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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?"
It affects it if MS decides they're going to require installers to use this service. They'd have to make it free-as-in-beer, but what about requiring you to give MS rights to your code, or promising not to make it run on any other OS, if you want free access, or a small fee that larger companies can pay to use it and keep their code.
I am trolling
Didn't Passport get cancelled? Are they building new systems based on a deprecated system?
It's being replaced in the upcoming Windows Communication Foundation (a.k.a. Indigo) with a more paranoid-friendly digital identity system. You can get your hands on a beta already. I expect that'll be a drop-in replacement and they need something to work with.
(In fact, MS Identity guy Kim Cameron's latest blog entry is called InfoCard Not Son Of Passport.)
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
Most of us don't want anything to do with Paypal. Credit cards are a much better payment method for online transactions like this since almost all of them come with some form of buyer protection and dispute process. Paypal on the other hand is more than happy to screw BOTH parties out of their money if they choose to.
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