It's been pointed out that the only reason most iTMS users would buy full-length movies online is so they could watch them on their TV set. Since DVD burning isn't an option (yet?), Apple had to announce their intended set-top box to give the movie announcement some real weight..................
Well in that case, it seems that CinemaNow.com has Apple beat. It already offers DVD burning (and obviously destroys Apple when it comes to selection, at the moment). The prices are cheaper too. So DVD burning isn't the issue.
The iTV box allows one to store multiple movies in his iTunes library such that they're immediately ready for watching on a TV. Like a movie jukebox. (Not innovative by any stretch; Media Center Extenders allow the same thing, and the movies don't have to be in any particular app's "library". You just designate the one or more directories that are to be browsable for videos, and you can play any video in those directories on the TV.)
A good reason to patent something you "invented", even if you have no intention of enforcing them yourself, is to prevent some small company that does nothing *but* patent from patenting your "invention" and coming after you. Even if you had "prior art", the case costs money to actually win, so you might feel compelled to settle to make it go away.
Microsoft normally doesn't sue over patents, but they're the biggest target for these patent-specialist companies (since MS has the most money, and potential suers think MS would be more likely to settle since they can do it without missing the cash), so they patent their stuff for their own protection.
Actually, IBM did come to agreement to use CP/M (besides DOS) on its PCs.
This was after the sequence where IBM contracted Microsoft to provide Basic, asked Gates about an OS, Gates told them to use DR's CP/M, IBM went to see Kildall (head of DR), but he was out flying his plane, so IBM met his wife instead, who refused to sign the NDA, which sent IBM (still looking for an OS) back to Gates, who bought Seattle Computing's QDOS (allegedly ripped off from DR), and Gates licensed it to IBM as MS-DOS. IBM also had their own IBM branded version called PC-DOS (but still licensed from MS). After all that, IBM eventually did come to agreement with DR to use CP/M. The problem was that MSDOS cost $50 (or whatever) and CP/M cost $250, so the vast majority of people bought their PCs with DOS (either MSDOS or PCDOS) rather than CP/M. And the rest is history.
I got a kernel panic on OSX 10.1 (some networking problem), but that's the only time. It was white with black text, if I recall correctly, displaying a bunch of unix jargon.:-)
As a long time Mac user, I remember (not so) fondly the "System Bomb" graphic (a black spherical bomb with a lit fuse) that Apple used for system crashes prior to OSX. And those system bombs happend all the time, much more than blue screens of Win3x, Win95, or NT. But yes, the "System Bomb" pic was cuter than a blue screen with a bunch of white text, so it was in keeping with Apple's attention to "style" (even for crashes).;-)
(And of course, today apple uses the "Spinning beachball of death" for app hangs (but not for system crashes).)
Give us a little credit. We're not stupid and neither was the FBI. It's clear that this "selling backups of stuff you already own" was a cover for what was really happenning here.
Besides, why would anyone buy a "backup" from a third party? Sounds like an easy way to get malware on your sytem. Who knows what malware might have been added to the "backup" (as a special bonus!)?
As a side note, this is one advantage to buying software online (or registering software you buy in stores). I bought some commercial software online. Later, my harddrive crashed, so I lost the software (I do backup data, but not programs). In order to recover the software, I simply went to the commercial software sites, entered my email address into a "Did you lose your software?" or "Did you forget your registration key?", etc, field, and presto! - they emailed me a new key and allowed me to redownload the software. Much better than going to some shady "backup" salesman, as it's legit, cheaper (redownload for free rather than paying a criminal for "backups"), and safer (the software is the real deal, rather than the potentially malware-infected backup that the criminal "backups" vendor might provide).
What if pirates do not hide the fact that software they sell is not legitimate? At least those I've dealt with so far never tried to conceal it.
"Those you've dealt with so far?" Sounds like you're a frequent purchaser of pirated software. You're probably a regular customer, and word gets around to the pirates in your area, so there's no need to hide from you the fact that the software they sell isn't legit. But to some J6P off the street, they probably sell pirated XP as "legit" (and then J6P wonders why he's getting WGA notifications).
Well, the "IP wants to be free" crowd brings up music as their example because it's perceived that music is cheap to make so people will continue to make it for "free".
