Re: WTF M$
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 7:53 am
Microsoft, as a publicly traded company, must make a cost benefit analysis between preventing pirating (and by doing so, hopefully increasing sales), and inconveniencing users. Make no mistake - thats all they are doing, inconveniencing users.Hockey wrote:Seriously...they are starting to spend more time on preventing pirated use than they are...on preventing security issues, features, etc...
At a high enough level of inconvenience, customers will decide that alternatives are more attractive. In many ways, thats the basis of the current push for Mac OSX. Their ads are emphasizing that convenience, that improvement over the competitor.
The problem with entrenched monopolies (and Microsoft is one - convicted and confirmed), is that they can choose to significantly increase the inconvenience for their customers - because the alternative comes with a substantial inconvenience cost. To switch a home PC from Windows to a Mac, or Linux, you have to convert not just the OS. You also have to switch games - what if they arent supported on it? You also have to switch browsers - what if your favorite browser isn't available on it? You also have to switch financial software, office software, the list goes on.
All of those "bundles" that require Microsoft's OS help reinforce the monopoly. Each makes it harder and harder for customers to consider alternatives. That allows Microsoft to increase their profits by cracking down on pirating - even if it causes customers inconvenience.
I'm puzzled over the comparison. Software patents provide a legal enforcement means against someone implementing a method. A great example I like to point to is zip files. The LZW compression method (which can be expressed in under 200 lines of code) was patented. Anyone implementing that form of compression could be (and on multiple occassions were!) sued. Its a sledgehammer large corporations use to kill competition.Hockey wrote:The reason I've always liked M$ is I still feel proprietary code is a good thing...slightly more favourable over patents...
Perhaps you think 200 lines is reasonable. What if it were 100? 50? how about patenting 1==1? At some point, you have to recognize that patents become unreasonable. That point should be the basis to ask the question: How many truly unique solutions and methods are there for solving problems in computer science today?
Honestly, very few. That means that hundreds of programmers worldwide are violating patents - without even being aware of them. Imagine someone suing you because you used echo "hello world".
Proprietary code on the other hand offers *zero* legal protection. Keeping the code private does not prevent someone from coding the same thing, does not prevent people from writing interoperable replacements, and does not give any substantial advantage.
In fact, on multiple occassions, the *full* sourcecode for Windows and other Microsoft products has been exposed and compromised. It offers no protection.
Mac OSX is proprietary. The underlying kernel is opensource (a BSD licensed kernel). The OS doesn't become opensource, and neither do the applications.Hockey wrote:Is Mac proprietary? Since they started using *nix and now Intels...do the OS become open source? What about the applications that run on it???
The fear of "viral" licensing is nothing but pure BS, spun out by Microsoft. Mac OSX is the perfect realworld counterexample that proves its a lie.
Of course, for both.Hockey wrote:Can I write propritary applications for Mac or Linux, in that I don't have to release source code???
Until and unless users realize that the simple act of *using* microsoft products gives them the power to do so, it will continue. Our current administration couldn't effectively restrain their behavior, so it is left to customers to do so.Hockey wrote:In anycase...this M$ move is yet another B$ move on their behalf
Keep in mind that whether the game maker supports it running on alternative OS's doesn't mean you can't run them. WINE, a windows compatibility program for Linux/BSD, allows you to run a number of Windows apps on non-Windows systems. The number of games that can run under Wine is huge, and growing. Then add in technologies like Transgaming, which is a subscription version of Wine with substantial enhancements, and you have a serious alternative. Almost every game I like to play on a regular basis runs under Wine - including WoW.Daedalus- wrote:I play a couple of games with no support for OS's that are not DOS or Windows.
I still play alot of older DOS/Win95 games.