Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Windows Software Distribution
Diomidis Spinellis writes "Microsoft's Windows Marketplace Labs offer a
preview of their Digital Locker technology.
The Digital Locker uses Microsoft's Passport Network to allow Windows users to search, buy, and download software from multiple retailers, storing their product keys for future installations.
Both retailers offering the service support digital rights management technologies:
Digital River promotes its SoftwarePasport, and
eSsellerate its Product Activation technology.
Will this technology trigger an across-the-board adoption of DRM for Windows software?
How will it affect the distribution of free and open-source software?"
The first stop on the path to web services.
First they get you used to having no packaging, then they get you with the subscription service.
This is the future for software distribution... or at least installing software
Passport? My ASS.
Chances of there being a paypal option for this service?
I don't think so.
I say use bit torrent to distribute windows and then poison the bitch to death!!
Sorry, just had to...
From the article: Microsoft has partnered with Digital River and eSellerate
Is this Microsoft working with the industry, instead of buying them? If so, is this a sign of change for the better at MS?
Digiatal Rights Confiscation
...I often wonder whose 'rights' are they protecting, or if they were rights at all. I mean, rights aren't supposed to be taken away from you no matter what, right?
Amazon already has a "Digital Locker" into which digital items like DVD extras, Users Manuals, and extra music tracks are instantly stored whenever you make an associated purchase. They actually call it your Digital Locker.
I wonder if anyone in MS marketing has been shopping at Amazon lately?
Error:
Didn't Passport get cancelled? Are they building new systems based on a deprecated
system?
And I presume those guys forbid Java or Linux base applications to be delivered ;-)
... now to make money, you will have to use MS technogy.
Welcome to the wonderland
When people are starting to "contraint" people to use their production, isn't it what we call a cartel ?
What does Passport authentication have to do with Open Source s/w distribution? Has Amazon or eBay affected s/w distribution? So why should an MS authentication scheme do it?
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Would turn up all the software I need, and I dont need to manage my product keys because I dont have any.. Q1: "How will it affect the distribution of free and open-source software?" Q2: Does it affect the distribution of open-source software at all?
http://www.rajeshgoli.com
Q: Am I buying my software directly from Microsoft?
A: The Digital Locker on Windows Marketplace Labs is not a software retailer. Microsoft, with your permission, communicates your purchase information to the retailers to help complete your transactions.
Seems they are just a store front using their name to sell 3rd party software. Keeping all the licenses of your purchased software in a Digital Locker on your system might actually be convenient for the average Windows user. The program is supposed to also be able to make backup cds of purchased software as well.
I'm sure there's something I'm not seeing but it doesn't seem such a bad move to me.
Sample this!
I don't think it will effect Open Source much at all. However user friendly it gets it can't get much quicker and simpler than a GUIed-over apt-get, such as Synaptic found in Ubuntu. Then again there's a lot of Open Source software availible for Windows aswell... Maybe the submitter was questioning the stand of Open Source vs. closed source on the Windows platform alone?
All rites reversed 2010
I fucked up the acronym (DMC = Digital Might Confiscation ?).
People still buy software?
I've no doubt DRM will come on strong and dominate the marketplace. I don't think the geek crowd will deter the onslaught of DRM. Much of our western culture is based on conspicuous consumption. People like to have their purchases imprinted with some sign of authenticity and, strangely, high price. While I've difficulty finding the time to read /., the Reg and my mailing lists, there are many people who love junk mail and spam, the more so if it's personalized, so having their every move online sprout offers to buy this and that may be flattering to them.
"How will it affect the distribution of free and open-source software?"
I've pretty much said my goodbyes to Windows, my multimedia, web box runs XP, but I'm moving onto AMD 64 and freeBSD for everything else. Windows was grating enough to run but recently MS seems to totally own my web box, needing to authenticate every patch and update, (it's like a security firm that promises to protect your premises then has a break-in and theft at their headquarters and, follows up with a notice to its customers that it will be rummaging through each customer's house looking for its stolen gear).
