There are no good reasons for DRM. Such schemes only harm legitimate customers, they are inherently flawed and can therefore always be cracked so those who want to copy the content will always be able to do so. DRM only seeks to extort additional money from those who would buy media, but would then want to do such things as lend their legitimately purchased media to friends or format shift it.
As for protection, there are already protections in place against copying... They are known as "laws", and they already go much further than they should. As technology has become available to distribute media faster and more widespread than ever before, copyright terms have only increased when exactly the opposite should have happened.
Those who want to obtain copies of media for free will always do so... On the other hand, there are many far more moderate people who would quite happily purchase media if it was available under better conditions, but who feel offended by the ever extending copyright terms, draconian drm schemes and arbitrarily restricted availability imposed by big content.
DRM actively encourages people to obtain their media from an alternative source like thepiratebay... They don't hold you in contempt, they don't try to restrict when, where and on what you can play the media, they don't discriminate against you based on your current location.
Most people won't pirate if the legitimate options are just as, or more convenient. If this were the case, you would have a small core of hardcore pirates, and various people who simply cannot afford to buy media - people who will never pay whatever you do.
Software isn't going to simply stop working... At a worst case, the software is going to inhibit your ability to upgrade other pieces of software that it depends on, eg you may have to continue running an old OS to go with your old application because the old application won't run on new OS versions. This can become a problem if there are unfixed security holes in either the application, or other things it depends on.
That said, software becoming abandoned by its creators is certainly not unique to OSS. Commercial software often also suffers from the same problem on a regular basis and you should ALWAYS have a contingency plan.
Your contingency options with OSS however are usually a lot better because:
a, OSS software rarely tries to lock you in, it will usually use open standards whenever possible and if not you at least have *some* level of documentation in the form of the source code, all of which makes migration to something else much easier than some undocumented proprietary cruft. b, You always have the opportunity to modify the software yourself, depending how important it is to you this could mean taking over maintenance yourself or hiring developers to do so. With abandoned proprietary software you are almost never given this option. c, Abandoned commercial software will not sell you additional licenses, even assuming the software still works, still does what you need and your willing to pay - often they simply cant or wont take your money. With OSS you can deploy more copies at will.
Sometimes it can actually be easier to continue running an old version... If security advisories come out against newer (actively supported) versions you can often backport the patches, or in many cases don't even need to (ie the vulnerability exists in a feature your old version doesn't have).
Or do away with the idea of pull based transactions completely... Instead of giving the retailer access to your card, where they could pull any amount from it, rather operate a push system whereby they give you an address (lets say via qr code), you scan the code, approve the amount and your bank then sends that amount (and only that amount) to the retailers account. The retailer is not in control, you are.
Since when do employees at the average retailer ever bother to check that the raised lettering actually corresponds to the data on the magstrip? You could just need to create one realistic looking card and then you could keep rewriting it with fraudulent details whenever you liked.
How is something as arbitrary as a "signature" considered secure either? Anyone can make a random squiggle on a bit of paper. That provides absolutely no authentication whatsoever. A PIN is about the best option available at the moment, since stealing or cloning the card won't get you that.
You can run the open source AMD drivers, they lag behind somewhat in 3d performance (and i dont believe they have opencl support at all) but they are a lot more stable, probably still outperform intel, and continue to support older cards which the binary drivers have dropped support for.
By purchasing a player that works with their DRM you are showing them that their customers will put up with that shit, and that they can screw you even more in the future.
Not yet ready for the average user to install, maintain, tweak to get everything working, etc.? Surely not, though I wonder if Windows is all that much easier in that regard, except for the important distinction that Windows requires less effort to get everything working... usually the hardware works out of the box.
Usually it doesn't, i have rarely gotten windows to work out of the box on anything except hardware which predates the version of windows by a year or more. Anything newer and you will have to locate and install third party drivers, a process which can be extremely frustrating. And even if it does work out of the box, it's usually far from optimal and using generic drivers for many bits of hardware, which will result in mediocre to dire performance.
Linux generally works better, partly because its updated more frequently and thus more likely to have current drivers, and partly because it actually provides useful ways to see what hardware you have while windows just displays something generic like "vga card" until you have the proper drivers installed. In some cases you aren't even aware of what vendor your hardware is from, so good luck finding drivers.
The problem with responsiveness is that software becomes slower as hardware becomes faster, so the average computer today is no more responsive than one from several years ago. I still have an Amiga 4000 that is fast and responsive in its ui, despite being 20 years old now. If anything it seems more responsive than a ~1yr old macbook pro.
Something like the Amiga is sorely needed... A system that can run games with the ease of a console (just insert disc and boot), for which there is also a thriving independent development scene, and on which there is a full blown os you can use which actually encourages you to learn rather than trying to hide details of the system from you.
It entirely depends on *what* the software does...
