Most of the stuff you mentioned is indeed on my "do not buy" list, because I don't want to support DRM I'm trying to take the same approach myself, but I've found it quite hard in practice. For example, I do own a DVD player (which considering region-encoding, operate in DRM mode pretty much 100% of the time), an iPod, and other things that can be considered DRM-enabled.
I find it interesting that Product Activation has come up a few times in this thread. I wouldn't really consider that to be 'DRM' but I do understand that the objections to it are founded on more or less the same basis, and are very valid concerns. I still think that even in this case MS gets more 'treatment' than anyone else, but I don't have the stomach for that conversation right now:)
That is a real misdirection, surely you must be joking when you compare a single function appliance to a general use personal computer. I assure you, no misdirection is intended. The two cases are more similar than dissimilar aside from the fact that we have appliances on one side, and a general purpose computer on the other. When the ICT bit is set, the standard requires that the device (computer or appliance) have a complete HDCP path -- that includes device authentication, encryption of data sent over an HDMI or DVI-D output, and more. In absence of anything along this chain, the device required to drop the resolution to 960x540. That's a lot of similarity - I honestly don't intend any misdirection.
Whilst it might be fair for a piece of HD or Blue playing software on top of the OS and it is stupid for it in the operating system. That's precisely where we disagree. Why is one fair but not the other. Why do people hang MS at any chance they get, but drop their vigilance for others? As it stands, I cannot buy a movie DVD as a gift for my sister who lives in a different country because of regional encoding. I cannot buy a Samsung Yepp because of the number of iTunes tracks I unwittingly purchased for my nano. There are countless more examples of DRM that don't include MS in any way. I'm not saying let MS off the hook. I'm saying, the focus on MS at the cost of all others is misdirected. I am also saying that the DRM picture in Vista is not what people on/. claim it is. If they had bothered to read the links I had originally posted, they would see that as well.
The one sole function of the operating system is to provide the user with a secure, stable and reliable bridge between the users hardware and the software the users wishes to run on that hardware, nothing else. That's a slight oversimplification. If that was the case, all OSes would just consist of a kernel, command shell, and drivers. A few examples you can find in most OSes right out of the box:
Editor, Browser, other such utilities
Certificate chain management infrastructure
Accessibility options: screen reader, magnifier, etc. (mandated by federal law)
The 'Default Programs' shortcut in the start menu (mandated in windows by the antitrust cases)
When M$ failed in that, they failed. Whilst it might be reasonable for windows media player to control access, it is completely unacceptable for the operating system to control access. I don't understand. The problem with existing DRM schemes is that they infringe on our rights as consumers. Why is it ok for an application such as media player, or an appliance like a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player to do so, but not for the OS? Why is it not completely unacceptable no matter what software/hardware/combination thereof does this, and no matter which company manufactures this thing?
The only reason M$ put it in the operating system was as an entry level xbox styled licensing system. This is probably not relevant to this thread, but I beg to disagree in any case. The mechanisms of content delivery to an xbox are very limited compared to a PC. MS is not the distributor of content to you on your PC. On your xbox they are, to the extent that you are someone who downloads videos on xbox live, or buys games produced by MS.
Either pay M$ the licence fee or your content or software wont run on their system. Aw c'mon man! MS is not the distributor of content to your PC. Even if they were, they would not be the owner/producer of that content (one of the MPAA/RIAA members will be). They have no skin in the content production game, and they have a greater than $12 billion a year stake in windows. Why would they risk windows revenues even for a slice of licensing fees when that slice cannot possibly come close to windows revenues?
I agree, but it is also up to the users to boycott any products that waste system ressources on supporting HDCP/ICT. Vista is one of these products. That would include never buying a Blu-Ray player, HD-DVD player, HDMI cable, any graphics card with an HDMI output. If you extend your dislike of wasting system resources on DRM, you would never be able to buy an iPod, iTunes songs, a movie DVD (CSS), and should not own a DVD player.
I get your point, I really do. I'm just arguing that flagging Vista for 'abusive DRM' and not, say the iPhone + the stuff I mentioned above (for argument's sake) is really selective.
In the meantime, I've been modded a troll/overrated/off-topic on most of my posts in this thread. When you go back and read it, I've been noting but curteous/on-topic for the entire thread. Something is wrong with/.
I don't WANT Blu-Ray, I don't WANT your "protected path", and I will happily give up the right to play them, just let me uninstall it. Then don't use any media with the ICT bit set. The Protected Video Path (and accompanying DRM encryption hit) will only be used when the bit is set. You can't uninstall Windows Explorer even if your file manager of choice is Midnight Commander -- same case here. As long as you aren't using PVP, it shouldn't be a problem just because it's present. It isn't like a rootkit that steals cycles unknown to you.
