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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.
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