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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."
Microsoft is just hastening their ultimate demise. It's been clear for several years that the commoditisation of their core product sectors - office suites and operating systems - was going to drive them out of business. Now, where are the great brave new strategies that will breath life into their products? Patches. Delayed releases. New anti-spyware and anti-virus aquisitions. Blocking Wine users from MSIE downloads.
MS are dead and their cash pile will disappear faster than a fridgeful of champagne in a brothel on Monday morning.
It's a shame. If only MS had released a suite for Linux about 2 years ago, they'd be sailing pretty by now.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I thought Open Source was supposed to be soooooo much better. At least, that's what you read DAILY here on /.
Why haven't the open source community come up with the killer apps to once and for all vault them into the REAL arena? I would think they'd be sick of standing in the shadows.
And if you're not running the OS you seek an update on... Switch - or don't bitch.
Visualize Whirled P.'s
Hush! This is Slashdot! The information wants to be free... and anthropomorphised... but mostly free.
Oh, and Microsoft is always evil. Even when Bill Gates is donating over a US$1 Billion to charity...
Deep rooted beliefs die hard, even when they're not always true.
get over yourselffffffffffff. fo sheezey. WINE != WINDOWS BOXES.
why hasn't some nut job gone off and offed Bil yet? I mean I would never do anything directly to harm anyone... but I'd be quite happy to have him dad if I could I say it wasn't my fault at all.
Maybe the next place for U.S. troops sahould be Redmond...
How can I compete against someone that sells pirate editions of Windows, with a piece of hardware that is often sold just above cost, $80 is enough for a customer to go elsewhere, even on some of the higher-end systems.
Myself by using the anti-piracy sheets that Microsoft puts out was not only able to get a corporate sale worth $30,000 (plus consulting), but was able to prevent them from throwing their money at a COA reseller, which would have put them out of compliance for the audit that was scheduled with the BSA a month out.
Sure this probably make me evil in the eyes of many of the /.ers, but it doesn't really matter to most who are in this industry, because all that matters is that we are able to put the food on the table every night.
HAHAHAHA!!!! OMFG, U S0 R0CK ME W0RLD!!!!!! U R TEH FUNNAY!!!1!
Pirated w2k3 becomes a heavy doorstop after installing sp1.
Yes, OH YES!!! HOW dare they!!
Hey, your cabin in the woods is on fire, better go tend to it before all your explosives go off. Freak. They most certainly can dictate where Office runs, both office and windows are their products you moron. If someone makes something exclusively for a particular platform, then don't whine and bitch about how it won't run on your platform. You know the solution? Go to the developer of the product in question. I.e. I want Starcraft on linux, why should I bitch at Microsoft? Why didn't Blizzard do a linux native version of it? I swear some (a great deal actually) of the people on /. really need to see a shrink. You get a little too worked up when you hear the name Microsoft.
Linux sucks. And you're fat. Take a shower hippy.
If I purchase Office, run it under WINE and want to update it, I'm screwed -- yet I am a legit customer of Microsoft.
Ok, I have moderator points and I'm inclined to mark you as a troll but I know how it feels to get modded down for an opinion. Answer this: How many people are using Linux and a legitimate copy of Office?
Why use Microsoft Office at all when you have accepted the concept of Open Source Software? OpenOffice does the same stuff and performs significantly better under Linux than anything running under Wine or Crossover.
Laws are for people with no friends.
I now see the logic. If I want to keep my copy of M$ software updated, I must run it on a Windoze machine. After all, Micro$oft now tells me that they are cheaper at the level of the TCO and more secure. So, it is bye-bye Linux, bye-bye OpenOffice, bye-bye Nvu, bye-bye Mozilla, bye-bye Firefox. Now I know that I need Windoze Fisher Price (XP). Now I know I need M$ Office. Now I know I need FrontPage. Now I know I need Outlook. Now I know I need IE. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have not seen this before? Praise the Lord! Bill, can I have your babies too? [Would someone please pass the Soma!]
Wow, you own Office. How did that happen, Every time I talked to Microsoft about it they just sold the right to use it, not own it.
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
"These people are not real business people. They survive only by being adversarial toward the world."
That's the single most stupid ass thing I have read all day...and I am a socialist at heart!! Wake the F up, business is about adversarial relationships. Well, capitolist economy business is anyway. Care to list all the companies that have flourished under any other strategy? I keep reading the statement, sure that I am missing something and no one who has the IQ to spell could be that off the mark...and I keep reading it...
BTW - If Ford refused to do an oil change on anything but a Ford, would any of you little girls be whining? It is their site, their content, their downloads. If they say, "Only people wearing hoolah skirts and woman's underwear can download from our site" then that is how it is. Yah, there are discimination laws and what-not, I am not arguing the specifics, I am arguing the philosophy.
If you use the software you agree, its pretty damned simple. If you dont agree with THEIR terms, you dont have a right to use it. Period. End of story. Any court would back THEM up, not you.
Also you only bought a license to use. Nothing in that box belongs to you.
Nice little dream world you live in.
Explain your fantasies to the judge.
---- Booth was a patriot ----