Microsoft really wants to force users into DRM, hoping that they can snatch a good chunk of the video market before Apple gets it But that doesn't make any sense. People hate DRM. MS is not so stupid as to be unaware of that. Forcing your users into DRM cannot possibly get a larger chunk of the video market - quite the opposite, it will alienate users. So I don't see why you would say that MS wants to "force users into DRM".
...just like they have been losing money on crap brown zunes trying to get a shot at the music player market already owned by Apple. Microsoft needs to quit trying to branch out and remember that their pc customers should come before the MPAA. And I get modded a troll.. This conversation had nothing to do with Apple/iPods/Zunes. If you don't like crappy brown Zunes, don't buy them. If you think Apple has got all the answers, go buy a Mac. More power to you! My only point is that the 'abusive Vista DRM' myth that is constantly regurgitated on/. is not what it appears to be.
Again, this has nothing to do with the ICT bit (which is the main DRM criticism aimed at Vista). The Arstechnica article points to the fact that MS backs HD-DVD because it allows for 'fair-use' backups. I don't see how that's a bad thing.
I am not arguing in favor of using DRM, so there's no need to reply to me as if I am. I know that accidents happen, theft happens, etc. I know people that are attempting legal/fair use of their media are being inconvenienced. This doesn't change the fact that MS's hands are tied with the ICT bit. Defending them for something that is not their fault, is not the same as saying 'DRM rules'. Is that so hard to see?
You know, Microsoft could grow some balls and not just not support it. Then inform users the reason they can't play a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD is because the MPAA wants to screw over their customers To quote the GP: "It is not Vista or any other OS's business to dictate to users above and beyond the necessities of serving the users up to the capabilities and limits of the hardware."
The point being, it is not up to MS to grow the balls to not support HDCP/ICT, and not play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD even if the user so chooses. It's up to the users to get incensed at the right people (the MPAA) and not buy any products with the ICT bit enabled, 2012 onwards, as a mark of protest.
Users, sadly, will not do this. The ever growing iTunes sales are proof of this. Which is why it's also up to special-interest groups (like the EFF) to lobby the government to take action, and to simultaneously pursue legal remedies in courts.
It is not Vista or any other OS's business to dictate to users above and beyond the necessities of serving the users up to the capabilities and limits of the hardware I agree with you, but that's not my point. Read up on the Image Constraint Token and you'll realize that MS's hands are tied in this matter. By law, to play HD media that uses the ICT, they need to provide the protected video path, or if the hardware does not support it they need to downsample media with the ICT bit set. They have no choice in the matter. Nor does Apple or anybody else who doesn't want their butt dragged into court by the MPAA.
Every single Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player you buy in a store today will have a protected video path. They will downsample HD content with the ICT bit set if it is played over a non-HDCP path (i.e. component outputs). The reason you don't see that yet, is that hollywood has agreed not to set the ICT bit on any media until 2012. It's all in the original three links I posted!! Just to spell it out -- I am not saying that this is good/acceptable -- it sucks. But I don't see everyone in/. up in arms about it when it's identical to the protections in Vista. And I don't see anyone really bothering to get to the root cause of both cases (ICT, MPAA, govt/courts not doing anything to protect our rights).
Again, I am not saying this is fair. I'm saying, blame the MPAA or the govt. for not stepping in to rectify this bullshit situation, instead of yelling bloody murder at MS when they have no choice in the matter.
Regrading giraffes, refrigerators, knives, etc. -- I don't see how they are relevant to this thread. Even the matter of the "impossibility of forcing compliance" isn't relevant. The MPAA knows very well that all DRM schemes can be hacked. The aim is never to make it 100% unhackable. The aim is always to make it so inconvenient to hack that only a very small % of people ever bother taking the effort. At no point did I defend any of this nonsense as a Good Thing, or a win for consumers. My point is that everyone's anger at Vista is misdirected, and they should know who the real culprit for this mess is. Of course, my original post got moderated as 'Troll', for even daring to suggest on/. that MS may not be completely evil.
I admit I breezed through the creative link rather quickly -- but I wasn't able to see anything DRM-related in that. Could you point me to it?
On the HDCP requirement for HD playback (the other 2 links you posted), the links I originally posted specifically address that. Basically it boils down to: blame the people who came out with these regulations, not the OS-makers that need to comply with them.
I have no need to be a Vista apologist. I run Vista on my 3.5 year old laptop with minimal upgrades (Dothan @ 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 100GB@7200rpm HDD, GeForce Go5200), and it does a great job. It's slower than XP for sure, but nowhere close to the train wreck people on this site claim it is. I suspect the CNet people know that -- the only reason they would need to mention Vista in an article by that title is to get clicks. To mention Vista in that context, gets it noticed on/. which gets them more clicks than they would possibly otherwise get.
From the Content Protection FAQ you posted: "If the policies required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs".
i.e. it's a matter of legal compliance. Vista or any other OS needs to comply with these requirements to play HD-DVD or Bly-Ray discs.
Perhaps you should do some research before you post. No need for sarcasm. The links I originally posted (by Ed Bott on zdnet) responds to your point pretty well. It's a long read, but it's pretty detailed.
