Nigel Feltham wrote:
> Phil Da Lick! wrote:
>
>> Richard Rasker wrote:
>>>
>
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/10/office_live_domains_small_biz_charge/
>>>
>>> "The company told early adopter customers of the [Office Live Small
>>> Business (OLSB)] service, who had previously been promised free
>>> website registrations for life, that from 1 October it would begin
>>> charging them a $14.95 a year renewal fee for their domains.
>>>
>>> Trust Microsoft, get screwed.
>>>
>>> Richard Rasker
>>
>>
>> "We won't ever charge you"... couple of years later "We?ve made a policy
>> change and will start charging".
>>
>> I think most reasonable people would also know where to file MS's
>> convenant "never to sue".
>
> You have to be real dumb to ever trust MS about anything.
>
> Remember their 'Playsforsure' music store that quickly became 'plays
> unless you own an MS ZUNE player' then 'Doesn't Play At All' once the DRM
> activation servers started to get switched off.
>
> How long will it be before they start to kill off the ability to
> re-install XP and run it for more than 30 days by turning off those
> activation servers as well.
On that last point - how many people understand the possible threat?
Take a look here:-
http://www.findmysoft.com/news/Instant-Messaging-Banned-by-Google-and-AOL-Not-Just-Microsoft/
Not just MS, but also Google and AOL were involved.
I have absolutely *no* sympathy with the governments of Cuba, Syria, Iran,
Sudan and North Korea. That's not the point. The point is that these
companies were able to stop services to those countries.
How and why?
"....this move was taken due to U.S. export controls and economic sanctions
regulations.â
In other words, the U.S. government decided, and those (U.S.) companies were
compelled to do as they were told.
This isn't about the U.S. government telling companies what they can do in
the U.S., but rather the U.S. government telling U.S. companies what they
can do *outside* the U.S., and because what it tells them is what suits
U.S. policy.
Suppose - just suppose - that it suited U.S. policy for France, or Germany,
or the U.K. to be threatened by the U.S., and that we couple that with your
comments re. XP?
Time and again, we hear of FOSS being gratis (and hence "freetards" etc), or
of FOSS enabling one to change the code, etc. Rarely do we hear of FOSS
giving its users, individual, corporate or government, *sovereignty* !
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