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Aero To Be Unavailable To Pirates
An anonymous reader writes "Users thinking of pirating the next version of Windows may have a surprise in store: no Aero for you. The upcoming Microsoft OS will run a check to ensure the copy was legally purchased. If it comes up short, the shiniest part of the OS will not be available." From the article: "At first an optional program, the piracy check eventually became mandatory for many types of Windows XP downloads, but was not required to run any aspect of the operating system itself. Microsoft has identified reducing piracy as a key way for the company to grow its sales of Windows, which is already used on more than 90 percent of personal computers. But it's not just pirates who will be blocked from Windows' fanciest graphics. The Aero display also won't be available to those who buy Windows Vista Basic, the low-end consumer version of the operating system."
Have they ever gotten around to telling us why we want Aero-glass? First thing I do whenever I'm on a XP machine, including other peoples' because I'm rude, is disable the XP theme system and get back to something useful. I don't want the close button on a window to be large because that makes it easy to hit by accident. GUI design 101, and XP fails it hard.
So, what makes bubble buttons and transparency effects something I should want? Is Microsoft trying to bank on GUI wiener-size competition to get people to pay hundreds of dollars for a legtimate installation of the OS?
Oh, yeah...they're going to try to stick it in the gamer market by making everyone upgrade for DX10...which will likely only give you full performance on Trusted Hardware, just like the high-res video bunk.
Let's hear it for Microsoft. 1) My GUI looks better than yours. 2) DX10 is so much more efficient, it almost makes up for the performance lost by binding 70% of your system resources to the GUI that looks better than yours. 3) We don't like your installation of Linux on your other partition, so we're using Oklahoma power to reach in and delete it all, and install this cool IDE device driver from StarForce. 4) You're welcome!
Umm, How will this affect corporate versions? Will the release of Vista require your computer to talk to another computer on your corporate network which then talks back to Microsoft to ensure that your copy is legitimate?
If Microsoft starts demanding activation from corporate customers, I think things will get interesting and amusing all at the same time.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
A lot (most?) of the piracy drives off of corporate copies. These typically don't call home. I can't imagine how you could force a corporation to grant internet connections for the purposes of licensing. If Vista corporate licensing still doesn't phone home, then the problem is far from solved. If they wish to force corporations to allow phoning home, they are going to have quite a stuggle getting companies to upgrade. The no-net workaround, calling in for an authorization code, is even worse when you have hundreds or thousands of computers.
The package you're thinking of is vrms, the virtual Richard M. Stallman. It only scans your dpkg database though, so doesn't catch manually installed non-free software, only the non-free stuff installed via apt or similar mechanisms.
I appear to have a blog. Odd.
I take pretty good care of my gear. I'm not too concerned about Hacker McPhee. I've not had a virus in over 8 years despite running Windows without A/V protection. It's outfits like Sony--"legitimate manufacturers"--that worry me more these days.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
My problem with requiring signed drivers is that you won't be able to run "beta" versions of drivers to potentially fix problems with the release version. I've had to do this on more than one occasion and I'm not even a regular Windows user. Drivers aren't signed until they are tested and certified by Microsoft, right?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
It's an interesting way of looking at this. But I would be surprised if that is ENTIRELY the intent. Why? Commoditization.
Microsoft seems to be doing a lot to try and avoid the perception that an OS is a commodity. A hardware platform that became a commodity environment meant IBM lost control of the market. And that is the real threat from the likes of Linux, *BSD, etc. The last thing Microsoft wants is for a perception that the entire platform - hardware and OS - is immaterial or at least a very distant second to an application. Remember that this was the mantra Netscape liked to push before Microsoft performed its historical turn-on-a-dime strategy shift. And one might even note that the vast majority of consumers are almost to this point anyway (how many average users really understand the implications of an OS).
Now - its entirely possible that despite Microsoft's best efforts, the market is pushing in that direction anyway. This may be a slight capitulation to this kind of pressure. But I would not expect Microsoft to do anything that would drive home the commodity perception until well after it has already taken hold of the market. I doubt the market is at that point yet.
If anything, this is simply part of Microsoft's attempt to avoid their OS becoming a commodity. It started with WinXP. Before then, who really cared about "piracy"? After all, the major players (OEMs, business, etc.) already pay. The "Linux Refund Day" exercise showed what a consumer Windows license is worth. Up to a certain point in history, accepting "piracy" helped ensure Windows continued to proliferate as a common environment while not getting in the way of paying customers. Introducing rudimentary copy protection didn't happen until commodity OS platforms started to really gain attention. And even then, it didn't really do much to stem "piracy". But it did drive home the point that Windows wasn't a freebie - keeping it out of the same mental pigeon-hole IT managers stick "freeware" commodity platforms... specifically Linux.
Aero is not an important component. But it is the more visceral piece - it's prominant in screenshots and marketing. Linking copy protection to this component continues to push the message that Windows is something special. And if for some reason a paying customer runs afoul of that copy protection and Aero shuts down, they will likely still be able to limp along doing their important activities until the situation can be resolved - perhaps only annoying them instead of really upsetting them and producing more fodder for various switcher campaigns.