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WGA Meltdown Blamed On Human Error
Erris writes "As commentators like Ars Technica slam WGA as deeply flawed, Microsoft is blaming human error and swears it won't happen again. 'Alex Kochis, Microsofts senior WGA product manager, wrote in a blog posting that the troubles began after preproduction code was installed on live servers. ... rollback fixed the problem on the product-activation servers within 30 minutes ... but it didnt reset the validation servers. ... "we didnt have the right monitoring in place to be sure the fixes had the intended effect"' Critics were not impressed. 'A system thats not totally reliable really should not be so punitive, said Gartner Inc. analyst Michael Silver. Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft in Kirkland, Wash., said he was surprised that it was even possible to accidentally load the wrong code onto live servers ... [and asks], "what other things have they not done?' This is not the first time this has happened, either."
On the flip side but consistent with what you are saying.
The Amiga was taken down, not because there was not enough demand for it, but because it was too efficient.
Mac as a server is not popular because its easier to use.
I believe the answer is, the more people you can require to change the light bulb, the more you employ and the more money you cause to change hands and collect taxes on.
Progress? In what? Lower unemployment rate, shorter vacations, more taxes collected, etc...
Bush would say have faith, forget science...
As to WGA, its an act of paranoia for anti-thieft measure and it cost in overhead. All security measures cost in additional overhead. The solution is to not need it by using personal individualized systems. Like what you might have on a USB thumb drive. Where the only security you need a firewall in your connection to the outside world.
It should be becoming clear that systems and accessibility that don't need such overhead is what teh future holds. A simple matter of addressing the problems cause otherwise.
There are efforts to improve or create or recreate OS's for this future trend. There is DragonFly BSD for one, which has the application base of freesoftware. There is AROS (cloning Amiga on x86) but its application base is more limited. And other OS's that were better but being reincarnated such as BeOS - don't recall its reincarnation name... etc..
Just by looking at the spectrum of OS efficiency past and present OS's is very telling of the industry.
MS functions in the mode of "make people need you" to be successful. That manifest in the ways it has to require more to replace the light bulb.