Windows Vista says there's a byte error in the file and refuses to play the movie. This is Windows Media Player, same version as the version on XP A bug isn't the same thing as 'abusive DRM'. Have you tried contacting MS about this? I'd also suggest doing an MD5 hash to check for data corruption.
I know as soon as I say 'there nothing I can't do on Vista that I can on XP' there will be legions of anecdotal 'I can't do this, that and the other' responses. It doesn't change the fact that the DRM stuff is a myth.
I'm tired of this myth. I've been using Vista for a while now, and I've never encountered any 'abusive DRM' that prevented my from doing anything I could already do in XP.
I agree with what you say about companies playing waiting games with release cycles. The correct response from MS would be to not try and 'game' the system by timing their SPs and OS releases in such a way that there is a huge gap between them -- they should just focus on making each release as good as they can. Many many companies may very well skip Vista and go directly to Windows 7. One of my previous companies is still using Win2k Pro on desktops and XP on laptops, and is in all probability going to skip XP (on desktops) and go to Vista directly (I still have close friends there, hence I know). Assuming the Win2k machines are still doing the job they were intended to do, this means the company derived excellent value from its Win2k deployment and had probably scoped out its requirements and architected and administered it well. This is a success story for the company as well as MS. I guess the point is, companies certainly aren't going to deploy Vista just because it exists -- they will deploy it if and when they need to, and if the need doesn't arise until post-Windows 7, well, they'll probably deploy that instead. That's just the nature of IT, and MS is doing a good job if they are able to create OSes that remain viable in the enterprise for 5+ year cycles.
The Vista DRM infestation, I assure you, is merely a meme that has spread on/. -- its one of those things that has been repeated often enough that everyone believes its true. I run Vista and rip music, use media center with a capture card, stream 720p (terrestrial HD broadcast) recorded shows to my xbox, etc. etc. -- I have yet to come across something that I could do in XP that I cannot do in Vista.
Dude - no need for the sarcasm and shouting - I think I've been perfectly courteous in my responses.
None of what you pointed out amounts to a release announcement. If you recall, the Longhorn RTM date was always planned to be November 2007 (i.e. 2nd half of CY07 -- and one year after Vista RTM). This got pused to Feb '08. An email to your TAP partners getting them on-board for a beta testing program, along with a date in it, is not the same thing as a press release saying "we will deliver Vista RTM by Nov '07" and then later issuing a press release saying "we're delaying that by 3 months". Why is it not the same thing? Because when you issue a press release, it means the date is committed to, costing is done, the plan is ready. When you announce something to your TAP partners, it's more like an estimate with the details still to be fleshed out. Mary Jo knows that -- which is why she explicitly stated "(Microsoft didn't issue a press release with that pronouncement. Instead, it notified its Technology Adoption Partner testers of it via an e-mail regarding the imminent start of the Vista SP1 testing program.)".
In any case, you and I can go back and forth endlessly and not agree, read what we want to read into the announcements, etc., so it's a pointless exercise. Instead we can focus on the one thing we do know for sure. SP1 was intended to be released with Longhorn server. Longhorn server slipped from Nov '07 to Feb '08. Granted, that's a slip. But it isn't the humongous deal that you made of it in your first post. That, was my only point.
And finally, I don't care to defend MS on this -- a slip is a slip, and they slipped by 3 months. But you started on a rant about the quality of code, MS being shocked at what a mess it was in, etc. etc., which got modded +5 Insightful. That's what I have a problem with, and that's why I responded. The slashdot filtering system becomes very ineffective when non-insightful comments get modded so high. The frequency with which anything anti-MS gets modded +5 Insightful has gotten annoying to the point that every now and then I get tempted to call BS. I don't even grudge you your karma points -- more power to you for getting them. I just don't get how your comment was insightful or anything other than a rant, which should have gotten filtered out.
1. The zdnet blog my Mary Jo Foley says there will be a TAP preview of SP1 in 2nd half of 2007 -- this was shipped recently. It said nothing about the release date of SP1. Check the article, and the links in it!
2. The second link is speculation that Intel may have leaked the SP1 release date.
3. 3rd link is an FAQ maintained by Paul Thurrot -- hardly counts as an announcement from MS on SP1's release date.
The only thing MS has consistently said, is that Vista SP1 will be released at the same time as Longhorn server -- currently scheduled for Feb. 2008.
Thanks to user account control. I was locked out of all the data I had hoped to save, including my outlook mail and contacts therein. Permanently gone and unrecoverable. Doesn't add up. UAC is just a mechanism by which your user processes (assuming you are an admin on the machine) lack an admin token until you explicity grant them that token (by clickng yes on the UAC prompt). How does this prevent you from doing a backup/restore (or even a copy operation, which is what it sounds like you did)? Depending on the ACLs on source/destination folders you may or may not have to evelate the process that is copying files across. If UAC is genuinely preventing you from recovering your files (which I seriously doubt) turn it off, complete backup, turn it back on. Not sure how to? Google it.
