The financial system as it currently exists is basically set up to reward short term gains, whereas upgrading a computer system is a short term cost and (potentially) a long term gain.
And then there are the reasons for upgrading... Supposedly newer software will be more efficient, but thats often just marketing talk and reality often fails to live up to hype. In many cases the new software is actually worse, being more bloated. And in many cases when new software is deployed, users will use it as if it was the old version and thus not take advantage of new features properly. There is the security aspect of using newer actively maintained software, but then security is a cost with no obvious benefit until something bad actually happens. Also if your software is sufficiently old and uncommon, very few people will be looking for holes in it so the chance of random attacks is actually lower.
And then you have forced upgrades, that is where customers perceive change is being forced on them purely because the software vendor is greedy, and that the old software does everything they need so there's no reason to upgrade.
And one of the key factors deterring upgrades, is poor decisions made in the past resulting in locked in users which makes upgrading very expensive. And in some cases, makes people wary of installing anything new for fear of getting locked in to that instead.
My experience of people who installed a cracked version of windows which subsequently ceased working, is that they will just go back and get an updated cracked version... There are plenty of small shops who will provide that sort of under the counter service, and a short usable life of a crack is good because it keeps the users coming back.
Any system, even just entering a code will annoy legitimate users... Most users never had to put up with that because they didnt perform the install themselves. Nothing will prevent pirates, you can download cracked versions of windows where all the activation bullshit and code entering requirements are removed... Infact, you often get bundles which include a lot of additional software that you would have had to install by hand afterwards... Some of the pirated versions of windows are starting to approach linux in terms of default usability and ease of install. The non pirated versions are still stuck in the dark ages.
and it definitely needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers on a too-regular basis
No they really just need to scrap the activation system entirely... Such systems only ever harm legitimate customers, pirates will simply use a crack and not have to worry about activation ever again.
Meanwhile all the resources being spent on creating and maintaining the activation system are resources which are not being spent on improving the product or providing any services which are actually beneficial to customers.
Personally i detest any software which intentionally contains denial of service code.
Who's to say the business owners will be any more trustworthy with their cameras than anyone else? Who's to say they won't tamper with footage to further their own ends?
And then you have all the various cctv vendors who insist on storing the video in all manner of ridiculous proprietary formats, making a nightmare for anyone wanting to review it.
It's about time people started challenging these "established security protocols"... Ask yourself what benefit does masking the password bring vs the detriment of doing so.
Benefits: If someone is looking over your shoulder they won't see the password on screen.
Detriments: If someone is looking over your shoulder they can watch what keys you press anyway, significantly reducing the above benefit. Looking at the keys is actually easier as the keyboard is usually visible from a greater viewing angle and greater distance. You are more likely to make errors, especially when typing on a keyboard you aren't used to or which may not be configured correctly (eg wrong keymap, you tried to type one character and got another but you typed the same character both times so the system accepted your input). If there is noone untrusted looking over your shoulder then there are no benefits at all.
And consumer devices are exactly what consumers need... A complex system like a PC is not suitable for average consumers, which is why they are perceived as being so unreliable in the eyes of the public and why there are so many problems such as malware. Eventually you will see consumers using consumer devices, and full blown computers being back to the playthings of a small niche of geeks.
Also worth considering that what you would pay for those services is considerably higher than what the warranty company will pay for the same services, due to economies of scale etc.
Exactly, instead of buying the extended warranties i was offered with my various products i took a note of their costs and added them all up... Then if i need to make a repair or replacement during what would have been the extended warranty period i deduct the amount from the amount saved by not having extended warranties.
So far i'm well ahead, aside from a hard drive in a laptop nothing has failed outside of the included warranty period, and the hard drive failure just caused me to buy a much larger, much cheaper drive than what was originally installed.
Competent linux people are as cheap as competent windows people, its just that the market is flooded with incompetent windows people who distort the perception... It is these huge numbers of cheap but incompetent windows admins who contribute significantly to the public perception of windows as being extremely unreliable and insecure, indeed most employees who spend their day sitting at a computer will have many stories to tell about regular problems they encounter.
Also, Linux admins generally manage more systems per admin, which makes them better value overall.
Aside from all this, it is not the cost of windows that matters, it's the freedom of not being locked in which means you can choose the best tool for the job across the board, upgrade (or not) at your leisure etc. Being locked in to any single source is extremely damaging, and the damage in terms of cost and flexibility rapidly grow over time.
Surely detection is pretty easy if the httpd binary has been modified, most distributions already have features to check the binaries on a system against known checksum lists from the packages they were installed from, so a modified httpd would stick out like a sore thumb.
