Alias~-

Rick Rogers wrote:
> So their motivation is to make the illegitimate users go legit? What a
> surprise.

No, their motivation is greed. In an attempt to satisfy this greed, they
rolled out WPA/WGA, etc.

>
> Yes, the honest user will be inconvenienced on occasion by the new
> security implementation. Just like I have to wait in line at the airport
> to get through security, or wait at the police checkpoint to see if I'm
> wearing my safety belt and have my vehicle inspected, or tolerate the
> fact that I am being filmed as I shop at Wally World.

You didn't buy the airport, police check point or Wally World and
there's no way you could steal them so your analogy is seriously flawed.

> "Microsoft trusted its users to do the right thing and generally they did"
>
> This was before the notion of "get it for free on the internet" existed.
> The theives then were far and few between, now many have the attitude of
> not paying unless you get caught.

That's one theory. My theory is that MS allowed piracy before XP in
order to saturate and control the market. Now they're trying to cash in.
They lied and said that controlling piracy will lower prices. Vista is
more expensive than XP.

> "There is a restriction on how many times users can transfer the boxed
> copy of Windows they purchase to a new machine."
>
> While we don't know for sure that this will be the case, I do agree this
> will be a bad move. However, this is a private company that has the
> right to restrict how their software is used. If the imposed limitation
> is a bad one, which I believe it to be, it will make itself evident in a
> small backlash from the technical community. I say "small" because the
> truth is that the majority get their copy of Windows with the system and
> never do major hardware upgrades. The power user that builds their own
> machine is still a very tiny minority.

This minority may be a minority in your country but not here. Only
idiots don't buy white boxes in Spain but, then again, all the ISPs push
Usenet so I guess we have a more educated consumer here.

>
> "There will be no long queues of users outside computer stores lining up
> to buy a boxed copy of Vista Home Basic to load on their underpowered XP
> computers"
>
> Start me up! Remember Win95 - those days, the days when only geeks had
> computers, are gone. Computers are in the realm of the great unwashed,
> the technically inefficient. This is why the transfer limitation will
> probably not have any major affect in sales, as to most it simply won't
> matter.

Um, non geeks have been operating computers since the 60s.

>
> "The strategy is a risky one. Like pirate CDs and DVDs, the vast
> majority of pirate Windows copies proliferate in second and third world
> markets. The reason is that many users in those markets find Windows
> prohibitively expensive. Can Microsoft force a significant proportion of
> them to go legitimate? Perhaps, or perhaps it will simply drive them
> into the welcoming arms of the Linux world."
>
> Risky? No, more like calculated risk, and probably a safe one based on
> the points I've already given. It's not the geek's world anymore. Is it
> too expensive in the tirdl world market?

Yeah, when you make $200 a month, Windows is expensive.

> Hell, it's too expensive in the
> first world market, but it still sells.

For now.

> Linux, as far as it has come
> along, is still the realm of the geek. Linux could actually benefit from
> a marketing campaign, but that will never happen as there is no profit
> motive in doing so.

Word of mouth is the best advertising and there are retail chains here
in Spain that will build you a box with Linux free if you buy the white
box from them.

Yes, you are right, MS' rip off scam will not be detected by Americans
in the USA but, then again, they voted for someone who thinks he speaks
to god for president.

Alias