The SD card not speeding up your machine sounds correct. SD cards generally have crappy data transfer rates, and shouldn't be accepted by Vista for ReadyBoost (depending on specs of individual SD card). Even if your card has a fast enough transfer rate, what's it's capacity? And lastly, knowing how caches work, you shouldn't expect magic from readyboost -- even when it works, the difference should be intangible for the most part. Just like a Core 2 Duo with a 2MB cache is slower than a Core 2 Duo with a 4MB cache, assuming the same clock and FSB - and yet when you actually use them, for the most part the difference will be intangible.
Quoting from TFA:
Ninety percent of 961 IT professionals surveyed said they have concerns about migrating to Vista and more than half said they have no plans to deploy Vista. (emphasis mine) Quoting the headline of the/. post:
90% of IT Professionals Don't Want Vista (emphasis mine) Hardly the same thing. Concern != Don't Want. And you have to be crazy not to be concerned when you deploy a new OS in your enterprise.
TFA even cites a Forrester Research article to back up it's claim (without linking to it). If you want the actual link, here it is. That study actually claims that one third of businesses will switch to Vista in 2008, which I think is ridiculously optimistic -- but it just goes to show what these studies are worth.
Then there's this gem:
Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista Let's consider compatibility first. Do these 961 IT Professionals think that switching from XP to OS-X or XP to Linux will give them less compatibility headaches than switching from XP to Vista? On reading this, I can't even understand how CmdrTaco decides that this post is worth our time!!
And next, let's consider stability. Stability first of all requires a definition -- it's very unclear what stability the 'study' is referring to. I'll assume for a moment we're talking about Vista not crashing. This is a very valid concern -- any time you're doing an enterprise deployment/upgrade. That's why you test your apps on the hardware you purchase. That's why you standardize on the hardware you have validated -- so you know you are buying machines with h/w, with supported drivers, etc. None of this is new to OS deployments/upgrades in general. I'm not sure what other kinds of stability they might be referring to, but it takes on an all-encompassing vagueness in a very FUDlike manner in TFA. I mean, if you're talking about stability from a support perspective, nothing has changed between now and XP. MS is not about to go belly-up anytime soon, so your vendor is not going to sell you an OS and then dissappear into the ether.
Maybe stability refers to the disruption caused by transitioning OSes in the very first place. Understandable. That's why businesses aren't using Vista yet. They don't switch to a new OS just because it was released. They had (or at least should have had) very clear requirements, cost-benefi analysis etc. done when they deployed XP. If they did a good job with that deployment, and it is still serving their needs, they have absolutely no reason to switch. Windows XP will go End of Life in 2014 (i.e. MS will support it until 2014). Until then, if their requirements have not changed in a way that necessitates them to switch, they should not switch -- unless there are some other circumstances (like perhaps needing to deploy new h/w and wanting to sync the OS upgrade with that), or perhaps some cost-benefit analysis shows that they can save money by switching to Vista (just tossing that out as an example -- no need to launch an all-out assault on me).
What really interests me is that they are quite well aware of the need to address these issues quickly if they want to see a greater adoption of Vista by businesses and/or home users considering upgrading - yet the release date, for a Service Pack that only addresses some of the issues, keeps slipping. SP1 addresses a lot more than "some of the issues". You can read the list here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=090deaf6-2eaa-4aaa-8b3b-2e199db4a97d&displaylang=en (pdf or xps). To save you some time, the list of fixes are on pg 8 through 11 (it's a high-level list).
....it kinda scares me that they need to put in so much time to fix the issues that they are addressing - and scarier still, that in trying to do so, their release date keeps slipping... it kind of makes me think that when they looked at the issues and underlying code, they collectively said "Wow, this is really a mess... we need a LOT more time than we thought if we are gonna fix this" (well, I think doubling the release time is a LOT more time... though considering their recent OS release schedule, they may disagree).
It makes me seriously wonder how severely wrong some of their programming decisions (or "push it out the door, ready-or-not" decision) with Vista really were - and how adequately a Service Pack can really address those issues. (is this gonna be just another band-aid?) They didn't announce a date earlier, so there's no slip. You're out-FUDing MS dude.. and you get rated 5, Insightful for that. Oh well, this is/.
Spot on.
I think the idle CPUs being used on SETI should all be directed towards Folding@home instead. Even without considering the pros and cons of SETI, just the fact that the odds of finding extra-terrestrial intelligence are so low, and when we find it we won't know what the hell to do about it, should convince people to move towards Folding@home instead. I mean, that project at least holds the promise of delivering real, tangible, results within our lifetimes that have a huge positive impact on our world.
I would normally assume that Apple have test automation to cover such scenarios. I wonder if this was a one-off, or are more people reporting this issue?
