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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?"
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:
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
" nothing about this is good."
I disagree. Either MS will open up a loophole you can drive a truck through or this will be the best thing ever for open source and commercial software which competes with MS.
I can't wait for the future when it will be impossible to steal windows and other MS software. As long as people can get office for free they will never use openoffice.
Of course MS will never let it come to that. They will release non DRM software that anybody can copy and use. What's the alternative? Lock the third world out of their software?
evil is as evil does
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.
Didn't Linux get people used to great software with no packaging?
I'm actually really excited about this, as it is long overdue. There is really no reason for software to be purchased through traditional retail channels anymore. Not only should this be slightly cheaper, but it will allow for impulse purchases without spending the few hours it would take to go get the stuff. See a positive review of Halo? Go and download the game. Need to edit a PDF file before your meeting tomorrow? Instead of waiting for the store to open tomorrow morning, or running off to Kinkos and run up a dollar-a-minute bill, just buy the software you need right now and use it. All of your software would be available in a centralized location somewhere, helping to make things easy to find with Microsoft's legendary User Interface skills (cough cough).
The only potential (and probably highly likely) problem that I can see is if it were unnecessarily expensive to get into Microsoft's little digital mall that it became dominated by a few big retailers. The UI could also be crappy, the application might crash all of the time, the DRM could make it difficult to carry things between computers... So there are other potential problems. But as a fundamental ideal, buying software in 100% digital form, and in a forum that comes with every system is kind of nice. I'm sad that Apple didn't do this first, but I'm glad somebody other than Valve did.
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