But what about movies? Each of the LOTR movies cost over 100 million dollars to make. If you took away the profit incentive, there would be no way that anyone would go into such an undertaking for free, just because it's "inatly humam or fun". Your argument may hold for small projects but not large ones, and if large projects like the LOTR movies were taken away from us (because there was no profit incentive to create them), then that would be a loss for society in general. Society can live with just "small" projects, but why should it? Large projects have their place as well, and those require ROI to make.
(As a side note, I question whether the LOTR *books* would even have been written if there were no profit incentive at all. Or maybe they would've been written, but not with the epic-scale that they have.)
This is considerably different than the average "pirate" who downloads software for him/herself and perhaps distributes copies to friends. This guy was *selling* pirated software. That's a whole different ballgame, and it makes him a garden variety criminal in my opinion.
Yes, this guy is a "criminal", while the "average pirate" that downloads warez (and distributes copies to friends) is guilty of a "civil" infraction of copyright infringement. Unless this "average pirate" does this for more than $1000 worth of software (and music, movies, games) in the span of 180 days - at that point the infraction becomes "criminal" rather than "civil". So watch how much you pirate if you want to make sure that you stay out of the "criminal" category. (See http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506) .
BTW, it appears that when distributing multiple copies to friends (and by "friends", I assume you mean real friends, not just anyone that happens to connect to your computer via P2P) each copy counts towards that $1000 threshold. For example, let's say a particular program costs $250. If you download a pirated copy for yourself (that's one illegal copy) then distribute it to three friends (that's three more illegal copies), then you've participated in the illegal distribution of 4 copies, for a total of $1000, which gets you into the "criminal" category (and making the program available to millions over P2P would get you into the "criminal" category with the quickness).
I agree that generally, year-over-year per quarter comparisons are what is important, but looking at your stats, the last two quarters did show decline over the previous quarter *for the first time in iPod history*. I had assumed that each of the previous years, there was a spike during the holiday quarter, then a decline, followed by a larger spike the next holiday quarter. But that hasn't been the case. Every quarter has shown a gain over the previous quarter even if that previous quarter was a holiday quarter. So the recent decline in each of the last two quarters is indeed different than what happened in previous years.
When creating a project based on someone else's IP, particularly using actual art of that IP, it's best to get an agreement from the copyright owner. I think that Roosterteeth, the creators of "Red vs Blue", reached an agreement with MS that allowed them to make their videos (which utilized art taken right out of Halo itself). These "Halogen" guys (this is the first I'd heard of them) should've done the same.
Thurrott's not telling anyone to "boycott". He listed things he didn't like in an attempt to get them fixed for RTM, but that was only 1 of the 4 articles of his Vista RC1 review, the other three of which were prasing Vista.
And yes, his article was better than that Business 2.0 garbage (though I only agree with some of Thurrott's points, some I disagree with).
First of all, the UI changes, IE7, simple network changes, start menu, explorer changes, new dialogs, USB caching, search, WPF, backup utils, audio changes, and speech recognition are next to useless, and are certainly not worth paying for. Some of thing are even a further step backwards over the old W2k way.
Search is useless and not worth paying for? Don't let a Mac fanboy hear you say that.;-) And USB caching is very cool. The ability to simply plug in a USB2 flash drive and instantly get a gig or two of extra ram is useless (particularly for notebooks, where it's harder to add RAM the old-fashioned way). WPF is usesless? Only someone that doesn't have a clue what it is would say that. Well, you're pretty much clueless about everything anyway.
OMG, not the DRM crap again. You do realize that such DRM is required to play next gen movie discs, don't you? And Apple is a member of BDA (the bluray association group), so you can be sure that OSX will have DRM requried to play BR discs. This isn't a Windows-specific thing. And what would you prefer, that MS remove that DRM so that Windows wouldn't be able to play those discs at all? The discs are going to have DRM whether Windows or Mac OS implement that DRM or not.