Intel are now facing the same issues the highend RISC vendors faced in the 90s... Having the fastest processors available isn't enough, it wasn't for Alpha, PPC or MIPS and it wont be for Intel. Cheaper processors may be slower, but they sell in much larger volume, cost a lot less, use less power and are still adequate for people's needs.
Windows ones sold more because they were heavily marketed, while linux ones just sat on the shelf... Also the linux distros present on most of these netbooks were crap (and no two manufacturers had the same distro).
With a decent distro, and some decent marketing to explain the benefits a lot of people will actually choose linux just like they chose an ipad or android device.
Alas, microsoft killed any hope for such laptops... Once you have hardware capable of running windows, you need a much larger battery if you want decent runtime, more cooling to accommodate the hotter running components, larger storage etc.
A small laptop running a non crippled linux distro would be awesome, and would sell well if properly marketed, but it seems noone is willing to push such a device.
It has been said for years that a linux laptop wouldn't sell, and yet most of the reasons cited have been debunked already for instance:
a, it wont sell without windows - people are happy to access the internet on ipads, android devices etc, 99% of people don't need windows and are better off without it. b, people wont like it if they cant buy boxed software in a store - linux distributions have always had a repository model, supposedly users wouldn't like this and would rather install software from optical media, but apple and google have proven this to be false - users actually prefer the convenience of a single place to get software and having it updated in a central location is extremely beneficial for security too. c, users wont like if they buy peripherals and they end up not working - you cant buy random peripherals for an ipad either, you just take a bunch of existing peripherals which you know work out of the box with linux and resell them as "accessories" designed to work with your device. Very few people will just buy random junk anyway, they will look for accessories marketed as being *for* the device they already have.
You just need to sell decent hardware, at a decent price point, with a non crippled linux distribution and some level of marketing.
Those $200 netbooks were very popular, they are basically what started the whole netbook fad... The reason they went up in price was because they went up in spec, primarily in order to run windows. Once they were powerful enough to run windows, they were no longer cheap and became considerably heavier too, which took away the original benefits of a netbook.
Physical video rental stores seemed to work just fine (and they also offered games etc), there was nothing to stop you renting a movie from there then taking it home and making a copy.
DRM would just make the process of renting a video troublesome for legitimate users.
Besides, the premise of a rental was that you returned the original physical goods so that they can be rented out again, with a download there are no physical goods involved so the actual cost to the supplier is the same wether its a rental or a sale and thus the price should be to.
Another of the key differences was that you couldn't resell the rental copy once you were done with it, and yet DRM schemes seek to take away this ability from those that "buy" too. Many people would buy a movie, watch it once and then decide if they want to keep it or sell it on, effectively paying the same as a rental for the same short term limited use of the media. Again they could have easily taken a copy if they wanted to.
If you trust people, respect them and assume they are fundamentally honest, then most people are... The minority who are not aren't worth the effort. If you are greedy, treat people with suspicion and contempt, while assuming they will try to rip you off at every turn then they will start to see you with contempt and do exactly that.
And most of those hot new tv shows are not available through legitimate channels without DRM, and in many cases are not available to people in particular areas via any legitimate means short of flying to a different country (which may not even be possible due to visa requirements).
Besides, it seems you ignored the rest of my post, DRM is not intended to prevent piracy, pirates are a lost cause and they won't pay no matter how much you do, DRM is about exercising more control over those who will pay and getting more money from them.
Although that doesn't seem to have hurt sales too much (according to those that actually run thigns).
For the reasons i just mentioned, many people who pirate have no legitimate way to see the tv show anyway, so there's no possibility of making a sale there.
It does work, it does exactly what it's supposed to.
It's not supposed to stop the dishonest. They won't pay anyway, they would rather do without the content than pay for it.
It's supposed to control the honest. They have shown they are willing to spend money, so DRM schemes seek to extract more of it from them while also keeping them as tightly controlled as possible.
The key to "creators" getting over this mentality is to forget it exists, and to stop focusing on those that might be illegally sharing your work and instead focus on the ones that are actually buying it.
Which is exactly what they are doing... Claiming DRM is about piracy is a lie designed to disguise the true reason for such schemes. They know that the pirates will always crack any DRM scheme that is made, or otherwise just do without the content.
The reality is about controlling those who are actually buying it. Controlling how, when, where and on what they can use the content, and charging them over and over as many times as possible, especially selling them multiple copies of exactly the same content.
Slashdot Mirror
They attack plugins because flash/java/acrobat are still installed on over 90% of potential targets, whereas the browser market is now diversified...
It's all about advertising, to show just how many people use their webserver.
The xbox division ran at a huge loss for many years before it ever turned a profit...