And don't equate a lack of distractions with harder working, people can only concentrate for a while and then their minds start to wander so if not browsing facebook they will be doing something else like chatting to their colleagues or playing on their smartphones.
And there is no reason that web based applications need the internet, there is no reason why you can't run a closed internal network using the same type of applications. I'm aware of several companies which use tablets for inventory control, connected to an internally running html/ajax based application running over a wifi network in the warehouse.
For the average user, locked down walled garden is actually a good thing... Most people are simply not tech savvy enough to have full control over a complex device like a computer, that results in malware and all manner of other problems which blight the internet today.
They are in turmoil primarily because the old revenue streams have not dried up yet, so they are only very hesitantly trying new streams because they don't want to risk damaging their existing cash cows.
Familiarity is not why people use windows, familiarity is just the excuse used to spread FUD against anyone looking to switch to Linux. MS have made changes to the ui with every release, and they have done the same with msoffice and other products. Most annoyingly, they don't always provide an easy way to switch back to the previous interface.
People use windows because they're either locked in, or are simply unaware that alternatives exist. Windows 8 changes none of this, so many users will be stuck with it wether they like it or not, and other slightly more savvy users will just stick to windows 7.
Noone likes windows, noone ever did, it's never been a good product. People's dislike for windows shows in their failure in the mobile market, because their mobile product is branded as windows people simply aren't willing to try it because they aren't locked in to it on phones and they have bad memories of windows. I have lost count of the number of people who dismiss windows phone simply because its branded as windows, if it was called something else they would probably have been willing to at least look at it.
The problem is people are too used to paying once for software, so paying a subscription won't go down well... Most software as a service these days tends to be funded by advertising. Also if you want people to continue paying, you have to provide continued value, which is why most such applications tend to provide storage, collaboration and sharing services etc too.
The software MS produce is also fairly basic and common, so sooner or later it will become commoditized completely... If everything moves to a web based service model for instance, chrome os becomes the ideal choice.
I was having some authentication issues and didn't have the permissions to remove and readd my computer to the domain (pretty sure the machine password was out of sync). The tech that came to my computer didn't know how to run a command in DOS, but she did know how to remove my computer from the domain, rename it, and re-add it. Is this a good thing for the computing environment? Definitely not. But it's definitely good for companies' bottom line because they don't have to pay people who really know what they're doing and are highly educated.
This is not good, it's extremely short sighted...
Yes, you can hire low paid and low competence techs, but the end result will be flakey and insecure... You could hire incompetent techs to run linux too and the result would be almost as bad.
Windows is inherently unreliable, and will require more of the low paid techs to constantly fix stupid problems.
Trivial problems often get dealt with in inefficient ways by incompetent techs who don't understand what's really going on, they end up just rebooting and hoping the problem goes away rather than trying to work out what actually happened and fix it.
Incompetent techs may be cheaper than competent ones, but you will usually need a lot more of them.
How much does a major security breach cost? Your risk of having one goes up significantly if you hire cheap incompetent staff.
People won't bother not because it's a pain in the ass, but because its not the best or first way to acquire the content. It's much easier to just rip the bluray, which is usually available first, and in higher quality than anything on netflix.
As soon as it becomes worth while to do so, you can be sure that people will work out how to rip the streams.
Actually no... If i buy a PS3 game, i have no idea if it will work with my PS3 or not. My PS3 is running an old firmware, as that was sony's recommended route for continuing to use linux on it, so if i buy a game which requires a new firmware i cannot run it without destroying my linux install and forever losing the ability to use it.
So i have no idea if any game i buy will work on my PS3, subsequently i don't buy any more games for it.
The people launching the attacks are a significantly weaker force, they simply don't have the resources to attack highly guarded military targets. Desperate people do desperate things. You can bet if both sides were fairly equal, they would both be attacking each others military installations and trying to keep away from civilian targets wherever possible.
Eventually the mining reward is due to be phased out, so your only reward from processing block will be the transaction fees... Coupled with that, is the creation of new custom hardware designed specifically to process bitcoin, this custom hardware uses orders of magnitude less power than generic GPUs.
And also consider for a moment how much power the existing banking industry consumes, each bank operates hundreds if not thousands of servers not to mention all the high street branches and atms which consume power too.
USB was not a competitor to firewire at the time, it served an entirely different purpose... USB was great for input devices, while firewire was good for larger data transfers.
And while many motherboards at the time had usb support, many people had no idea what it was or as was often the case the usb headers on the motherboard were not even wired to usable ports on a backplate (i had several such boards).
At the time Apple implemented it on the iMac, hardly anyone else implemented usb either or if they did, they never used it and there were hardly any usb peripherals available.
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There are no good reasons for DRM. Such schemes only harm legitimate customers, they are inherently flawed and can therefore always be cracked so those who want to copy the content will always be able to do so. DRM only seeks to extort additional money from those who would buy media, but would then want to do such things as lend their legitimately purchased media to friends or format shift it.