Microsoft used to release patches as they came up, but IT departments demanded that they instead use a monthly schedule, thus became the "every 2nd Tuesday of each month" routine. For the really serious problems they do issue out-of-cycle patches. And before any one suggests, "Release the patches as they come up for users and let IT departments use the 2nd Tuesday of each month routine", that's foolhardy because these days most malware is created by reverse engineering patches. So if MS were to make patches available to the general public while IT departments waited for a standard 2nd Tuesday security update, the bad guys would reverse engineer the general release patches and create malware that would be able to target the IT computers before the next 2nd Tuesday update occurred.
BTW, patches to WM-DRM aren't made through Windows Update, their made through a WM-DRM compliant player. WM-DRM patches are given to content providers, which attach the new "fixed" DRM to their content, then the next time a WM-DRM compliant player plays content from the provider that has been encumbered with the "fixed" DRM, the user is prompted to download the new DRM in order to play the content.
It doesn't matter whether other systems have had on-the-fly verb conjugation. It only matters if they used the same implementation as described in this patent. If the MS implementation is new, then it's arguably patentable. Most here seem to intentionally misunderstand that.
You say "Big Whoop", but so what? Most patents would illicit derisive "Big Whoop" responses from people. That doesn't mean that they aren't unique ideas. You dismiss this particular idea because it uses a series of table lookups, "ad nauseum". But if it hasn't been done before, or even "officially" thought of before (by "official" I mean nobody has thought of it seriously enought to apply for a patent), then it's patentable. Doesn't matter whether it's a revolutionary idea or not.
"Microsoft has always rushed it. No new version of Windows has ever been ready for primetime."
And how is that different from any other OS company? Mac OS 7.0 sucked. It took 7.1 to make it viable. Mac OS 8.0 sucked. It took 8.1 to make it usable. Mac OSX 10.0 sucked. OSX wasn't good until OSX 10.2.
"we hate the idea because it's bloody fucking obvious to everyone except Microsoft that they should fix all the vulnerabilites in IE before building a wall around them. In other words, use the shield code to FIX IE."
This tells me that you haven't the first clue about software development. You're demanding that Microsoft "fix all the vulnerabilies in IE" before implementing a "wall". You're extremely naive if you think that MS can just "fix all vulnerabilities in IE" before the vulnerabilities are even discovered. Browsers are so complex these days (too complex, really), that it's foolhardy to expect "perfect" code. Look at Firefox and its myriad of recent security updates. MS fixes flaws as they come up, just as Mozilla does.
The point of "building a wall" is that it's nearly impossible to create "perfect" code. The "wall" provides protection against the bugs that are inevitably in the browser. There's nothing stupid about this concept, and you're only taking the stand you are because it's Microsoft that's doing this. If MS does implement this wall in the future, they'll still fix any flaw that allows exploits to occur in spite of the wall. They'll still fix flaws as they come up, just as they do today, but hopefully such a wall would result in fewer flaws coming up in the first place. Now, it's possible that the wall will "cover up" hidden flaws such that they are never discovered and therefore never fixed. You know what? GOOD!!
Microsoft is already doing things like this in Vista, where IE7 runs in a low-rights mode such that it has no access to any files or directories except the cache, unless OK'ed by a "broker", which is invoked if the user does File-SaveAs or some such. The idea here is that the "broker" code is extremely small, and so is unlikely to have hidden flaws. Malware might find a hole in IE7, but would then have to find a flaw in the "broker" in order to infect the system. You, being naive as you are, would have Microsoft eliminate the broker, run IE7 at the same privilege level as the user, and just "fix all flaws in IE", right?
(BTW, remember the story about MS inviting FF devs to Redmond give some advice on getting FF to run on Vista? One of the things that the FF devs said they were interested in was running FF in the low rights mode, just as IE will (the low rights mode is an API available to apps besides IE). (See beltzner's post in the usenet thread Groups.google.com: mozilla.dev.planning: Firefox and Thnderbird on Vista, where he talks about getting FF to run in "the new application security mode" (as well as taking advantage of other Vista features). So, the FF devs are idiots too, right? They should ignore Vista's "app security mode" and just "fix all flaws" in FF, right?)
You also don't have a clue regarding how easy it is to use tricks in languages (like Javascript) to get malware to execute. I took a class on this, and you'd be surprised to see what looks like perfectly safe Javascript or SQL script actually be malware. So, what's wrong with providing a little protection?