The financial system as it currently exists is basically set up to reward short term gains, whereas upgrading a computer system is a short term cost and (potentially) a long term gain.
And then there are the reasons for upgrading...
Supposedly newer software will be more efficient, but thats often just marketing talk and reality often fails to live up to hype. In many cases the new software is actually worse, being more bloated. And in many cases when new software is deployed, users will use it as if it was the old version and thus not take advantage of new features properly.
There is the security aspect of using newer actively maintained software, but then security is a cost with no obvious benefit until something bad actually happens. Also if your software is sufficiently old and uncommon, very few people will be looking for holes in it so the chance of random attacks is actually lower.
And then you have forced upgrades, that is where customers perceive change is being forced on them purely because the software vendor is greedy, and that the old software does everything they need so there's no reason to upgrade.
And one of the key factors deterring upgrades, is poor decisions made in the past resulting in locked in users which makes upgrading very expensive. And in some cases, makes people wary of installing anything new for fear of getting locked in to that instead.
My experience of people who installed a cracked version of windows which subsequently ceased working, is that they will just go back and get an updated cracked version... There are plenty of small shops who will provide that sort of under the counter service, and a short usable life of a crack is good because it keeps the users coming back.
Any system, even just entering a code will annoy legitimate users... Most users never had to put up with that because they didnt perform the install themselves.
Nothing will prevent pirates, you can download cracked versions of windows where all the activation bullshit and code entering requirements are removed... Infact, you often get bundles which include a lot of additional software that you would have had to install by hand afterwards...
Some of the pirated versions of windows are starting to approach linux in terms of default usability and ease of install. The non pirated versions are still stuck in the dark ages.
and it definitely needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers on a too-regular basis
No they really just need to scrap the activation system entirely...
Such systems only ever harm legitimate customers, pirates will simply use a crack and not have to worry about activation ever again.
Meanwhile all the resources being spent on creating and maintaining the activation system are resources which are not being spent on improving the product or providing any services which are actually beneficial to customers.
Personally i detest any software which intentionally contains denial of service code.
Because they are distribution specific...
rpm -v
debsums
equery check
And yet if the game looks the same and plays the same, then what were those functions even being used for in the first place?
Who's to say the business owners will be any more trustworthy with their cameras than anyone else?
Who's to say they won't tamper with footage to further their own ends?
And then you have all the various cctv vendors who insist on storing the video in all manner of ridiculous proprietary formats, making a nightmare for anyone wanting to review it.
It's about time people started challenging these "established security protocols"...
Ask yourself what benefit does masking the password bring vs the detriment of doing so.
Benefits:
If someone is looking over your shoulder they won't see the password on screen.
Detriments:
If someone is looking over your shoulder they can watch what keys you press anyway, significantly reducing the above benefit. Looking at the keys is actually easier as the keyboard is usually visible from a greater viewing angle and greater distance.
You are more likely to make errors, especially when typing on a keyboard you aren't used to or which may not be configured correctly (eg wrong keymap, you tried to type one character and got another but you typed the same character both times so the system accepted your input).
If there is noone untrusted looking over your shoulder then there are no benefits at all.
And consumer devices are exactly what consumers need...
A complex system like a PC is not suitable for average consumers, which is why they are perceived as being so unreliable in the eyes of the public and why there are so many problems such as malware.
Eventually you will see consumers using consumer devices, and full blown computers being back to the playthings of a small niche of geeks.
Also worth considering that what you would pay for those services is considerably higher than what the warranty company will pay for the same services, due to economies of scale etc.
Exactly, instead of buying the extended warranties i was offered with my various products i took a note of their costs and added them all up... Then if i need to make a repair or replacement during what would have been the extended warranty period i deduct the amount from the amount saved by not having extended warranties.
So far i'm well ahead, aside from a hard drive in a laptop nothing has failed outside of the included warranty period, and the hard drive failure just caused me to buy a much larger, much cheaper drive than what was originally installed.
Competent linux people are as cheap as competent windows people, its just that the market is flooded with incompetent windows people who distort the perception... It is these huge numbers of cheap but incompetent windows admins who contribute significantly to the public perception of windows as being extremely unreliable and insecure, indeed most employees who spend their day sitting at a computer will have many stories to tell about regular problems they encounter.
Also, Linux admins generally manage more systems per admin, which makes them better value overall.
Aside from all this, it is not the cost of windows that matters, it's the freedom of not being locked in which means you can choose the best tool for the job across the board, upgrade (or not) at your leisure etc. Being locked in to any single source is extremely damaging, and the damage in terms of cost and flexibility rapidly grow over time.