Free Open source software will continue to grow by leaps and bounds, with more government agencies signing on. It's sometimes difficult to see the growth in FOSS adoption, but when I first bought Mandrake6 the brick and mortar places Linux could be found were few and far between, now it's readily avialable and every computer book store has aisles of books on FOSS.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
A while ago: http://www.livejournal.com/users/alamar/21818.html
It's in Russian thought, you'll need to babelfish it to actually read.
Feeling like Cassandra.
Why should this put a hamper on OSS distribution? Isn't this just Windows trying to be more like Linux, i.e. like apt-get or CNR for Linspire?
I don't think that this really would hurt OSS distribution at all, but would instead provide more of a reason to use OSS.
Sadly, Google doesn't seem to translate Russian to English.
nothing about this is good.
DRM takes all the rights away from the purchaser. thats what it's all about pure and simple. what this kind of thing heralds is a future where unless you pay through the nose to MS they won't allow you to run your software on windows, due to it not having a DRM license.
they will no doubt claim it's to protect you. fuck where have i heard that shit before?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Despite what you say about MS, they certainly have a lot of smart guys working for them. They're making it harder and harder to pirate, and since they have a monopoly on the OS market, they will be able to leverage that monopoly into something like this to combat piracy.
Ignore Alien Orders
And actually, the way I did it was that me and a couple of guys I worked with would split the cost of registering the software. Yeah, not exactly the way it was supposed to work, but the author got money, and we got what we considered a semi-legal copy of the software, and we registered quite a bit of software.
Now, if I register a shareware program, quite a bit of it checks in with a server to validate the key, and if you even try and install it on say, your laptop, at the same time, you are screwed. I registered a couple of programs a while back that if my HD crashed, I guess I would have to e-mail the author and **beg** them to let me reinstall the programs.
And I tell you what, the amount of money leaving my hands has greatly reduced because of the above. I now look first to free/open source software or, believe it or not, commerical software, which is still light on the DRM, even though it is moving in that direction. If I smell DRM, I avoid the software at all costs.
I can only imagine that shareware author's revenue is decreasing...but hey, they cut down on some piracy...and all those big bad pirates who installed software they **paid** for on more than one computer in clear violation of the EULA.
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
Like a package repository.
(except unfree taking away valuable beermoney)
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
now I'm supposed to buy games copy-protecteds on-line. It's easier and cheaper download it from P2P networks, and without limitations.
This seems more like a crippled, intrusive version of Apt-Get. Hardly compelling, compared to Ubuntu's synaptic...
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Try the "Take a tour" option. How many times can they say "Works with Windows"?
Inquiring minds want to know!
I'm just here to regulate Funkyness
Security on the Passport network isn't great - hotmail accounts are generally quite easy to steal, as anyone who's had the misfortune to use MSN Groups will confirm.
Suddenly, stealing a hotmail account is a way of committing piracy !
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
They need this kind of technology to compete with free software
The absence of license key for openoffice and linux for example
is more tempting for a switch than the freeness that the sotware gives.
Judging from the eSellerate website, it looks like (hopefully) you can install the software multiple times on one machine, but should you want to move it, you're screwed. If that's the case, I hope the software is much cheaper. In oher words, if MS doees this with say Office Standard, I won't pay more than $25 - and that's being generous.
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
Before Product Activation (or similar models) people could freely buy new computers, transferring all of their software for themselves, while keeping it on their old one for the kids. You were safe knowing that your "investment" in software didn't go to waste with that new computer. (I'm NOT saying this was legal, but it's a VERY common practice.)
That will change now that software will be tied to a single computer. Imagine spending several hundred bucks in software, which is quite easy considering the price of anti-virus software and office suites today. A few years later you want to buy a new computer, but all the software will have to be bought all over again. Is it worth it? Maybe. Maybe not.
The point is that people won't be free to upgrade anymore. There will be a cost in addition to the hardware. Replacing all the software you've already bought.