Who knows, maybe in the future, IE will be written in managed code, run in low-rights mode, and have a "BrowserShield". Good.
Oh please... If Mozilla had come up with this you guys would be praising it to high heaven.
And what do you mean, "it's the Microsoft way?" Are you saying that they don't fix security problems today? Wake up and smell the coffee. MS fixes security leaks just as your beloved Mozilla does (don't tell me that you're unaware that most of Firefox's "updates" in recent months have been for multiple and critical security flaws). If MS ends up implementing this "shield", there's no reason to believe that they'd stop issuing patches when the need arises.
Engadget had no problem posting links to the WM-DRM crack, in multiple articles, including advocating its use, showing how to use it, and urging MS to not patch the hole. Yet, now they refuse to post a link to the FairPlay crack? What's the deal?
Communisim is bad because it goes against human nature, and therefore is doomed to failure in the long run. Therefore, in order to maintain a communist system, one must eventually use force.
But that's typical of most, if not all, utopian philsophies. You set out to establish a utopia, an ideal system, a man-made paradise where all is good and evil is vanquished. But next thing you know, you find yourself enforcing that utopia at the point of a gun, or are refusing people to leave the utopia after they've become disenchanted. Fortunately, most utopias remain small (cults) so they harm only to the small number of people that were misfortunate enough to join them. Communists, on the other hand, tried to impose their utopia on vast numbers of people, to great harm. It's no accident that during the Cold War, Eastern European countries had much worse living conditions than their Western counterparts, and many Eastern Europeans tried to make it to the West to better their lives, while hardly any Westerners tried to go to the Eastern Bloc. I remember when the Berlin Wall came down, the Eastern Berliners were shocked at how well stocked the Western Berlin stores were with goods.
Taking this discussion to the main topic, this article is simply another example of Communist government trying to impose a utopia on the citizens.
I find it amusing when someone (a state, person, business), says, "We hate Microsoft because they're a monopoly, so I'm going to use other products!! Stickin' it to the MAN. Oh Yeaaaah!!" The irony is that the ability to use other products disproves that MS is a monopoly.
How can a state claim that they're fighting against a monopoly by using other products? That a state *can* move entirely to other products proves that there is no monopoly to begin with.
How about using other products because they're "better" (more value for the buck, better support, etc) rather than for some political agenda? If the non-MS software is "better", then great, use it on that basis. But if the MS products are actually "better", but not being used for the sake of a political agenda, then this state is screwing over its citizens by making them take part in the anti-MS jihad that most of them likely couldn't care less about.
"But to me there is a clear distinction -- in one case, you're manipulating a file that you acquired (likely legally, since it's DRM'd). In the other case, someone is distributing a file that is a copyrighted work -- not fair use."
It's not that simple, IMO. There are three general scenarios in which DRM'ed media is obtained. I'll cover each of these as to under what circumstances I think that stripping the DRM is fair use:
I think that if you strip DRM from a song/video that you *purchased*, and don't distribute the DRM-stripped version to others, then that's fair use.
I think that if you strip DRM from a song/video that you obtained via subscription service, then it's fair use as long as you don't distribute the DRM-stripped item to others AND you throw it away when you cancel your subscription.
I think that if you strip DRM from a video that you rented via a limited-time rented download (e.g. rented movies downloaded from CinemaNow.com), then it's fair use if you don't distribute the DRM-stripped version to others AND you throw it away when the viewing period terminates. For this particular case, I'll allow more leeway - if you didn't actually watch the video during the specified viewing time (you were too busy, or whatever), then I'd say if you watch the DRM-stripped version one time in the future, then throw it away, it's fair use (maybe not "fair use", but it's "fair".:-). This "time shifting" is commonly done with Netflix rentals, and I see no moral problem as long as the viewer throws away the DRM-stripped copy after watching it.
One more scenario I just thought of: some services offer DRM downloaded media that allows you to watch/listen to the item N times (instead of (or in addition to) specifying a time period within to watch/listen to the item). In this case, if you strip the DRM and don't distribute the DRM-stripped version to others AND you throw it away after listening/viewing N times, then it's fair use.