If it works the same way as it does in windows, then applications can be signed by any certificate authority that the system trusts (Verisign + a few other most likely), and the OS binaries would be signed by Apple themselves.
In any case a signed module should not automatically be completely trustworthy. Verifying the digital signature merely tells you that the module has not been tampered with. If, said module has an exploitable flaw (say a simple buffer overrun), you don't usually need to tamper with the module to take advantage of it.
Well, it's certainly an interesting game. Not gripping, but it's cool to see a game developer explore new game types.
And I certainly think Nolan misses the point when calling all games these days crap. Lots of gamers would agree that Halo 3 is a great game, but not on the same level as the hype surrounding it. But in some ways Halo (the entire series) has had a role in growing the gamer population. It wasn't the first to have multiplayer gaming by a long shot, but the ease of the multiplayer scenario was probably the turning point in the social aspect of gaming. I mean, when doing a system-link with Halo (Combat Evolved) who knew that in just a few years time we would expect every FPS to have a multiplayer component?
And in that sense, even Portal might be somewhat under-appreciated. It might be breaking ground in the same way. The current flood of FPSes probably has game developers thinking "what can we make that's completely different and engaging?", and this could be just one result of that thought.
I think an analogy with movies is apt here: the next FPS is sort of like the next action movie these days (this is especially true when you consider the reason most gamers bought Halo 3). Its only different in an incremental way, but enough people love the genre (or the series) that they want to see the latest movie. Portal is an attempt at introducing some drama/mystery to the audience. Maybe in some years this will evolve into games that are engaging, entertaining, and enlightening in ways similar to say, Eternal Sunshine, or Crash, or maybe Blade Runner, but without directly being say a quiz game like Carmen Sandiego. The very fact that developers are starting to experiment with such genres; I'd count that as a success for the industry as a whole.
Anyone who is inclined to believe this, please check dhavleak's posting history. Yes, please do. In my entire posting history you won't find the kind of disinformation you posted in this thread alone. You can't defend your posts when I call BS on them so this is your response?
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I find it interesting that Product Activation has come up a few times in this thread. I wouldn't really consider that to be 'DRM' but I do understand that the objections to it are founded on more or less the same basis, and are very valid concerns. I still think that even in this case MS gets more 'treatment' than anyone else, but I don't have the stomach for that conversation right now
Whilst it might be fair for a piece of HD or Blue playing software on top of the OS and it is stupid for it in the operating system. That's precisely where we disagree. Why is one fair but not the other. Why do people hang MS at any chance they get, but drop their vigilance for others? As it stands, I cannot buy a movie DVD as a gift for my sister who lives in a different country because of regional encoding. I cannot buy a Samsung Yepp because of the number of iTunes tracks I unwittingly purchased for my nano. There are countless more examples of DRM that don't include MS in any way. I'm not saying let MS off the hook. I'm saying, the focus on MS at the cost of all others is misdirected. I am also saying that the DRM picture in Vista is not what people on
The one sole function of the operating system is to provide the user with a secure, stable and reliable bridge between the users hardware and the software the users wishes to run on that hardware, nothing else. That's a slight oversimplification. If that was the case, all OSes would just consist of a kernel, command shell, and drivers. A few examples you can find in most OSes right out of the box:
When M$ failed in that, they failed. Whilst it might be reasonable for windows media player to control access, it is completely unacceptable for the operating system to control access. I don't understand. The problem with existing DRM schemes is that they infringe on our rights as consumers. Why is it ok for an application such as media player, or an appliance like a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player to do so, but not for the OS? Why is it not completely unacceptable no matter what software/hardware/combination thereof does this, and no matter which company manufactures this thing?
The only reason M$ put it in the operating system was as an entry level xbox styled licensing system. This is probably not relevant to this thread, but I beg to disagree in any case. The mechanisms of content delivery to an xbox are very limited compared to a PC. MS is not the distributor of content to you on your PC. On your xbox they are, to the extent that you are someone who downloads videos on xbox live, or buys games produced by MS.
Either pay M$ the licence fee or your content or software wont run on their system. Aw c'mon man! MS is not the distributor of content to your PC. Even if they were, they would not be the owner/producer of that content (one of the MPAA/RIAA members will be). They have no skin in the content production game, and they have a greater than $12 billion a year stake in windows. Why would they risk windows revenues even for a slice of licensing fees when that slice cannot possibly come close to windows revenues?
I get your point, I really do. I'm just arguing that flagging Vista for 'abusive DRM' and not, say the iPhone + the stuff I mentioned above (for argument's sake) is really selective.
In the meantime, I've been modded a troll/overrated/off-topic on most of my posts in this thread. When you go back and read it, I've been noting but curteous/on-topic for the entire thread. Something is wrong with /.
Microsoft really wants to force users into DRM, hoping that they can snatch a good chunk of the video market before Apple gets it But that doesn't make any sense. People hate DRM. MS is not so stupid as to be unaware of that. Forcing your users into DRM cannot possibly get a larger chunk of the video market - quite the opposite, it will alienate users. So I don't see why you would say that MS wants to "force users into DRM".
