glaston

I can understand both sides on this.
It's not inherently evil if MS probes peoples machines for pirated windows.

However, MS is a shady character.
I don't think they'd shut peoples machines down for using free software, but I could see them taking inventory of peoples machines in a 'data mining' capacity so that corporations can "better serve you" by knowing what kinds of software and media you enjoy.
Or working with the FED.gov and spying on people in the interest of "national security", under the protection of the Patriot Act to make sure nobody has any data that could help commit or implicate them in an act of "cyberterrorism".

Don't forget about people like Kevin Mitnick and other dark side hackers who could detonate a suitcase nuke with a dog whistle.

arinlares

ah, but what would stop other corporations from tapping Linux machines? it's possible, and with proper justification (Patriot Act), legal? besides, we're already being monitored. in fact, to go off topic, my old JROTC instructor, with the help of AOL and Google, nailed somebody who nicked the program's credit card by tracking the sites the card went to, and finding the computer that was accessing them. there had to be some sort of monitor there. besides, we could all be tapped, and this post might be on record with the NSA, for some unknown reason.

bigtomrodney

In a perfect world, maybe. But what about false positives? Let's see how helpful Microsoft are when you call in and say you have a genuine licence. We've all heard horror stories involving new hardware and re-activation. For all of the keygens and leaked lists out there it's not inconceivable to think that your own legitimate copy may be falsely identified.

I'm a little bit surprised to hear you say that elija. Actually to hear any Linux/Open Source user say that. There are two types of users;those willing to pay and those not willing to pay. Adding a nuisance factor to the product is only going to push genuine users away from using it.

As someone who has worked in enterprise level IT it has been an absolute nuisance dealing with DRM. I have seen everything from excellent and ingenious solutions to licensing to keys tied to hardware/CPU IDs. The thing is that as a company who may have spent half a million euro on the software to be made go through loops to get one client machine working. We've been left waiting for approval from accounting for three days because one network card was fried. And to be honest it's not the finer details that bug us: it's the fact that if these companies go under we are left up the creek without a paddle. In the corporate world we see machines being reimaged and moved and upgraded all of the time and it is more than a nuisance to have to deal with service requests, finance/accounting departments and the sluggish response to licence amendments that I have seen across dozens of companies.

You've got to remember that if your customer is the type of person who is bothered about using a genuinely licensed piece of software in the first place, they won't be using additional copies just because your DRM is missing.

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elija

At work we have never had a problem with this. Microsoft have actually been very helpful. It remains to be seen whether this attitude will transfer to home users.

I am an open source user; this means that I agree to and abide by the license agreements for the software that I use, what it does not mean is that I am a thief (sorry if I am giving more meaning to your words than you meant but I do read it as open sources users should support piracy ) nor do I condone thieving. Piracy is wrong and is the direct cause of the over the top, bullying tactics employed by RIAA and their representatives.

I do not agree with the overly restrictive licenses used by the likes of Microsoft and co, so I have two choices. Steal their software or use an alternative that I do agree with. I chose the second one of those and it happily turns out that the alternatives are better in the majority of cases.

Again I may be reading more in to your words than you intended and find that I actually resent the perceived implication that as an open source user I don't want to pay for software. I have personally (as have hundreds of thousands of people globally) given a donation to several OS projects.

If you were talking about the pirates then I'll agree that these guys do exist. Maybe they should be looking at FOSS where the choice of donating is voluntary.

No argument there but I think overall that would be a good thing for the FOSS world.

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techieMoe

We're not talking about something that cripples their OS here (like Vista's "preview mode" feature). All this check does is change their background image. It's hardly a hostile takeover even if there are false positives.

Besides, China is the only market they've used this in so far since it's by far the biggest market for pirated Microsoft products. I doubt they'll be implementing it anywhere else, and if they do, so what? Most of us either don't use it or have legitimate copies.

Most businesses have volume licensing agreements with Microsoft, so activation on a newly-imaged or upgraded machine is a non-issue. That's the way things are handled at my work. Microsoft makes the bulk of its money off corporate users, so it makes an extra effort not to get in their way too much.

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hazel

Maybe I'm paranoid. I don't approve of piracy either (one thing I like about Open Source is that it makes piracy impossible). But neither do I enjoy the thought of snooper bots trawling the net looking for machines to damage. OK, the damage this one does is mainly aesthetic - and I apologise for an earlier misunderstanding about precisely what it does do, but it's the principle of the thing that bothers me. There should be better ways to deal with pirates than this.

Microsoft encourages people to buy firewalls, often very expensive ones, to keep crackers out and then plays the cracker game itself. And the fact that it's only in China at the moment does not mean it won't spread. It's in their interest to use it worldwide so what's to stop them?

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techieMoe

Nor do I, but we as Linux users have the luxury of choice. Aside from gaming, nothing forces us to use Microsoft's OS at all.

Such as? Anti-piracy is a notoriously dreadful business. Regardless of what you try there's always going to be some enterprising cracker out there that will find a way to defeat your safeguards. The only way to combat pirates that I can think of is giving them enough incentive that the real product is more attractive than the bootleg.

Of course, it's possible this will spread to other markets. But again, it's probably the tamest anti-piracy measure I've ever seen out of MS, and most of us on this forum have little to worry about.

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bigtomrodney

I'm not referring to the action taken in this case, what I'm referring to is that any action is taken other than a legal follow up. No 'genuine' user should have to suffer a shoot first and ask questions later scenario.I think you did read a bit more into what I was saying; I was referring to the freedoms that we are used to and what goes with that. That whatever your views on proprietary software that DRM lockdown is a step too far.I wasn't referring to Microsoft products. Indeed if you are imaging a PC chances are it's bulk licensed and sysprepped (what would be the point otherwise )I was talking about ISVs and smaller developer companies using MAC addresses, CPU IDs etc.
That's not at all what I meant and is something I am rather wary of too. I myself do pay for software when required to (or rather when I choose software that requires it) but much prefer to choose open software and willingly donate to worthy projects. With regards to my two types of users bit I was referring only to the proprietary world. I didn't intend any overlap into open source as a choice.

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techieMoe

I agree, but we're talking about the real world here. Innocent people get pulled over and arrested all the time. No system is fool-proof.

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bigtomrodney

A system that doesn't work all the time is a system that doesn't work.

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