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Microsoft Flip-flopping on Virtualization License
Cole writes "Microsoft came within a few hours of reversing its EULA-based ban on the virtualization of Vista Basic and Premium, only to cancel the announcement at the last minute. The company reached out to media and bloggers about the announcement and was ready to celebrate "user choice" before pulling the plug, apparently clinging to security excuses. From the article, "The threat of hypervisor malware affects Ultimate and Business editions just as much as Home Premium and Basic. As such, the only logical explanation is that Microsoft is using pricing to discourage users from virtualizing those OSes. Since when is a price tag an effective means of combating malware?" Something else must be going on here."
but could this just be Microsoft trying to squeeze yet more dollars of profit out of everything they can (i.e. now virtulization)?
I think therefore I am... a Linux geek.
How long before the EULA says that you can only run microsoft software on it? The DoJ isn't going to stop them these days and it seems like a more reasonable (doesn't take much, how is virtualizing a more secure OS going to be a security risk on windows!??!) case can be made that it would cut down on malware.
The Farewell Tour II
"Something else must be going on here". No shit sherlock.
The thing that's going on is market segmentation. To put it briefly: Microsoft reckons that those customers who are likely to want to run Vista in a virtual environment have got the money to buy a more expensive version. It's the exact same principle as is used for pricing some commercial databases according to "number of CPUs in the system which is going to be running it" - anyone who's got the money to buy and the need to run a 16-processor system can probably afford to spend more on the database, regardless of whether there's any technical difference between the 16 processor version and the 8 processor version of the software.
Microsoft gives you at least a (costly) option. Apple (correct me, if I'm wrong) doesn't.
And no, I am not a MS fanboy. I've been using Linux for more then ten years almost exclusively. Lack of hassle with licensing issues being one of the reasons for my choice of OS.
Microsoft are already losing their stranglehold on the market; they're fighting against desktop linux, fighting a rear guard action against open standards and OEM's are looking to escape per machine licensing. Releasing so many versions of Vista was really a dumb move and DRM simply isn't going to work when the OS is run as a VM guest.
My guess is that they're stalling for time while getting a TPM savvy hypervisor in boot ROM. Antitrust authorities wouldn't be amused by this, hence the handwaving about malware.
What many commentators miss is that you're free to install your one copy of Vista in a VM, Microsoft can't stop you from doing that. The EULA (poorly worded as it is) only restricts (or permits) running multiple virtualized copies from the one license.
To be fair, this is a not-uncommon business practice that predates Microsoft.
And Microsoft aren't the only current practitioners either! (I note Oracle has something which is called a "Restricted Use" license).
Sesostris III
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
Not even the Ultimate License allows you to watch/play DRMd content in a virtual machine. It is impossible to technically restrict what can be done with content as soon as it is played in a Virtual Machine. Audio is especially easy to make perfect digital copies of, even if it is DRMd.
Allowing home editions of Vista to be run in Virtual Machines would essentially make the DRM protection in Vista useless.
So leave Gates and Co alone. I don't want them to allow virtualization. It will make my job a whole lot easier.
Too lazy to create a sig...
That would be tricky for MS to pull-off but they could just make it very difficult for certain applications to run on Windows. Require a certification process, implement technical measures to authenticate the applications and then use the DMCA to destroy anyone who dares to bypass the protection by using fake credentials.
Make it nice and expensive to obtain the credentials, or just use a clever licence agreement and that'll certainly stop the pesky open-source kids from meddling. The best thing is, if the DoJ decide to take an interest, MS can tell them that it's necessary for security.
I really can see Windows going the same as some console platforms. Either you make your software with permission or you don't do it at all.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Which, (assuming sarcasm on your part), wouldn't rule out the virtualisation restrictions being a contributory factory in to poor vista sales.
Certainly. However, I think it's safe to assume - as my sarcasm intended - that EULA-limited virtualisation is only something a tiny minority of users would take into account.
(Especially since a quite reasonable interpretation of the EULA doesn't prevent you from, say, virtualising a copy of Vista on your Mac running OS X - ie: the most common end-user virtualisation scenario.)
I think we can take the poor sales as a given - if vista was flying off the shelves, MS wouldn't trouble with a "fact rich" campaign to persuade potential customers to "proceed with confidence". Whether or not sales is the same thing as popularity is another question, although Microsoft fans don't usually have a problem with the notion when contrasting Windows against Linux.
As with Office, Microsoft's biggest competitor to Vista is Windows XP. Vista sales are slow not because it is "bad", but because XP is well and truly "good enough". Hence, the take-up rate of Vista is basically that of new/replacement PC sales.
But let's not get sidetracked. Even if virtualisation isn't causing Vista's sales problems, it could still be seen as doing so, internally. For that matter, if MS were going to relent a little on the more controversial features of Vista, they're more likely to give ground over virtualisation than they are to back pedal over DRM, for example. And there's probably nothing they can do at this late stage about the hardware issues. So if they were inclined to throw the potential buyer a bone, it would pretty much have to be over virtualisation.
Not really much of a bone. The proportion of customers such an annoucement would sway is miniscule by any reasonable argument. I don't think even the craziest of sales droids believe that a meaningful (hell, even statistically valid) portion of their userbase is holding back because of perceived problems with virtualising certain versions of Vista.