...just like they have been losing money on crap brown zunes trying to get a shot at the music player market already owned by Apple. Microsoft needs to quit trying to branch out and remember that their pc customers should come before the MPAA. And I get modded a troll.. This conversation had nothing to do with Apple/iPods/Zunes. If you don't like crappy brown Zunes, don't buy them. If you think Apple has got all the answers, go buy a Mac. More power to you! My only point is that the 'abusive Vista DRM' myth that is constantly regurgitated onAgain, this has nothing to do with the ICT bit (which is the main DRM criticism aimed at Vista). The Arstechnica article points to the fact that MS backs HD-DVD because it allows for 'fair-use' backups. I don't see how that's a bad thing.
I am not arguing in favor of using DRM, so there's no need to reply to me as if I am. I know that accidents happen, theft happens, etc. I know people that are attempting legal/fair use of their media are being inconvenienced. This doesn't change the fact that MS's hands are tied with the ICT bit. Defending them for something that is not their fault, is not the same as saying 'DRM rules'. Is that so hard to see?
The point being, it is not up to MS to grow the balls to not support HDCP/ICT, and not play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD even if the user so chooses. It's up to the users to get incensed at the right people (the MPAA) and not buy any products with the ICT bit enabled, 2012 onwards, as a mark of protest.
Users, sadly, will not do this. The ever growing iTunes sales are proof of this. Which is why it's also up to special-interest groups (like the EFF) to lobby the government to take action, and to simultaneously pursue legal remedies in courts.
Every single Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player you buy in a store today will have a protected video path. They will downsample HD content with the ICT bit set if it is played over a non-HDCP path (i.e. component outputs). The reason you don't see that yet, is that hollywood has agreed not to set the ICT bit on any media until 2012. It's all in the original three links I posted!! Just to spell it out -- I am not saying that this is good/acceptable -- it sucks. But I don't see everyone in /. up in arms about it when it's identical to the protections in Vista. And I don't see anyone really bothering to get to the root cause of both cases (ICT, MPAA, govt/courts not doing anything to protect our rights).
Again, I am not saying this is fair. I'm saying, blame the MPAA or the govt. for not stepping in to rectify this bullshit situation, instead of yelling bloody murder at MS when they have no choice in the matter.
Regrading giraffes, refrigerators, knives, etc. -- I don't see how they are relevant to this thread. Even the matter of the "impossibility of forcing compliance" isn't relevant. The MPAA knows very well that all DRM schemes can be hacked. The aim is never to make it 100% unhackable. The aim is always to make it so inconvenient to hack that only a very small % of people ever bother taking the effort. At no point did I defend any of this nonsense as a Good Thing, or a win for consumers. My point is that everyone's anger at Vista is misdirected, and they should know who the real culprit for this mess is. Of course, my original post got moderated as 'Troll', for even daring to suggest on /. that MS may not be completely evil.
I admit I breezed through the creative link rather quickly -- but I wasn't able to see anything DRM-related in that. Could you point me to it?
On the HDCP requirement for HD playback (the other 2 links you posted), the links I originally posted specifically address that. Basically it boils down to: blame the people who came out with these regulations, not the OS-makers that need to comply with them.
I have no need to be a Vista apologist. I run Vista on my 3.5 year old laptop with minimal upgrades (Dothan @ 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 100GB@7200rpm HDD, GeForce Go5200), and it does a great job. It's slower than XP for sure, but nowhere close to the train wreck people on this site claim it is. I suspect the CNet people know that -- the only reason they would need to mention Vista in an article by that title is to get clicks. To mention Vista in that context, gets it noticed on /. which gets them more clicks than they would possibly otherwise get.
I know as soon as I say 'there nothing I can't do on Vista that I can on XP' there will be legions of anecdotal 'I can't do this, that and the other' responses. It doesn't change the fact that the DRM stuff is a myth.
From TFA: "its abusive use of hated DRM"
I'm tired of this myth. I've been using Vista for a while now, and I've never encountered any 'abusive DRM' that prevented my from doing anything I could already do in XP.
I suggest people read this before beleiving the people blindly yelling 'Vista DRM Sux':
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 1)
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 2)
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 3)
Hey man -- I appreciate your reply..
/. -- its one of those things that has been repeated often enough that everyone believes its true. I run Vista and rip music, use media center with a capture card, stream 720p (terrestrial HD broadcast) recorded shows to my xbox, etc. etc. -- I have yet to come across something that I could do in XP that I cannot do in Vista.