One company could be helped but this, though: Apple. If you have to buy all new software anyway, you might as well switch and go with a Mac.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Imagine if MS went to all hardware vendors and told them that the only drivers that could be distributed had to go through MS's DRM gateway. Or, to put a friendly face on it, in order to distribute drivers they had to go exclusively through MS's DRM gateway and while of course those vendors were free to create open source drivers, there would be no mechanism for thoe OS drivers to validate and therefore pass through the MS DRM gateway. This would quickly squash the
So, you're working the weekend to get a report finished that *has* to be done for Monday. Coincidentally, the electrical engineers are working the weekend, too. Off goes your power for half an hour, and when it comes up, it turns out the power cut neatly nuked your license file. None of your software will open.
Your options:
1) Wait till 9am Monday, when the Software Licensing Helpline opens, spend two hours convincing unsympathetic staff you're not a criminal, then do four hour's work in 30 minutes
2) Head over to openoffice.org and sourceforge.net, grab some software that will work *now*, finish the report.
The real victims will be smaller software producers that don't use the system. And, of course, anyone who whose software is doing too well against a Microsoft product, who may just find themselves barred from the system. But then, a convicted monopolist wouldn't do anything like that, would they?
Time will tell if this is another DRM hinderance which adds value to OSS, or if they made things easier (no more typing in insanely long license keys). I'm guessing the former.
Why would I want another copy of my license key floating around on a public network? Especially with MS "guarding"it. I would even venture to say that my license keys are more secure because they don't have a central access point (ie: different companies). If I were to use this service and someone could contact MS and autheticate they could grab _all_ of my license keys. Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Maya would total several thousand dollars in hard earned cash.
I won't even get into them wanting my credit card number. I've avoided giving them one for a couple of decades now and I'm not about to give in ;)
Second: This is where they are taking Passport? Didn't Ebay leave the program a while back? From what I remember the list of participants is teeny.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
If you can admit that there is a place for shareware on Linux, as opposed to freeware, then, having a mechanism such as this is a godsend for independent authors.
With my shareware registration service now, regnow, I have the ability to not only get paid myself, but, also, to share the wealth with web sites that host my product and drive sales to it. So for example, I might wind up paying a particular site a 40% commission on sales if they sold a copy of Commodity Server.
This is my sig.
The harder it gets to pirate Windows and all the various apps on it the more the value of OSS shines through. Today not many pay for their software in general. Even Windows XP Home is swapped out fairly quickly for a pirated version of XP Pro in many cases.
When you make a headcount and calculate what the total sum of all the installed software on a normal computer is OSS has a pretty great advantage that not many appriciates since they dont pay for their comercial software.
HTTP/1.1 400
Why would you ever need PayPal when we have GREAT services like MSN Wallet avalible???
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
When touting the security advantages of their "new" OS (remember when it was longhorn) M$ not only wanted to validate software licenses but upgrades. And here was the catch....say you are using acrobat pro for your business and you decide to skip an upgrade and its detected in the "digital locker" it disables all the adobe documents on your puter and renders them useless until you upgrade. When you mention piracy, M$ doesnt care, they just want to bilk coorporations and the digital locker crap is why many people i talk to are NOW willing to listen to advantages of foss........no one better promotes foss than M$
Feels like M$ is building a custom, personal sourceforge. There are many practical applications for this.
Restore and recovery comes to mind first. With ubiquitous broadband connections, its not as big a deal to d/l full version software packages.
Or perhaps, something even cooler, a full system mirroring, online.
As useful as this would be for an individual, think how useful this would be for corporations. Disater recovery from a corporations point of view would be a no brainer.
Building burned down? Just buy a couple servers and d/l everything from M$.
This could eliminate $1000s/yr off the company's bottom line in media storage, tape back up, etc...
That is, of course, until M$ jacks up the pricing once they cornered the market.
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
Look, people didn't want Passport or Hailstorm. Microsoft just won't be told.
