Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> __/ [ Gordon ] on Thursday 21 September 2006 17:52 \__
>
>> have just done a clean re-install of the retail copy of XP Pro that I have
>> owned for 4 years, on the same un-changed laptop that it has resided on for
>> that four years. The last installation was well over a YEAR ago. It failed
>> the internet activation and I ended up having to speak to a customer
>> services representative. I asked him why it did not activate over the
>> internet. He told me that a new policy just issued is that even with retail
>> copies, internet activation is now restricted to ONE instance - any more
>> than that has to be over the phone.
>>
>> That's going to push a lot more people to Linux, isn't it?
>> If this is true, WHAT THE HELL DO MS THINK THEY ARE DOING?
>
> To be honest with you, I think that Microsoft is trying to crack down on
> piracy (yes, honest!)
There's a problem with that tactic:
AFAIK the *pirate* copies of XP floating around, are actually the
so-called "Corporate Edition" that require *no* activation. So making
re-validation more difficult will likely only adversely affect *genuine*
customers anyway.
The only thing "Corporate Edition" pirates have to worry about is WGA,
which by all accounts has been cracked over and over again. In fact,
I've even read about a WGA crack that has it's own *update* service, to
automatically provide an updated crack, every time Microsoft releases a
new patch against it. The crackers are pissing themselves laughing at
Microsoft.
Validation is not the answer, and frankly I don't know what is ...
within the realms of ethicalness. I suppose MS could insist that patches
and updates are only available via account login to their servers, but
then somebody would just redistribute those files elsewhere (binary
Warez groups, BitTorrent, P2P), or produce periodic slipstream ISOs.
The Closed Source development model will always suffer from piracy. It's
only by switching to a Services model based on Open Source and Open
Standards, that any company can guarantee that their customers are genuine.
Meanwhile, well motivated though they may be, Microsoft continues to
implement more and more draconian measures against Windows users;
becoming as ethically challenged as the criminals they attempt to
defeat, and turning the the Windows XPerience into a prison sentence.
--
K.
http://slated.org - Slated, Rated & Blogged
Beware the Penguin:
http://www.victorialodging.com/video/Never_Trust_A_Penguin.mpg
Fedora Core release 5 (Bordeaux) on sky, running kernel 2.6.16-1.2133_FC5
04:06:48 up 96 days, 4:23, 3 users, load average: 0.89, 0.87, 0.39
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