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Vista Games Cracked to Run on XP
Next Generation is reporting that Vista PC games have been cracked to run under XP. Hacking groups who apparently wanted to play new titles like Shadowrun and Halo 2 with driver support have taken it upon themselves to open up the playing field a bit. "The news is sure to irk Microsoft who may now face an increased delay in some consumers adopting Vista at this early stage. However, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Earlier this month Falling Leaf Systems said in a press release that it believed Microsoft was deceiving consumers by stating that the titles would only work on Vista, and announced its intentions to release compatibility software to disprove the claim. 'Microsoft has, in typical Microsoft fashion, decided to launch their forced migration onslaught in full force with the release of two games that will only run on Windows Vista,' said Falling Leaf Systems CEO Brian Thomason in the press release." Relatedly, Mitch Gitelman of the (now closed) FASA Studios has taken exception to negative reviews of Shadowrun.
They have the right, just like the consumers have the right to their own customizations. Sorry, but if I buy a ruler, and then attach a laser to it, to make a home-made laser level, Sears has no right to tell me that I violated a patent they own on laser level technology. That is EXACTLY the kind of thing Microsoft does. If Microsoft wants to try and limit me, and I find a way around it, they need to suck it up and deal with it, or get out of the business since they can't meet consumer demands.
Microsoft's licenses try to restrict you from doing things you would otherwise have the right to do. The GPL gives you rights to do things that you would not otherwise have.
What the license grants you is irrelevent. Either you respect other's licenses, or do not request that anyone request yours. To do otherwise is to be hippicritical.
If you don't want to respect the GPL, that's fine, but you'd essentially be a software pirate if you distribute GPL software in violation of its terms. On the flip side, if you violate some of Microsoft's license terms, you might not have done anything illegal at all (running Vista in a VM, for instance).
No, both are the same. The law backs both licenses. If you violate them, you can be sued. Its really that simple, because a license is a contract. You can choose to accept it or not.
So I really do see a huge difference between the two licensing models, and therefore a difference between the nature of respect for them.
So basically your argument its ok to license software when you like the license, but when you don't like the license then its not ok. To me, that is a pretty unreasonable stance to take.
I once phoned Microsoft about a Microsoft game controller I have that they made Windows XP unable to use (although it works on Windows 2000). The schmucks didn't even know what the word "goodwill" meant; they told me they had never heard the word before.
Gamers are a hardcore crowd. You cant win against them.
For starters, around 8 million people are playing wow, another approx a million on swg, another some million on eve, some on everquest, guildwars - start counting and never stop.
these work on xp. these people dont need vista.
this move assumes that pc is like a console - something that you can lock people in. it was old times, pal, you cant do it anymore.
see, they already cracked your consoleish trickery.
Read radical news here
Microsoft charged out the front door with a raging hard-on ready to cram Vista onto everyone's hard drives with half-witted selling angles like releasing a two-year old FPS that was good on a console. Too bad they went flaccid the moment they hit sunlight.
The beautiful part is that free market capitalism is perfectly poised to solve the problem on its own (especially with the Internet around). People will always adopt methods or software which best suit their needs for the lowest cost - and if that means downloading pirated software or cracked operating systems online for free, then that is what people will do. The fact that the general population is becoming increasingly computer-literate won't help Microsoft maintain its stranglehold on the industry for long.
We are approaching an era when open source will overtake commercial software development. Imagine what kind of new online democracy that will produce.
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