First they invent Tinderbox, then they invent Synaptic. Is there anything those Microsoft guys can't do?
It's called Steam. It's been done microsoft.
Darn!, I didn't think anybody was watching!
I will continue to use GNU/GPLed FOSS software ONLY!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I make my living using free software pretty much exclusively. If I use any proprietary software, it is on *my* terms. Period.
Digital River was and may still be the preferred mail/shipping firm for SuSE, a major Linux distributer. It may be the preferred distributer for other Linux distributions as well. If Microsoft gets its hooks into this company, then Novell, who holds SuSE now and others may have to seek other distributers. This happens often enough and it will become difficult for Linux companies to ship their product through third party bulk distributers, especially in foreign countries. This is especially relevant, or was for SuSE, a German company that used Digital River for shipping its new products to customers in the United States. As for 'online distribution', the real answer is to not accept this form of product delivery, as it is not really a delivery. I use a dial-up connection that has a habit of going down quite often, interrupting downloads. There is nothing more useless than a broken download. I know that a windows shareware product called 'Lightning Download' can remedy this problem; but it is for windows users only; OK!, you can use windows to download a linux program and then copy it to your Linux system by whatever means. But what does this say for Linux if it has to be babysat by windows whenever it has a problem. Linux should be able to take care of itself if it is ever to be able to call itself truly a viable alternative to windows. This includes track and sector editors, secure deletion and shredding programs, easy formatters, registry and log file editors and secure deleters, internet cookie and intrusive spyware secure deleters, obsessive 'history' shredders, and other hardware and low level software utilities that windows has historically abounded with. Note that this above should all be GUI based, as handling hundreds of thousands of files scattered over thousands of directories and tens of networked CPUs with a command line oriented console application file by dreary file is a formula for a digital hell that we will not willingly subscribe to. Why do we use dial-up? Because the high speed internet companies in the locally available area are a monopoly, and this monopoly has decreed support only for windows systems using MSN if one wants high speed internet. We will use neither!
There has an strange correlation with previous new
There is little room for "shareware" or "freeware" on Linux. What do they offer that open source software does not?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
You don't need DRM to do this. Valve did it just fine with Steam for Half Life 2, etc. If you get the steam client you'll see that there are now plenty of 3rd party games there too.
I know I'd buy more software (well games specifically) if I could get them from Steam.
The goal is to only have LEASED software, not software you own. They will get everyone using MS software locked into rental to provide a recurring revenue stream. Don't pay, your computer doesn't work anymore (unless you liberate yourself with Free Software).
I'm the same way. I have two PC's at home and many Virtual PC's for various reasons. Apart from MS products, anything that I must have that requires any semblance of activation goes into a GuestOS. The problem is that if I apply a patch to VirtualPC or VMWare (beginning to lean towards VMWare these days) then most activations fail and need to be reactivated. That has prevented me from upgrading my VirtualPC 5.2 to MS Virtual PC 2004.
The bottom line is that until 2004 I would spend untold thousands of dollars in software. I'm a developer, and developer tools don't come cheap (on the Windows platforms) and various other software packages I liked to have. But more and more, they are required activation (tying it to a machine). My machines upgrade quickly. I upgrade and replace early, upgrade and replace often. In 2004, I started noticing how much of my software I can't reinstall. Not much had a problem, but the three things I cared about did and I haven't upgraded since.
Now, in late 2005, more and more requires activation. Some even require a subscription for updates. Not so bad, reasonable IMO. But... they don't provide a way to download patches seperate from their update feature and once the support year expires, if I don't renew, I can't go back and download even those updates I previously qualified for, in the case my system needs a rebuild.
Getting on my nerves. But I see a trend. The trend states that this is where it is all going. Now, I do my research. If a product I *want* requires activation, messes with my MBR, makes it difficult to install on my new PCs as I replace the old, or anything, I typically avoid it.