Note that the whole point of rental/subscription services is to offer media at a lower price than that of an actual purchase, at the cost of limiting what you can do with the media (you can only listen/watch the item during a certain time period, and/or only N times, and/or only as long as you continue your subscription). Stripping DRM in order to get around these limits particularly since you knew the limits going in), is not fair use.
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Well in that case, it seems that CinemaNow.com has Apple beat. It already offers DVD burning (and obviously destroys Apple when it comes to selection, at the moment). The prices are cheaper too. So DVD burning isn't the issue.
The iTV box allows one to store multiple movies in his iTunes library such that they're immediately ready for watching on a TV. Like a movie jukebox. (Not innovative by any stretch; Media Center Extenders allow the same thing, and the movies don't have to be in any particular app's "library". You just designate the one or more directories that are to be browsable for videos, and you can play any video in those directories on the TV.)
A good reason to patent something you "invented", even if you have no intention of enforcing them yourself, is to prevent some small company that does nothing *but* patent from patenting your "invention" and coming after you. Even if you had "prior art", the case costs money to actually win, so you might feel compelled to settle to make it go away.
Microsoft normally doesn't sue over patents, but they're the biggest target for these patent-specialist companies (since MS has the most money, and potential suers think MS would be more likely to settle since they can do it without missing the cash), so they patent their stuff for their own protection.
Actually, IBM did come to agreement to use CP/M (besides DOS) on its PCs.
This was after the sequence where IBM contracted Microsoft to provide Basic, asked Gates about an OS, Gates told them to use DR's CP/M, IBM went to see Kildall (head of DR), but he was out flying his plane, so IBM met his wife instead, who refused to sign the NDA, which sent IBM (still looking for an OS) back to Gates, who bought Seattle Computing's QDOS (allegedly ripped off from DR), and Gates licensed it to IBM as MS-DOS. IBM also had their own IBM branded version called PC-DOS (but still licensed from MS). After all that, IBM eventually did come to agreement with DR to use CP/M. The problem was that MSDOS cost $50 (or whatever) and CP/M cost $250, so the vast majority of people bought their PCs with DOS (either MSDOS or PCDOS) rather than CP/M. And the rest is history.
I got a kernel panic on OSX 10.1 (some networking problem), but that's the only time. It was white with black text, if I recall correctly, displaying a bunch of unix jargon. :-)
As a long time Mac user, I remember (not so) fondly the "System Bomb" graphic (a black spherical bomb with a lit fuse) that Apple used for system crashes prior to OSX. And those system bombs happend all the time, much more than blue screens of Win3x, Win95, or NT. But yes, the "System Bomb" pic was cuter than a blue screen with a bunch of white text, so it was in keeping with Apple's attention to "style" (even for crashes). ;-)
(And of course, today apple uses the "Spinning beachball of death" for app hangs (but not for system crashes).)
Give us a little credit. We're not stupid and neither was the FBI. It's clear that this "selling backups of stuff you already own" was a cover for what was really happenning here.
Besides, why would anyone buy a "backup" from a third party? Sounds like an easy way to get malware on your sytem. Who knows what malware might have been added to the "backup" (as a special bonus!)?
As a side note, this is one advantage to buying software online (or registering software you buy in stores). I bought some commercial software online. Later, my harddrive crashed, so I lost the software (I do backup data, but not programs). In order to recover the software, I simply went to the commercial software sites, entered my email address into a "Did you lose your software?" or "Did you forget your registration key?", etc, field, and presto! - they emailed me a new key and allowed me to redownload the software. Much better than going to some shady "backup" salesman, as it's legit, cheaper (redownload for free rather than paying a criminal for "backups"), and safer (the software is the real deal, rather than the potentially malware-infected backup that the criminal "backups" vendor might provide).
The same thing happened to http://www.buysusa.com/ last month. Except he only got 6 years, so I guess he got off. ;-)
"Those you've dealt with so far?" Sounds like you're a frequent purchaser of pirated software. You're probably a regular customer, and word gets around to the pirates in your area, so there's no need to hide from you the fact that the software they sell isn't legit. But to some J6P off the street, they probably sell pirated XP as "legit" (and then J6P wonders why he's getting WGA notifications).
