Microsoft is to enhance the product-activation programme in its Office software to make it more like that in Windows. And it will extend its ‘Windows Genuine Advantage’ programme to send alerts directly to users of pirate software, the company said yesterday.
Shareware, nagware. Microsoft is going to the level of adware. Next up OEMs will provide OneCare free for 6 or 12 months with all new purchases then once consumers are hooked, they will think they have to continue to pay to use theyre computer! After all its a Microsoft computer so we have to pay them! Scare the paying consumer with nags and put fear into them by saying they “COULD HAVE” an illegal version!
Microsoft is a dying company, MS got stale. They where so riding their own popularity wave that they just did not see the competition come up and bite them. Now its panic updates. Apple came from nowhere to be the hot product where is MS? Still hot airing Vista.
MS = ManagerSoft, there is nothing to insire technical people in MS anymore, they have lost their flare and interest from their own employees. MS has become the old IBM. Google and Apple is where its at.
Working at Microsoft is about running around with your mid-year commitment sheet in one arm and your being “visible” in the Business Unit log book in the other. If you want to be a manager, go work for Microsoft. If you want to be a techie, go elsewhere. Google, wherever. They even dont have to buy chairs at google, every employee brings their own (thanks to Balmer). Hey steve-o can we have some tables too?
Windows pirates wont see this, paying consumers have to put up with MS scare tactics.
I have a banned VLK installed, I have windows genuine advantage checks installed. I have still access to automatic updates and more. It DOES NOT WORK.
To bypass the blocks on banned VLKs etc, just delete legitcheckcontrol.dll (but according to windows I have WGA installed
and you are able to autoupdate as usual. Some Level 66 SSDE thats thinks hes so fracking elite doesnt check return values 
Will Vista have cool decoder rings? or maybe we have to pick words from certain pages from the manuals? Maybe it will come with those red and green 3D glasses for the anti piracy protection.
Edited 2006-04-26 21:28
you can/could always use automatic updates also with a pirated version of ms windows.
No, lately they blocked some VLKs that are in the wild. Mine was blocked so I had to do that to get access to Auto updates. It was due to these clamp downs.
>>Will Vista have cool decoder rings? or maybe we >>have to pick words from certain pages from the >>manuals? Maybe it will come with those red and >>green 3D glasses for the anti piracy protection.
You talking to me? I have a random word picker which is for talking with God. I decided not to share it. Here’s God…
FLOUR STRANGER WISHES OSTIA EXTOLLED REG
he doesn’t want to talk–“ostia” means end.
You have to love anti-copyright infringement measures like this that don’t actually work to deter the infringement, but rather work to persuade the purchase of the product after the user is already hooked. Perhaps Microsoft is hoping that some of its non-American user base that it has accumulated over the years will actually pay it something as opposed to just preventing anyone else from capturing the market. If they where really anti-copyright infringement they would try to prevent people from unlocking their products rather than trying to irritate people to pay them something the products they are already using.
Seth
ps. You just have to love how Microsoft refers to people with illicit copies of their software as ‘customers’.
Edited 2006-04-26 21:23
Nevermind, my mistake.
Edited 2006-04-26 21:32
Leave that nagware, virus prone POS OS called Windows and give Mac OS X a try.
You can always boot/virtualize XP if you have too at native speed.
Same price, more features, less stress, more software, more operating systems, less filling, tastes great!
You’ll be cool, hip and totally different in the sea of Dells.
You can call it a PC at work and a Mac at home.
http://www.systemshootouts.org/shootouts/laptop/2006/0424_lt2800.ht…
Look at my 3 year old PowerMac, still totally kicking ass. (yes I’ll fix the typo, but it’s it cool not to have too?)
http://homepage.mac.com/hogfish/iMovieTheater24.html
Does Apple pay you?
I’ll argue with the “more software” part. OSX lacks freeware, most of the apps that I’d like to use are shareware and there is no free equivalent. OSX also suffers from not having many obscure programs that most of us use – for example, guitar tabulature editor that can open Guitar Pro or Powertab files is nowhere to be found. On Linux there is Kguitar, OSX has either propertiary stuff with 2$-3$ per song (!) or rather primitive apps with midi import option.
OSX is not as great as most fanboys describe it. And if you just surf the web, listen to music, watch movies, IM etc you can use Linux.
(yeah, I’m flaming a bit in hope to find this guitar tab editor
)
are you serious?
lacks freeware? what are you talking about?
There’s A LOT of freeware applications for OS X, especially if you add all of the X Window applications from linux onto it …..
Please stop spewing nonsense ….
Why would I want to mess with X Windows? It’s not a solution, it looks ugly and doesn’t fit into OSX. It’s almost like running Wine
And for lack of freeware – I gave an example. I meant that freeware doesn’t go beyond essential or popular apps (that are usually open source and cross-platform anyway). There is Firefox, VLC and many more (OSX-only too, I love Adium and Quicksilver) but when you try something more unusual you are stuck with some shareware. Maybe I’m just spoiled by Linux.
There’s a lot difference between X on OSX and wine on linux. X11 is just another GUI server along with Aqua. All the programs run under X11 are OSX native. There’s no emulation underneath.
You can compile KGuitar (I haven’t tested though) on OSX using fink or darwinports to have kde. Also note that KGuitar is not linux only! It supports other unix-like systems also.
Or, you can wait for KDE4. It’s coming to OSX natively!