I agree with what you say about companies playing waiting games with release cycles. The correct response from MS would be to not try and 'game' the system by timing their SPs and OS releases in such a way that there is a huge gap between them -- they should just focus on making each release as good as they can. Many many companies may very well skip Vista and go directly to Windows 7. One of my previous companies is still using Win2k Pro on desktops and XP on laptops, and is in all probability going to skip XP (on desktops) and go to Vista directly (I still have close friends there, hence I know). Assuming the Win2k machines are still doing the job they were intended to do, this means the company derived excellent value from its Win2k deployment and had probably scoped out its requirements and architected and administered it well. This is a success story for the company as well as MS. I guess the point is, companies certainly aren't going to deploy Vista just because it exists -- they will deploy it if and when they need to, and if the need doesn't arise until post-Windows 7, well, they'll probably deploy that instead. That's just the nature of IT, and MS is doing a good job if they are able to create OSes that remain viable in the enterprise for 5+ year cycles.
The Vista DRM infestation, I assure you, is merely a meme that has spread on
For a very detailed and well-researched piece busting the Vista DRM infestation myths see here (warning: it's a long read):
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 1)
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 2)
Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong (Part 3)
You may not agree 100% with the entire piece -- but even at 75% agreement I hope you'll see my point.
Dude - no need for the sarcasm and shouting - I think I've been perfectly courteous in my responses.
None of what you pointed out amounts to a release announcement. If you recall, the Longhorn RTM date was always planned to be November 2007 (i.e. 2nd half of CY07 -- and one year after Vista RTM). This got pused to Feb '08. An email to your TAP partners getting them on-board for a beta testing program, along with a date in it, is not the same thing as a press release saying "we will deliver Vista RTM by Nov '07" and then later issuing a press release saying "we're delaying that by 3 months". Why is it not the same thing? Because when you issue a press release, it means the date is committed to, costing is done, the plan is ready. When you announce something to your TAP partners, it's more like an estimate with the details still to be fleshed out. Mary Jo knows that -- which is why she explicitly stated "(Microsoft didn't issue a press release with that pronouncement. Instead, it notified its Technology Adoption Partner testers of it via an e-mail regarding the imminent start of the Vista SP1 testing program.)".
In any case, you and I can go back and forth endlessly and not agree, read what we want to read into the announcements, etc., so it's a pointless exercise. Instead we can focus on the one thing we do know for sure. SP1 was intended to be released with Longhorn server. Longhorn server slipped from Nov '07 to Feb '08. Granted, that's a slip. But it isn't the humongous deal that you made of it in your first post. That, was my only point.
And finally, I don't care to defend MS on this -- a slip is a slip, and they slipped by 3 months. But you started on a rant about the quality of code, MS being shocked at what a mess it was in, etc. etc., which got modded +5 Insightful. That's what I have a problem with, and that's why I responded. The slashdot filtering system becomes very ineffective when non-insightful comments get modded so high. The frequency with which anything anti-MS gets modded +5 Insightful has gotten annoying to the point that every now and then I get tempted to call BS. I don't even grudge you your karma points -- more power to you for getting them. I just don't get how your comment was insightful or anything other than a rant, which should have gotten filtered out.
1. The zdnet blog my Mary Jo Foley says there will be a TAP preview of SP1 in 2nd half of 2007 -- this was shipped recently. It said nothing about the release date of SP1. Check the article, and the links in it!
2. The second link is speculation that Intel may have leaked the SP1 release date.
3. 3rd link is an FAQ maintained by Paul Thurrot -- hardly counts as an announcement from MS on SP1's release date.
The only thing MS has consistently said, is that Vista SP1 will be released at the same time as Longhorn server -- currently scheduled for Feb. 2008.
Quoting the headline of the
Hardly the same thing. Concern != Don't Want. And you have to be crazy not to be concerned when you deploy a new OS in your enterprise.
TFA even cites a Forrester Research article to back up it's claim (without linking to it). If you want the actual link, here it is. That study actually claims that one third of businesses will switch to Vista in 2008, which I think is ridiculously optimistic -- but it just goes to show what these studies are worth.
Then there's this gem: Stability in general was frequently cited, as well as compatibility with the business software that would need to run on Vista Let's consider compatibility first. Do these 961 IT Professionals think that switching from XP to OS-X or XP to Linux will give them less compatibility headaches than switching from XP to Vista? On reading this, I can't even understand how CmdrTaco decides that this post is worth our time!!
And next, let's consider stability. Stability first of all requires a definition -- it's very unclear what stability the 'study' is referring to. I'll assume for a moment we're talking about Vista not crashing. This is a very valid concern -- any time you're doing an enterprise deployment/upgrade. That's why you test your apps on the hardware you purchase. That's why you standardize on the hardware you have validated -- so you know you are buying machines with h/w, with supported drivers, etc. None of this is new to OS deployments/upgrades in general. I'm not sure what other kinds of stability they might be referring to, but it takes on an all-encompassing vagueness in a very FUDlike manner in TFA. I mean, if you're talking about stability from a support perspective, nothing has changed between now and XP. MS is not about to go belly-up anytime soon, so your vendor is not going to sell you an OS and then dissappear into the ether. Maybe stability refers to the disruption caused by transitioning OSes in the very first place. Understandable. That's why businesses aren't using Vista yet. They don't switch to a new OS just because it was released. They had (or at least should have had) very clear requirements, cost-benefi analysis etc. done when they deployed XP. If they did a good job with that deployment, and it is still serving their needs, they have absolutely no reason to switch. Windows XP will go End of Life in 2014 (i.e. MS will support it until 2014). Until then, if their requirements have not changed in a way that necessitates them to switch, they should not switch -- unless there are some other circumstances (like perhaps needing to deploy new h/w and wanting to sync the OS upgrade with that), or perhaps some cost-benefit analysis shows that they can save money by switching to Vista (just tossing that out as an example -- no need to launch an all-out assault on me).