Well, the "IP wants to be free" crowd brings up music as their example because it's perceived that music is cheap to make so people will continue to make it for "free".
But what about movies? Each of the LOTR movies cost over 100 million dollars to make. If you took away the profit incentive, there would be no way that anyone would go into such an undertaking for free, just because it's "inatly humam or fun". Your argument may hold for small projects but not large ones, and if large projects like the LOTR movies were taken away from us (because there was no profit incentive to create them), then that would be a loss for society in general. Society can live with just "small" projects, but why should it? Large projects have their place as well, and those require ROI to make.
(As a side note, I question whether the LOTR *books* would even have been written if there were no profit incentive at all. Or maybe they would've been written, but not with the epic-scale that they have.)
Yes, this guy is a "criminal", while the "average pirate" that downloads warez (and distributes copies to friends) is guilty of a "civil" infraction of copyright infringement. Unless this "average pirate" does this for more than $1000 worth of software (and music, movies, games) in the span of 180 days - at that point the infraction becomes "criminal" rather than "civil". So watch how much you pirate if you want to make sure that you stay out of the "criminal" category. (See http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
BTW, it appears that when distributing multiple copies to friends (and by "friends", I assume you mean real friends, not just anyone that happens to connect to your computer via P2P) each copy counts towards that $1000 threshold. For example, let's say a particular program costs $250. If you download a pirated copy for yourself (that's one illegal copy) then distribute it to three friends (that's three more illegal copies), then you've participated in the illegal distribution of 4 copies, for a total of $1000, which gets you into the "criminal" category (and making the program available to millions over P2P would get you into the "criminal" category with the quickness).
I agree that generally, year-over-year per quarter comparisons are what is important, but looking at your stats, the last two quarters did show decline over the previous quarter *for the first time in iPod history*. I had assumed that each of the previous years, there was a spike during the holiday quarter, then a decline, followed by a larger spike the next holiday quarter. But that hasn't been the case. Every quarter has shown a gain over the previous quarter even if that previous quarter was a holiday quarter. So the recent decline in each of the last two quarters is indeed different than what happened in previous years.
When creating a project based on someone else's IP, particularly using actual art of that IP, it's best to get an agreement from the copyright owner. I think that Roosterteeth, the creators of "Red vs Blue", reached an agreement with MS that allowed them to make their videos (which utilized art taken right out of Halo itself). These "Halogen" guys (this is the first I'd heard of them) should've done the same.
Thurrott's not telling anyone to "boycott".
He listed things he didn't like in an attempt to get them fixed for RTM, but that was only 1 of the 4 articles of his Vista RC1 review, the other three of which were prasing Vista.
And yes, his article was better than that Business 2.0 garbage (though I only agree with some of Thurrott's points, some I disagree with).
First of all, the UI changes, IE7, simple network changes, start menu, explorer changes, new dialogs, USB caching, search, WPF, backup utils, audio changes, and speech recognition are next to useless, and are certainly not worth paying for. Some of thing are even a further step backwards over the old W2k way.
;-)
Search is useless and not worth paying for? Don't let a Mac fanboy hear you say that.
And USB caching is very cool. The ability to simply plug in a USB2 flash drive and instantly get a gig or two of extra ram is useless (particularly for notebooks, where it's harder to add RAM the old-fashioned way).
WPF is usesless? Only someone that doesn't have a clue what it is would say that. Well, you're pretty much clueless about everything anyway.
OMG, not the DRM crap again.
You do realize that such DRM is required to play next gen movie discs, don't you? And Apple is a member of BDA (the bluray association group), so you can be sure that OSX will have DRM requried to play BR discs. This isn't a Windows-specific thing. And what would you prefer, that MS remove that DRM so that Windows wouldn't be able to play those discs at all? The discs are going to have DRM whether Windows or Mac OS implement that DRM or not.
Microsoft used to release patches as they came up, but IT departments demanded that they instead use a monthly schedule, thus became the "every 2nd Tuesday of each month" routine. For the really serious problems they do issue out-of-cycle patches. And before any one suggests, "Release the patches as they come up for users and let IT departments use the 2nd Tuesday of each month routine", that's foolhardy because these days most malware is created by reverse engineering patches. So if MS were to make patches available to the general public while IT departments waited for a standard 2nd Tuesday security update, the bad guys would reverse engineer the general release patches and create malware that would be able to target the IT computers before the next 2nd Tuesday update occurred.
