On Oct 22, 10:22 pm, Chris Ahlstrom <lino...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> After takin' a swig o' grog, Roy Schestowitz belched out
> this bit o' wisdom:
> > Chinese fume at Microsoft anti-piracy
> > ,----[ Quote ]
> >| China's vocal bloggers seemed stunned that their computers seemed to have
> >| phoned Microsoft for the anti-piracy tool without asking.
Microsoft has the legal right to enforce their copyright. If their
tactics are too draconian, and people don't like how Microsoft is
treating them, they should switch to something else, like Linux or
FreeBSD.
Microsoft charges what they think their product is worth. If you
don't agree, you should use Linux.
> >| "The computer is mine", one angry blogger penned,
The HARDWARE is yours, but the software is Microsoft's.
> > "Microsoft has no right to
> >| control my hardware without my agreement", the poor fool thought.
So long as you are using Microsoft's software - illegally, they have
every right to stop you from using it, and forcing you to either stop
using the illegal copy, or get it properly licensed by paying
Microsoft for it. The other alternative is to use other software,
like Linux.
I have no sympathy for someone who deliberately purchases a machine
with "No OS" then installs a pirated copy of Windows, and then gets
upset because Microsoft is enforcing their copyright.
The problem is that not everybody knows that they aren't getting
"Genuine Vista". There are retailers and vendors who will purchase
quantities of PCs with no OS, add some memory, and install a pirated
copy of Vista on it, which allows them to almost double the price of
the computer.
The customers don't find out until the screen turns black that their
copy was pirated. But they paid for what they thought was a machine
with a legitimate copy of Windows. Often, a phone call to Microsoft,
providing details about the vendor will net you a free "legitimized"
copy, and will send Microsoft "agents" to raid the store, often
accompanied by law enforcement authorities. Of course, vendors who
get caught are pretty much given the choice of licensing windows for
every PC they sell, or going to jail, because they've given up their
negotiating leverage of claiming that not everybody wants Windows.
On the other hand, there are more and more retailers selling "No OS"
systems AS "No OS" systems. Often, you can pick up a copy of Linux in
the magazine section of the same store, or a nearby store in the
mall. I was recently at an airport where I could pick up a "No OS"
laptop for about $400, and the magazine containing Linux (SUSE 11) for
about $15. A similar computer running Vista was available for about
$1200, though it had 3 Gig of RAM instead of 1 gig, and a 200 Gig hard
drive instead of a 160 gig hard drive.
This is important. A Linux system with 1/4 the memory and 1/2 the
storage can do twice as much as the fully loaded Vista system.
Microsoft's first design principle is "Memory is cheap, CPU is cheap,
and hard drives are cheap, use as much as you can". Part of that is
because Microsoft's REAL customers are the OEMs, who are trying to
sell lots of new computers at premium prices. HP, Dell, and Sony WANT
Microsoft to use so much of these resources that people HAVE to
purchase new computers to get the new OS.
The problem is that this time, it backfired. When people and
corporations evaluated Vista, they were looking at systems that were
huge with memory and hard drive and CPU. These machines should have
been blindingly fast. Instead, they were even slower than their
predecessors on machines with 1/4 of the resources. As a result, many
corporations are sticking with XP, and many individuals are simply
putting off PC purchases, causing pain for Dell, HP, Sony, and Lenovo.
What has been really interesting is the sub-notebooks from ASUS and
ACER, which seem to work substantially faster and seem to have plenty
of extra head-room even with 4 gig of solid-state drive and 512 meg of
RAM and seem to run twice as fast as XP. The same PCs running Windows
XP require 160 gig hard drives and 1 gigabyte of RAM (which adds
50-80% to the price). The same PCs running Vista seem to need 3-4
gigabytes of RAM, 200 gigabyte 7200 RPM hard drive and Dual Core CPUs,
each running 50% faster than the Linux CPUs, and STILL run slower than
XP.
> >http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/10/22/chinese-fume-m...
> Let them eat cake. (Linux)
Many companies are looking much more seriously at Linux. The biggest
problem with trying to run XP on new hardware is that there often
aren't XP drivers for the peripherals, because Microsoft only wanted
the vendors to support Vista. On the other hand, the PCs can run
Linux quite easily, and this lets them run under VMWare. The overhead
is not that bad, so XP running as a VM on a Linux machine runs as fast
as it would in native mode, but you also have the ability to run
browsers, media players, and even Open Office or Lotus Symphony in the
native Linux machine. As a result, XP is only needed for those
special "Windows Only" applications, and they can't tell the
difference between XP native and XP as a Linux VM.
Ironically, the GOAL is just to get XP running on machines that were
designed to run Vista, and the SIDE EFFECT is that the end users get
the speed, performance, and flexibility of Linux.
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