In some cases, I'll purchase a license and apply a crack. In my mind, I paid for it. So what do they care. In reality, its getting harder to do even that and to the point that I gave up on some software and just do without. Of course, I really don't look for open source alternatives. I just don't care. MS is the only company that gets away with activation in my case. But I avoid all others. I stopped upgrading Acrobat Pro because of this. I just don't agree with activation and the means they take to applying it.
There is one way I agree. www.libronix.com does it. You activate once, get a key that can be reapplied as much as you want. All their ebooks are purchased and activated against that key. If it leaks to the internet, you've just lost quit a bit of money as they deactivate you. Otherwise, they don't "presume" innocence or guilt. They just allow you to reapply they key if you must. I like that approach. It also shilds you from them going out of business. Too many software companies and ebooks that I've activated in 2002/2003 aren't in business and I have no way to reactivate... which is another prime reason I avoid any kind of central server authentication in general when using desktop/server software.
Thanks,
Leabre
We allready have www.steampowered.com for this. You should try it too.
Yes, please more hassle, more annoyance, less customers.
One of the goals of the GPL is to impoverish programmers. Read the GNU Manifesto. Basically they come out and say that you will be paid less but you "won't starve." Gee thanks, Commissar Stallman, programmers are so fortunate that you will allow them to eat in your perfect world!
It is easy for millionaires like Stallman to make such proclamations, but for the average computer geek just trying to make a living it is a killer. Fuck off GPL.
I know of quite a few people that still use dialup or have no internet connection. Then there are all the various factors of complexity...and seeing all this, I don't know well a web based distribution system will work.
if Digital River are in on it, you can guarantee their system will be a big bucket of steaming dog plop. Having dealt with them when buying Symantec products online, I can vouch for the piss poor customer service and strange e-commerce system that makes re-downloading the software near on impossible and a Krypton Factor style challenge.
Nothing costs nothing
I think you kinda created a bastard child of DRM and DMCA. Digital Millenium Confiscation, perhaps?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not sure whether money or dominance is at the top of Microsoft's list, but it's abundantly clear from past conduct that both are core priorities. In tactical terms, the record shows that Microsoft quite readily makes concessions where money was concerned, but almost never where it has to give up any degree of situational or market dominance.
Their game is far from exclusively about money, in other words. I suppose you could argue that the game is ultimately about maximizing money, or shareholder value, or some other related quantity, but again if you look at the overt strategy and rationale, most of the evidence seems to point to an almost pathological desire for dominance.
This recent antagonism toward Google is a case in point. Google is not a threat to Microsoft in any way related to present revenue models. It's a threat only in that it might take up some of the space which Microsoft might at some point in the future want to move into. In other words, Microsoft has to dominate that space simply because it exists.
If Microsoft were just about money, it would exist in a happier equilibrium with social needs and social controls. Most of our social controls around corporate behavior are based, as you suggest, on an assumption that the corporation will optimize around money. So a government can levy fines against monopoly practises or pollution or other forms of misconduct. But Microsoft will not acknowledge such controls. Look at how it has responded in the EU antitrust proceedings, for example. What did Microsoft do in the choice between paying $650M or unbundling a software application from the operating system?
In a word, where dominance is concerned, Microsoft is intransigent. I don't think that there is evidence to support the same case for money.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
As long as I can re-sell the software I bought, I'm fine with this. I doubt they'll let me re-sell, though. In which case they can shove this thing up their asses without vaseline.
Looks like a good time for a GoogleSoft software delivery system. I really like the model that Linspire has with their CNR Warehouse. I not only get kernel updates but my applications are able to be updated as well.
I lost my sig...
People don't have much respect for free software until they've used it. Sometimes not after. Essentially, most businesspeople in a capitalist society are suspicious of anything that could cost money, or competes with something that costs money, but is free. They automatically think it's not worth money, that it's not nearly as good as the expensive competitor.
Also, MS Office and Adobe are established corporations. They existed before significant open source solutions did, so everyone was forced to use them. People are trained on Photoshop and MS Office, not the GIMP or OpenOffice. While in the long term continuous licensing will cost a significant amount, retraining will cost more immediately.
