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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?"
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.
I say use bit torrent to distribute windows and then poison the bitch to death!!
Sorry, just had to...
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?
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'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
Microsoft has participated in illegal practices for quite some time. They are a convicted monopoly, and what's different about how they did business before and after their conviction? Absolutely nothing. That may be because Bush came into power soon after they were convicted, the Republicans all being supportive of big businesses of course didn't want to cause Microsoft any harm, damn the laws that it broke. Paranoid? Possibly. Co-incedence, doubtful. See the facts here.
So when Microsoft was found guilty of breaking the law, and nothing happened. What incentive does Microsoft have to comply with other laws? What's going to happen? They'll be convicted again? I'm sure Microsoft is quivering in their boots.
See? This is what happens when you try too hard to be funny. Let it be a lesson to you all. Just do a simple "In Soviet Russia, software distributes you" or something, and be done with it.
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.
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
" 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.
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);
Wow, this is really exciting. It'll be like having apt only with a convicted monopolist in charge of the repository.
This is going to be so much fun. They're only a decade late getting a proper package management system.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
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