As for protection, there are already protections in place against copying... They are known as "laws", and they already go much further than they should. As technology has become available to distribute media faster and more widespread than ever before, copyright terms have only increased when exactly the opposite should have happened.
Those who want to obtain copies of media for free will always do so...
On the other hand, there are many far more moderate people who would quite happily purchase media if it was available under better conditions, but who feel offended by the ever extending copyright terms, draconian drm schemes and arbitrarily restricted availability imposed by big content.
DRM actively encourages people to obtain their media from an alternative source like thepiratebay... They don't hold you in contempt, they don't try to restrict when, where and on what you can play the media, they don't discriminate against you based on your current location.
Most people won't pirate if the legitimate options are just as, or more convenient. If this were the case, you would have a small core of hardcore pirates, and various people who simply cannot afford to buy media - people who will never pay whatever you do.
Yes, good point, although OSS is unlikely to ever use anything like that, and if it does you could remove it - so another benefit of using OSS.
Software isn't going to simply stop working...
At a worst case, the software is going to inhibit your ability to upgrade other pieces of software that it depends on, eg you may have to continue running an old OS to go with your old application because the old application won't run on new OS versions.
This can become a problem if there are unfixed security holes in either the application, or other things it depends on.
That said, software becoming abandoned by its creators is certainly not unique to OSS. Commercial software often also suffers from the same problem on a regular basis and you should ALWAYS have a contingency plan.
Your contingency options with OSS however are usually a lot better because:
a, OSS software rarely tries to lock you in, it will usually use open standards whenever possible and if not you at least have *some* level of documentation in the form of the source code, all of which makes migration to something else much easier than some undocumented proprietary cruft.
b, You always have the opportunity to modify the software yourself, depending how important it is to you this could mean taking over maintenance yourself or hiring developers to do so. With abandoned proprietary software you are almost never given this option.
c, Abandoned commercial software will not sell you additional licenses, even assuming the software still works, still does what you need and your willing to pay - often they simply cant or wont take your money. With OSS you can deploy more copies at will.
Sometimes it can actually be easier to continue running an old version... If security advisories come out against newer (actively supported) versions you can often backport the patches, or in many cases don't even need to (ie the vulnerability exists in a feature your old version doesn't have).
Or do away with the idea of pull based transactions completely...
Instead of giving the retailer access to your card, where they could pull any amount from it, rather operate a push system whereby they give you an address (lets say via qr code), you scan the code, approve the amount and your bank then sends that amount (and only that amount) to the retailers account. The retailer is not in control, you are.
Since when do employees at the average retailer ever bother to check that the raised lettering actually corresponds to the data on the magstrip?
You could just need to create one realistic looking card and then you could keep rewriting it with fraudulent details whenever you liked.
How is something as arbitrary as a "signature" considered secure either? Anyone can make a random squiggle on a bit of paper. That provides absolutely no authentication whatsoever.
A PIN is about the best option available at the moment, since stealing or cloning the card won't get you that.
You can run the open source AMD drivers, they lag behind somewhat in 3d performance (and i dont believe they have opencl support at all) but they are a lot more stable, probably still outperform intel, and continue to support older cards which the binary drivers have dropped support for.
By purchasing a player that works with their DRM you are showing them that their customers will put up with that shit, and that they can screw you even more in the future.
Not yet ready for the average user to install, maintain, tweak to get everything working, etc.? Surely not, though I wonder if Windows is all that much easier in that regard, except for the important distinction that Windows requires less effort to get everything working... usually the hardware works out of the box.
Usually it doesn't, i have rarely gotten windows to work out of the box on anything except hardware which predates the version of windows by a year or more. Anything newer and you will have to locate and install third party drivers, a process which can be extremely frustrating. And even if it does work out of the box, it's usually far from optimal and using generic drivers for many bits of hardware, which will result in mediocre to dire performance.
Linux generally works better, partly because its updated more frequently and thus more likely to have current drivers, and partly because it actually provides useful ways to see what hardware you have while windows just displays something generic like "vga card" until you have the proper drivers installed. In some cases you aren't even aware of what vendor your hardware is from, so good luck finding drivers.
It's discrimination plain and simple...
And it doesn't solve a problem, it aims to treat symptoms at the expense of other healthy parts.
The problem with responsiveness is that software becomes slower as hardware becomes faster, so the average computer today is no more responsive than one from several years ago. I still have an Amiga 4000 that is fast and responsive in its ui, despite being 20 years old now. If anything it seems more responsive than a ~1yr old macbook pro.
Something like the Amiga is sorely needed...
A system that can run games with the ease of a console (just insert disc and boot), for which there is also a thriving independent development scene, and on which there is a full blown os you can use which actually encourages you to learn rather than trying to hide details of the system from you.