BTW, patches to WM-DRM aren't made through Windows Update, their made through a WM-DRM compliant player. WM-DRM patches are given to content providers, which attach the new "fixed" DRM to their content, then the next time a WM-DRM compliant player plays content from the provider that has been encumbered with the "fixed" DRM, the user is prompted to download the new DRM in order to play the content.
It doesn't matter whether other systems have had on-the-fly verb conjugation. It only matters if they used the same implementation as described in this patent. If the MS implementation is new, then it's arguably patentable. Most here seem to intentionally misunderstand that.
You say "Big Whoop", but so what? Most patents would illicit derisive "Big Whoop" responses from people. That doesn't mean that they aren't unique ideas. You dismiss this particular idea because it uses a series of table lookups, "ad nauseum". But if it hasn't been done before, or even "officially" thought of before (by "official" I mean nobody has thought of it seriously enought to apply for a patent), then it's patentable. Doesn't matter whether it's a revolutionary idea or not.
"Microsoft has always rushed it. No new version of Windows has ever been ready for primetime."
And how is that different from any other OS company?
Mac OS 7.0 sucked. It took 7.1 to make it viable.
Mac OS 8.0 sucked. It took 8.1 to make it usable.
Mac OSX 10.0 sucked. OSX wasn't good until OSX 10.2.
And Linux is no better on that score, so save it.
This tells me that you haven't the first clue about software development. You're demanding that Microsoft "fix all the vulnerabilies in IE" before implementing a "wall". You're extremely naive if you think that MS can just "fix all vulnerabilities in IE" before the vulnerabilities are even discovered. Browsers are so complex these days (too complex, really), that it's foolhardy to expect "perfect" code. Look at Firefox and its myriad of recent security updates. MS fixes flaws as they come up, just as Mozilla does.
The point of "building a wall" is that it's nearly impossible to create "perfect" code. The "wall" provides protection against the bugs that are inevitably in the browser. There's nothing stupid about this concept, and you're only taking the stand you are because it's Microsoft that's doing this. If MS does implement this wall in the future, they'll still fix any flaw that allows exploits to occur in spite of the wall. They'll still fix flaws as they come up, just as they do today, but hopefully such a wall would result in fewer flaws coming up in the first place. Now, it's possible that the wall will "cover up" hidden flaws such that they are never discovered and therefore never fixed. You know what? GOOD!!
Microsoft is already doing things like this in Vista, where IE7 runs in a low-rights mode such that it has no access to any files or directories except the cache, unless OK'ed by a "broker", which is invoked if the user does File-SaveAs or some such. The idea here is that the "broker" code is extremely small, and so is unlikely to have hidden flaws. Malware might find a hole in IE7, but would then have to find a flaw in the "broker" in order to infect the system. You, being naive as you are, would have Microsoft eliminate the broker, run IE7 at the same privilege level as the user, and just "fix all flaws in IE", right?
(BTW, remember the story about MS inviting FF devs to Redmond give some advice on getting FF to run on Vista? One of the things that the FF devs said they were interested in was running FF in the low rights mode, just as IE will (the low rights mode is an API available to apps besides IE). (See beltzner's post in the usenet thread Groups.google.com: mozilla.dev.planning: Firefox and Thnderbird on Vista, where he talks about getting FF to run in "the new application security mode" (as well as taking advantage of other Vista features). So, the FF devs are idiots too, right? They should ignore Vista's "app security mode" and just "fix all flaws" in FF, right?)
You also don't have a clue regarding how easy it is to use tricks in languages (like Javascript) to get malware to execute. I took a class on this, and you'd be surprised to see what looks like perfectly safe Javascript or SQL script actually be malware. So, what's wrong with providing a little protection?
Who knows, maybe in the future, IE will be written in managed code, run in low-rights mode, and have a "BrowserShield". Good.
Oh please...
If Mozilla had come up with this you guys would be praising it to high heaven.