Surely detection is pretty easy if the httpd binary has been modified, most distributions already have features to check the binaries on a system against known checksum lists from the packages they were installed from, so a modified httpd would stick out like a sore thumb.
I have a shell on my android phone...
Intel are now facing the same issues the highend RISC vendors faced in the 90s...
Having the fastest processors available isn't enough, it wasn't for Alpha, PPC or MIPS and it wont be for Intel. Cheaper processors may be slower, but they sell in much larger volume, cost a lot less, use less power and are still adequate for people's needs.
Windows ones sold more because they were heavily marketed, while linux ones just sat on the shelf... Also the linux distros present on most of these netbooks were crap (and no two manufacturers had the same distro).
With a decent distro, and some decent marketing to explain the benefits a lot of people will actually choose linux just like they chose an ipad or android device.
Alas, microsoft killed any hope for such laptops... Once you have hardware capable of running windows, you need a much larger battery if you want decent runtime, more cooling to accommodate the hotter running components, larger storage etc.
A small laptop running a non crippled linux distro would be awesome, and would sell well if properly marketed, but it seems noone is willing to push such a device.
It has been said for years that a linux laptop wouldn't sell, and yet most of the reasons cited have been debunked already for instance:
a, it wont sell without windows - people are happy to access the internet on ipads, android devices etc, 99% of people don't need windows and are better off without it.
b, people wont like it if they cant buy boxed software in a store - linux distributions have always had a repository model, supposedly users wouldn't like this and would rather install software from optical media, but apple and google have proven this to be false - users actually prefer the convenience of a single place to get software and having it updated in a central location is extremely beneficial for security too.
c, users wont like if they buy peripherals and they end up not working - you cant buy random peripherals for an ipad either, you just take a bunch of existing peripherals which you know work out of the box with linux and resell them as "accessories" designed to work with your device. Very few people will just buy random junk anyway, they will look for accessories marketed as being *for* the device they already have.
You just need to sell decent hardware, at a decent price point, with a non crippled linux distribution and some level of marketing.
Those $200 netbooks were very popular, they are basically what started the whole netbook fad...
The reason they went up in price was because they went up in spec, primarily in order to run windows. Once they were powerful enough to run windows, they were no longer cheap and became considerably heavier too, which took away the original benefits of a netbook.
Physical video rental stores seemed to work just fine (and they also offered games etc), there was nothing to stop you renting a movie from there then taking it home and making a copy.
DRM would just make the process of renting a video troublesome for legitimate users.
Besides, the premise of a rental was that you returned the original physical goods so that they can be rented out again, with a download there are no physical goods involved so the actual cost to the supplier is the same wether its a rental or a sale and thus the price should be to.
Another of the key differences was that you couldn't resell the rental copy once you were done with it, and yet DRM schemes seek to take away this ability from those that "buy" too. Many people would buy a movie, watch it once and then decide if they want to keep it or sell it on, effectively paying the same as a rental for the same short term limited use of the media. Again they could have easily taken a copy if they wanted to.
If you trust people, respect them and assume they are fundamentally honest, then most people are... The minority who are not aren't worth the effort.
If you are greedy, treat people with suspicion and contempt, while assuming they will try to rip you off at every turn then they will start to see you with contempt and do exactly that.
And most of those hot new tv shows are not available through legitimate channels without DRM, and in many cases are not available to people in particular areas via any legitimate means short of flying to a different country (which may not even be possible due to visa requirements).
Besides, it seems you ignored the rest of my post, DRM is not intended to prevent piracy, pirates are a lost cause and they won't pay no matter how much you do, DRM is about exercising more control over those who will pay and getting more money from them.
Although that doesn't seem to have hurt sales too much (according to those that actually run thigns).
For the reasons i just mentioned, many people who pirate have no legitimate way to see the tv show anyway, so there's no possibility of making a sale there.
It does work, it does exactly what it's supposed to.
It's not supposed to stop the dishonest. They won't pay anyway, they would rather do without the content than pay for it.
It's supposed to control the honest. They have shown they are willing to spend money, so DRM schemes seek to extract more of it from them while also keeping them as tightly controlled as possible.
The key to "creators" getting over this mentality is to forget it exists, and to stop focusing on those that might be illegally sharing your work and instead focus on the ones that are actually buying it.
Which is exactly what they are doing... Claiming DRM is about piracy is a lie designed to disguise the true reason for such schemes. They know that the pirates will always crack any DRM scheme that is made, or otherwise just do without the content.
The reality is about controlling those who are actually buying it. Controlling how, when, where and on what they can use the content, and charging them over and over as many times as possible, especially selling them multiple copies of exactly the same content.