It entirely depends on *what* the software does...
And don't equate a lack of distractions with harder working, people can only concentrate for a while and then their minds start to wander so if not browsing facebook they will be doing something else like chatting to their colleagues or playing on their smartphones.
And there is no reason that web based applications need the internet, there is no reason why you can't run a closed internal network using the same type of applications. I'm aware of several companies which use tablets for inventory control, connected to an internally running html/ajax based application running over a wifi network in the warehouse.
For the average user, locked down walled garden is actually a good thing... Most people are simply not tech savvy enough to have full control over a complex device like a computer, that results in malware and all manner of other problems which blight the internet today.
They are in turmoil primarily because the old revenue streams have not dried up yet, so they are only very hesitantly trying new streams because they don't want to risk damaging their existing cash cows.
Familiarity is not why people use windows, familiarity is just the excuse used to spread FUD against anyone looking to switch to Linux. MS have made changes to the ui with every release, and they have done the same with msoffice and other products. Most annoyingly, they don't always provide an easy way to switch back to the previous interface.
People use windows because they're either locked in, or are simply unaware that alternatives exist. Windows 8 changes none of this, so many users will be stuck with it wether they like it or not, and other slightly more savvy users will just stick to windows 7.
Noone likes windows, noone ever did, it's never been a good product. People's dislike for windows shows in their failure in the mobile market, because their mobile product is branded as windows people simply aren't willing to try it because they aren't locked in to it on phones and they have bad memories of windows. I have lost count of the number of people who dismiss windows phone simply because its branded as windows, if it was called something else they would probably have been willing to at least look at it.
The problem is people are too used to paying once for software, so paying a subscription won't go down well... Most software as a service these days tends to be funded by advertising.
Also if you want people to continue paying, you have to provide continued value, which is why most such applications tend to provide storage, collaboration and sharing services etc too.
The software MS produce is also fairly basic and common, so sooner or later it will become commoditized completely... If everything moves to a web based service model for instance, chrome os becomes the ideal choice.
I was having some authentication issues and didn't have the permissions to remove and readd my computer to the domain (pretty sure the machine password was out of sync). The tech that came to my computer didn't know how to run a command in DOS, but she did know how to remove my computer from the domain, rename it, and re-add it. Is this a good thing for the computing environment? Definitely not. But it's definitely good for companies' bottom line because they don't have to pay people who really know what they're doing and are highly educated.
This is not good, it's extremely short sighted...
Yes, you can hire low paid and low competence techs, but the end result will be flakey and insecure... You could hire incompetent techs to run linux too and the result would be almost as bad.
Windows is inherently unreliable, and will require more of the low paid techs to constantly fix stupid problems.
Trivial problems often get dealt with in inefficient ways by incompetent techs who don't understand what's really going on, they end up just rebooting and hoping the problem goes away rather than trying to work out what actually happened and fix it.
Incompetent techs may be cheaper than competent ones, but you will usually need a lot more of them.
How much does a major security breach cost? Your risk of having one goes up significantly if you hire cheap incompetent staff.
People won't bother not because it's a pain in the ass, but because its not the best or first way to acquire the content.
It's much easier to just rip the bluray, which is usually available first, and in higher quality than anything on netflix.
As soon as it becomes worth while to do so, you can be sure that people will work out how to rip the streams.
Actually no...
If i buy a PS3 game, i have no idea if it will work with my PS3 or not. My PS3 is running an old firmware, as that was sony's recommended route for continuing to use linux on it, so if i buy a game which requires a new firmware i cannot run it without destroying my linux install and forever losing the ability to use it.
So i have no idea if any game i buy will work on my PS3, subsequently i don't buy any more games for it.
The people launching the attacks are a significantly weaker force, they simply don't have the resources to attack highly guarded military targets. Desperate people do desperate things.
You can bet if both sides were fairly equal, they would both be attacking each others military installations and trying to keep away from civilian targets wherever possible.
Eventually the mining reward is due to be phased out, so your only reward from processing block will be the transaction fees...
Coupled with that, is the creation of new custom hardware designed specifically to process bitcoin, this custom hardware uses orders of magnitude less power than generic GPUs.
And also consider for a moment how much power the existing banking industry consumes, each bank operates hundreds if not thousands of servers not to mention all the high street branches and atms which consume power too.
USB was not a competitor to firewire at the time, it served an entirely different purpose... USB was great for input devices, while firewire was good for larger data transfers.
And while many motherboards at the time had usb support, many people had no idea what it was or as was often the case the usb headers on the motherboard were not even wired to usable ports on a backplate (i had several such boards).
At the time Apple implemented it on the iMac, hardly anyone else implemented usb either or if they did, they never used it and there were hardly any usb peripherals available.
So what performance impact does all this have?