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FSF Attacks Windows 7's "Sins" In New Campaign

Posted by samzenpus on from the a-long-way-to-absolution dept.

CWmike writes "The Free Software Foundation today launched a campaign against Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 7 operating system, calling it 'treacherous computing' that stealthily takes away rights from users. At the Web site Windows7Sins.org, the Boston-based FSF lists the seven 'sins' that proprietary software such as Windows 7 commits against computer users. They include: Poisoning education, locking in users, abusing standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), leveraging monopolistic behavior, threatening user security, enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy, and invading privacy. 'Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files,' said executive director Peter Brown. And if Microsoft's Trusted Computing technology were fully implemented the way the company would like, the vendor would have 'malicious and really complete control over your computer.'"

3 of 926 comments (clear)

  1. Nobody expects the Microsoft inquisition! by Psychophrenes · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: Poisoning education, locking in users, abusing standards such as OpenDocument Format (ODF), leveraging monopolistic behavior, threatening user security, enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy, and invading privacy.

  2. Re:digital copies? by cbhacking · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Indeed. I can also rip CDs (and, with the right software, DVDs), record TV (built-in with Media Center), stream music and video (Media Center), share media with other computers (Homegroups, a vastly simplified form of Windows Networking added in Win7)... need I really continue? I've yet to run into anything that I could do in XP but can't with Vista (or Win7) due to DRM, and I've been using Vista since its beta.

    On the flip side, my new computer has a Blu-Ray drive (I wan't planning to get one, but it was a hell of a package deal with the other features I wanted). I'll probably get some Blu-Ray media at some point, and you know what? I'll be able to play it out-of-the-box. If I decide to crack the encryption and rip it, I'll be able to do that too (third-party software, but the OS won't stop me).

    --
    There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
  3. Re:FSF is not very truthful in this campaign by BenoitRen · · Score: 1, Redundant

    *locking in users - The free software community is as much to blame as Microsoft.

    You're going to have to explain this one, as it sounds like bullshit to me.

    every OS should in this day and age ship with those anyway and you can't blame them for shipping their own

    Yes, we can. They have a monopoly.

    *enforcing Digital Rights Management (DRM) at the request of entertainment companies concerned about movie and music piracy - Unfortunately for MS no one uses WMA, everyone uses MP3 (or rarely Ogg) for their music and this is how it ends up on the file sharing networks. Maybe it was evil of MS to try to go that route, but it has been scientifically proven that DRM cannot work and all material anyone wants is available without MS's DRM on it, so this is a huge non-issue.

    You haven't heard of Vista's DRM scheme, have you?