Microsoft Blocking Wine Users From Downloads Site

IamTheRealMike writes "In January, Microsoft announced a new anti-piracy initiative called Genuine Advantage. From this summer onwards all users of Microsoft Downloads will be required to validate using either an ActiveX control or a standalone tool. Yesterday Ivan Leo Puoti, a Wine developer, discovered that the validation tool checks directly for Wine and bails out with a generic error when found. This is significant as it's not only the first time Microsoft has actively discriminated against users running their programs via Wine, but it's also the first time they've broken radio silence on the project."

Comments

bah

[chalkoutline]

Didn't they do something like this with the Trillian protocol on MSN Messenger? They hate third parties.

yet another lawsuit waiting

[confusion]

Sadly, the only people that are gaining anything, even when MS loses anti-trust cases, are the lawyers. I don't see this one getting that far, though.

I'm guessing that the only real downloads a Wine user would be making are updates for Office, correct? I'm drawing a blank on what else it could be. I haven't had the time to read my MS office EULA yet, but I'm guessing it doesn't specifically call out that it has to be run on Windows. That doesn't mean that MS has to provide you support if you're not. This is an automated incarnation of what has happened for years:
me> I need support
support> You're computer case isn't blue, is it?
me> yes, it is, thanks for asking
support> We don't support our software on computers with blue cases. Thanks for calling.
me> argh!
I think we've all been in that boat at one point or another.

Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

[mcleodnine]

I run Microsoft Office under CodeWeavers' Crossover Office, both of which are licensed (read: I paid for it), so yes, I find the news disturbing.

It also appears to be a very shortsighted move on their part while under a worldwide antitrust microscope.

Re:Bad, bad Microsoft.... no cookie for you!

[DrNibbler]

How many people are using Linux and a legitimate copy of Office?

As long as the answer is > 0 does it matter? This is the same logic that supports a MS tax on new machine purchaes. From a business standpoint is this anyway to treat a customer?

Why use Microsoft Office at all when you have accepted the concept of Open Source Software? OpenOffice does the same stuff and performs significantly better under Linux than anything running under Wine or Crossover.

For a number of reasons my work box is a dual booted box running XP and Linux. In order to use email here I must use Outlook (corporate rules). To avoid playing the reboot to get my mail game I'm running MS-Office under Crossover. The copy is legally licensed as part of our site license (we even counted it as a seperate install from the one that runs on the windows partition). Please tell me why I should not be allowed to update Office.