SP1 was then delayed to "by the end of the year" (from comments made a month ago)
Not so -- until recently MS kept very quiet about the release date of SP1 -- the tech jouranls & blogs were all over MS for not announcing the date.
SP1 (from MS's latest comments which you can find here: http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2218/071115vistaskip/) is now scheduled for release in Q1 2008.This is the only factual thing in your post.
What really interests me is that they are quite well aware of the need to address these issues quickly if they want to see a greater adoption of Vista by businesses and/or home users considering upgrading - yet the release date, for a Service Pack that only addresses some of the issues, keeps slipping. SP1 addresses a lot more than "some of the issues". You can read the list here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=090deaf6-2eaa-4aaa-8b3b-2e199db4a97d&displaylang=en (pdf or xps). To save you some time, the list of fixes are on pg 8 through 11 (it's a high-level list).
....it kinda scares me that they need to put in so much time to fix the issues that they are addressing - and scarier still, that in trying to do so, their release date keeps slipping... it kind of makes me think that when they looked at the issues and underlying code, they collectively said "Wow, this is really a mess... we need a LOT more time than we thought if we are gonna fix this" (well, I think doubling the release time is a LOT more time... though considering their recent OS release schedule, they may disagree).It makes me seriously wonder how severely wrong some of their programming decisions (or "push it out the door, ready-or-not" decision) with Vista really were - and how adequately a Service Pack can really address those issues. (is this gonna be just another band-aid?) They didn't announce a date earlier, so there's no slip. You're out-FUDing MS dude.. and you get rated 5, Insightful for that. Oh well, this is
err, the other half ;)
Spot on. I think the idle CPUs being used on SETI should all be directed towards Folding@home instead. Even without considering the pros and cons of SETI, just the fact that the odds of finding extra-terrestrial intelligence are so low, and when we find it we won't know what the hell to do about it, should convince people to move towards Folding@home instead. I mean, that project at least holds the promise of delivering real, tangible, results within our lifetimes that have a huge positive impact on our world.
I would normally assume that Apple have test automation to cover such scenarios. I wonder if this was a one-off, or are more people reporting this issue?
If it works the same way as it does in windows, then applications can be signed by any certificate authority that the system trusts (Verisign + a few other most likely), and the OS binaries would be signed by Apple themselves.
In any case a signed module should not automatically be completely trustworthy. Verifying the digital signature merely tells you that the module has not been tampered with. If, said module has an exploitable flaw (say a simple buffer overrun), you don't usually need to tamper with the module to take advantage of it.
Well, it's certainly an interesting game. Not gripping, but it's cool to see a game developer explore new game types.
And I certainly think Nolan misses the point when calling all games these days crap. Lots of gamers would agree that Halo 3 is a great game, but not on the same level as the hype surrounding it. But in some ways Halo (the entire series) has had a role in growing the gamer population. It wasn't the first to have multiplayer gaming by a long shot, but the ease of the multiplayer scenario was probably the turning point in the social aspect of gaming. I mean, when doing a system-link with Halo (Combat Evolved) who knew that in just a few years time we would expect every FPS to have a multiplayer component?
And in that sense, even Portal might be somewhat under-appreciated. It might be breaking ground in the same way. The current flood of FPSes probably has game developers thinking "what can we make that's completely different and engaging?", and this could be just one result of that thought.
I think an analogy with movies is apt here: the next FPS is sort of like the next action movie these days (this is especially true when you consider the reason most gamers bought Halo 3). Its only different in an incremental way, but enough people love the genre (or the series) that they want to see the latest movie. Portal is an attempt at introducing some drama/mystery to the audience. Maybe in some years this will evolve into games that are engaging, entertaining, and enlightening in ways similar to say, Eternal Sunshine, or Crash, or maybe Blade Runner, but without directly being say a quiz game like Carmen Sandiego. The very fact that developers are starting to experiment with such genres; I'd count that as a success for the industry as a whole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking
Came across this in Cryptonomicon. It blew my mind. If people can do shit like this Steganography doesn't actually sound that hard.
Anyone who is inclined to believe this, please check dhavleak's posting history. Yes, please do. In my entire posting history you won't find the kind of disinformation you posted in this thread alone. You can't defend your posts when I call BS on them so this is your response?