Lastly, if Photoshop crashes and corrupts all your documents, you have recourse. You know who to blame, at least. And that person isn't the manager who took a chance on a new tool.
For the home user, the main issue is knowledge--there are many more people who know what Photoshop is than who know what the GIMP is. And most OSS projects can't afford mass marketing.
In soviet Russia, software distributes YOU!
I had to give it a shot.
This is not the forum to regurgitate but Microsoft is in my stomach and i feel like vomiting. They don't care for the customer 99.999% of the time but they do care 100% for money.
,discontinue at will etc.
Looking through their EULA, it is clear, they LEASE software to PC users at present. What else can you buy and it still belongs to the seller to modify, update, seize
Given that 99% of PCs come prepackaged with some version of Windows, its logical to say vendors distribute computers for MS. The PC ain't yours since MS can do anything they wish to the software running on it. And what use is a box with no OS. Then it gets worse. DRM and spyware. YES! MS pays for spyware data.
Lately, talk of hosted computing has been live on forums. The truth is that the likes of Sun and MS and partners are talking 'business sense' which is not 'common sense'. They are looking down the tunnel and wondering how they will fit in the new IT age. Is the network about to become the computer. So they are running scared and pushing the issue out in the wild to see reaction from users.
There is still some light at the end of the tunnel for them. If consumer control over technology can be taken away - through the network of course - then business can survive with massive profits.
The OSS is a big threat that will only grow bigger. With Technology Hardware prices headed for 0 and free software so easily available and so potent, what is the future for MS and cousins.
IBM, has been scared and survived for decades because they saw the monster the likes of MS are seeing decades ago fought it. USE a model where the consumer has NILL real control over the technology and make them 100% dependent, then leap leap leap and stay scared. They saw PC prices fall and sold to China (Lenovo? a likely complex outsource job).
Microsoft will succeed with a similar model for business customers where service is king but for the micro-consumer, they just have to wait in line and see what goes.
NO THANKS, i wont LEASE ExplorerPlus! or anything else today.
"How will it affect the distribution of free and open-source software?"
Umm, It won't...
<overrated>Insert Sig Here</overrated>
You must have slept through the anti-trust trails. You know, where everyone and anyone in tech testified how M$ constantly fucked with them. As much as you would like to pretend otherwise, M$ is paranoid and breaks software on their platform all the time. They have been doing it since the days of DOS. Here's a short list of dead competitors:
This news has NO implications for FOSS on Windows. ... - this just standardizes it and provides centralized downloading and key storage.
You must also not know about Paladium/NGDRM or whatever they are calling "trusted computing" these days. They have already used "security" to break software. Having a central place where M$ decides if you can trust your software means M$ can stop any piece of software from running. That's what DRM is to M$, they are trying to put it in the BIOS, not that flaky BIOS as an anticompetitive trick is new. M$ is freaky and evil. They will use this against free software because they can.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The train left the station long ago, this is not the first stop. However, its one more step closer to the ideal situation of perpetual income for the software giant. This is much how they screw the big corporations now, with the MOLP agreements.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Windows has been downloadable for as long as I can remember. Move along, nothing to see h--wait, let me read the article.
Oh, downloadable after you BUY it. Nevermind.
I agree with your point of view, since it looks like my own experience (but I spent much less money ;-)).
But I fail to understand why you are refusing it including for products you *want*, but still accepting it for (I assume) Windows.
Either you failed to analyse it fully (no pun intended), or there is something special in your relationship with MS.
I understand MS has more chance to be still in the business in the next years than the average e-book seller, but I feel Adobe is quite solid too...
The idea is merely to get more cash by changing the model, that is, changing the point of reference of the buyers.
Remember the model in the 70's, before the micro's revolution? (leadered by Gates): was based on leasing. Micros came in, changed the model, and make (lot of) money fast, partly because the unitary cost was low, so passed through the accounting filters.