing much of it, especially much of the cheap, street quality stuff. Most of the characters are drugged/coerced into performing by their overlords, any many do it out of necessity, in order to get their square meals. Most of them are prostitutes, who were forced in by pimps/etc.
So, to end the rant, I think the police have their priorities right, if they're more worried about stopping the pr0n racket than protecting the rights of a multi-billion dollar company.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Still too pricy for me though...compared to the 0$ I'm sure I can get it for. Don't know why i'd want it but....
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
Buggy or not is not the issue... it is the "leak" part that is interesting.
From Microsoft's view point, the more long horn leaks (and that too in poorer markets), the better it is.. it is all about market penetration and training future work force...
Microsoft can get the government's attention in a flash, but it is much better for them this way... and, don't forget the sympathy points they will earn at home by crying foul about lost revenue (and hence taxes).
People who make $200/week are not going to have to pay $200 or more for Microsoft's latest product....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Heaven forbid someone say something good about MS, right? We can't handle such cognitive dissonance!
The Microsoft PR juggernaut is hitting full stride. "Any PR is good PR!"
I think somewhere, a Microsoft employee (or contractor) leaked this pre-release copy out to the web just to get some free testing.
It makes sense... leak it, and just listen. Learn what the rest of the world has to say.
Let's say that the programmers/contractors want to know what the world thinks: If they release a pre-alpha, the news media might not like it, MS would see their market value take a hit. If the pirates don't like it, too bad... but it's not a loss, it's a learning situation.
Secondly, MS, if they were just a bit smarter, could put some positive spin on this event by saying, "Hey, Longhorn is so good that pirates are making $1.50 on pre-alpha copies... just wait until we get a few more bugs worked in... I mean out."
One last thought:
Anyone stupid enough to pay $1.58 for a pre-alpha release has probably gotten exactly what they deserve.
-- No sig for you!
This comment, nor any of the atttempts under it are funny. Why do you even try to be?
Six months before it's released, they'll change the name to Windows 2006 or whatever and all of the bad press goes away. Sheep consumers hear Windows 2006 and think, "Well, it's not that Longhorn version I've heard so many bad things about, so it must be okay." They buy it up because they're too scared to try anything else even though the new EULA says that MS can turn on your webcam and watch you any time they want.
How the hell do you manage to crash XP once or twice a day? If that's the case it's a setup issue, not an inherit stability issue with XP. Puhlez.
"(Hey, someone's going to get modded-up for taking cheap shots at Microsoft. May as well be me!)"
The problem with cheap shots taken at Microsoft is that they're exhausted. It'd be nice if people here cracking jokes about Windows actually used it so they'd not only be informed about what they're cracking on, but also they'd be able to cook up new jokes.
BSOD == Old news, funny back in 1998. Uncommmon occurance in Win2k/XP.
"A problem has occured, but we'd prefer you just tell us back at HQ than actually tell you what's happening" == Modern XP, funny today.
"Derp de derp."
Ahem. I have seen this in at least several countries. Intentional leaks including leaks by authorized MSFT staff (on payroll). No persecution, nothing until the market penetration hits 90+% and Novell, Oracle, IBM and other companies stupid enough to ask money for software disappear into oblivion. And then comes Billy Boy to talk with the PM and starts tightenting the bolts. In three years the country is paying the standard MSFT rate and it cannot switch because there is no personnel trained in alternatives and there is no money for alternatives because all IT software budget money goes to MSFT. There is simply no free money around on the IT budgets for any conversions.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I agree. I use XP about 9 hours a day and usually reboot about once every month. Not because I have to, but because i feel like it.
I've had it "reboot"/lockup on me three times in 8 months and that has been when playing a game.
If it's screwing up every single day, then you have a bad install. Plain and simple.
Can you point me in the direction of these non crappy drivers?
hey!
That's a sad truth? Seems only fair after MS has put so many other companies out of business with their crimes.
> XP laptop that has never bluescreened
I already admitted that I have seen several machines without stability problems.
> That's true of any OS.
I'd say yes, the variability itself (the range) is pretty wide on any OS. But I'd wager a guess that Windows' stability with respect to each computer has an approximately uniform distribution (any level of stability ranging from unstable to stable is equally likely)* over {computer1, computern}, while other platforms have different distributions.
This is speculation, but I'd suspect that Mac OS X has a distribution looking more or less like a normal curve, with its left tail at about 60% stable and its peak at 95% stable, plus a little spike at "0% stable" to account for those Macs with really sick OS installs, and the occasional freak issue (e.g. nuked FW drives).
I'd peg Unix in general as probably about the same.
*I say this because the various (at least 50) Windows XP installations that I've used have been approximately all over the map in terms of stability. Many very good, many very bad, many at varying degrees in between.