And what do you mean, "it's the Microsoft way?" Are you saying that they don't fix security problems today? Wake up and smell the coffee. MS fixes security leaks just as your beloved Mozilla does (don't tell me that you're unaware that most of Firefox's "updates" in recent months have been for multiple and critical security flaws).
If MS ends up implementing this "shield", there's no reason to believe that they'd stop issuing patches when the need arises.
Engadget had no problem posting links to the WM-DRM crack, in multiple articles, including advocating its use, showing how to use it, and urging MS to not patch the hole. Yet, now they refuse to post a link to the FairPlay crack? What's the deal?
Communisim is bad because it goes against human nature, and therefore is doomed to failure in the long run. Therefore, in order to maintain a communist system, one must eventually use force.
But that's typical of most, if not all, utopian philsophies. You set out to establish a utopia, an ideal system, a man-made paradise where all is good and evil is vanquished. But next thing you know, you find yourself enforcing that utopia at the point of a gun, or are refusing people to leave the utopia after they've become disenchanted. Fortunately, most utopias remain small (cults) so they harm only to the small number of people that were misfortunate enough to join them. Communists, on the other hand, tried to impose their utopia on vast numbers of people, to great harm. It's no accident that during the Cold War, Eastern European countries had much worse living conditions than their Western counterparts, and many Eastern Europeans tried to make it to the West to better their lives, while hardly any Westerners tried to go to the Eastern Bloc. I remember when the Berlin Wall came down, the Eastern Berliners were shocked at how well stocked the Western Berlin stores were with goods.
Taking this discussion to the main topic, this article is simply another example of Communist government trying to impose a utopia on the citizens.
I find it amusing when someone (a state, person, business), says, "We hate Microsoft because they're a monopoly, so I'm going to use other products!! Stickin' it to the MAN. Oh Yeaaaah!!" The irony is that the ability to use other products disproves that MS is a monopoly.
How can a state claim that they're fighting against a monopoly by using other products? That a state *can* move entirely to other products proves that there is no monopoly to begin with.
How about using other products because they're "better" (more value for the buck, better support, etc) rather than for some political agenda? If the non-MS software is "better", then great, use it on that basis. But if the MS products are actually "better", but not being used for the sake of a political agenda, then this state is screwing over its citizens by making them take part in the anti-MS jihad that most of them likely couldn't care less about.
"But to me there is a clear distinction -- in one case, you're manipulating a file that you acquired (likely legally, since it's DRM'd). In the other case, someone is distributing a file that is a copyrighted work -- not fair use."
:-). This "time shifting" is commonly done with Netflix rentals, and I see no moral problem as long as the viewer throws away the DRM-stripped copy after watching it.
It's not that simple, IMO. There are three general scenarios in which DRM'ed media is obtained. I'll cover each of these as to under what circumstances I think that stripping the DRM is fair use:
I think that if you strip DRM from a song/video that you *purchased*, and don't distribute the DRM-stripped version to others, then that's fair use.
I think that if you strip DRM from a song/video that you obtained via subscription service, then it's fair use as long as you don't distribute the DRM-stripped item to others AND you throw it away when you cancel your subscription.
I think that if you strip DRM from a video that you rented via a limited-time rented download (e.g. rented movies downloaded from CinemaNow.com), then it's fair use if you don't distribute the DRM-stripped version to others AND you throw it away when the viewing period terminates. For this particular case, I'll allow more leeway - if you didn't actually watch the video during the specified viewing time (you were too busy, or whatever), then I'd say if you watch the DRM-stripped version one time in the future, then throw it away, it's fair use (maybe not "fair use", but it's "fair".
One more scenario I just thought of: some services offer DRM downloaded media that allows you to watch/listen to the item N times (instead of (or in addition to) specifying a time period within to watch/listen to the item). In this case, if you strip the DRM and don't distribute the DRM-stripped version to others AND you throw it away after listening/viewing N times, then it's fair use.
Note that the whole point of rental/subscription services is to offer media at a lower price than that of an actual purchase, at the cost of limiting what you can do with the media (you can only listen/watch the item during a certain time period, and/or only N times, and/or only as long as you continue your subscription). Stripping DRM in order to get around these limits particularly since you knew the limits going in), is not fair use.