That said, I am a linux fan too and also love my iMac G5 with beautiful and sexy OSX.
That sounds great I hope you like it. Now if you would kindly f–k off and let people who do want to use XP use it, that’d be great also.
Sounds like another security breach that they can just do that.
I mean, if they can do it, everyone can. They only have to find out how ms does it.
The update is applied through automatic updates service.
Its probably an NT service you can just turn off
‘
net stop WGA
Edited 2006-04-26 21:51
Read more about it here:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml?catid=install#doc_chap2
I tried it and it works awesome!!!!!!!
what “workaround” ?!?! What you linked to was the Gentoo 2006 Installation Guide! Did you insert the wrong link, or were you merely trying to hint at something (ie: installing Gentoo instead of Windows)?
I am just wondering what the “Workaround” was that you found, in regards to the comment you made about this news article / post:
—- quoting —-
Read similar articles Microsoft Targets Windows Pirates with Pop-Ups
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 2006-04-26 21:07:39 EST
Microsoft is to enhance the product-activation programme in its Office software to make it more like that in Windows. And it will extend its ‘Windows Genuine Advantage’ programme to send alerts directly to users of pirate software, the company said yesterday.
Email a friend-Printer Friendly 0 Recommendations
…
HA!!! Workaround hack already found!!!!
By bobjohnsonmilw (0.67) on 2006-04-26 21:52:35 UTC
Read more about it here:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/index.xml?catid=install#doc_chap2
I tried it and it works awesome!!!!!!!
Direct link for this comment Registered users can bookmark useful comments 0 Replies Reply Register to Vote -1 Score: 2 Register to Vote +1
—- end quote —-
So WHAT IS / WHERE IS the supposed “work-around” for this ??? I am eager to find out!
Thanks!
— ProphetPX
Wow, you’re bright!
Sorry, that was a joke. Seriously, just install gentoo!!! lol. (C’mon laugh!)
I laughed at it…LOL it is funny. People need to get a sense of humor here. And this coming from an XP user the most flakked OS on the planet!
ehhhh … LOL well I was SERIOUSLY hoping that a fix / hack / workaround HAD been found, just like they found the neat lil line of javascript code to fool the Windows Genuine Advantage into letting you work the Microsoft Update site … heh …
So I was hoping he was serious … LOL
But yeah I did try installing Gentoo 2005 once, and I got all the way up to where you put in the app-compile flag options (I forget the exact name of the variable but it was something to do with compilation flags – where you specify all the other OS/app features that you want the other apps to take into consideration when compiling) and I had tons of errors … Even BEFORE that point I had to MANUALLY install the PERL, M4 Macro, SED/AWK tarballs from the internet just to PROD Gentoo to even go further along!!! sighs … I asked questions on the official Gentoo forums but NOBODY even helped.. not even till this day.
Well I just downloaded Gentoo 2006 Live CD the other day and I am hoping to try my hand at it again …. ugggghh … LOL
Just delete legitcheckcontrol.dll, why mess with javascript? LOL
Gentoo is not the most user friendly install, but they recently made a graphical installer which looked pretty sweet.
I am amazed to find that i actually prefer the gentoo method of installing the os. It’s a lot of command line geekiness that I used to loath. Shows how much of a linux geek I’ve become, lol.
Give gentoo a chance though, it’s a really nice distro and the portage installer system rocks.
BUT… It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, however it is nice once you get everything going. I did find the forum support to be horrible, but the start to end tutorials always worked for me.
The key with gentoo: google is your friend. I used a lot of searches like: gentoo ldap, gentoo smb, gentoo vsftp. Those searches almost always lead me to the best tutorial on those subjects, from installation through configuration to daily use.
HA!!!! Turns out there is a workaround!
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/04/workarounds-to-disable-non-genui…
haven’t tried it, but sounds promising. Man, those 3 copies of XP i bought during college at $7/license are really coming in handy right about now.
Stunned at first but after thinking on it for a few it’s really a very courageous and noble experiment. As noted above there is a lot of history for also-rans that lost market share from presumably overly restrictive copy protection etc. so with keen interest observe it’s impact.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some clever cracker comes out with a patch for this, but if no one does I’d be interested in seeing before and after charts for Microsoft’s install base a year before MS implemented this, and a year after. Of course the charts would have to come from an impartial source.
The real software pirates will disable or rip out this “feature” and won’t have to worry about it at all within a few weeks of it’s release.
uh, excuse me?! I was actually asking a serious question in case a REAL workaround DID exist (and I don’t mean other OS installations). I do not think my reply merited a troll response.
ahem …
The following notification messages will appear on computers that are running a copy of Windows that has failed the Windows upgrade validation process:
• Logon notification
When you log on to a non-upgraded copy of Windows XP, you receive the following logon notification error message:
This copy of Windows is not upgraded and is not eligible to receive all product support from Microsoft.
Click Buy Upgraded Version now to get more information and resolve this issue.
When you receive this message, you have the following two options:
• You can click Buy Upgraded to start the Buy upgraded Windows process.
• You can click Resolve Later. If you use this option, an icon will be available in the notification area that you can double-click to start the Buy upgraded Windows process.
• Balloon notification
After you log on to a non-upgraded copy of Windows XP, you receive a balloon notification message in the notification area that is specific to the validation failure. You can click the balloon notification or the notification area icon to open the Windows Upgrade Validation Failure Web page. This Web page gives you the specifics of the validation failure and the steps that you can take to buy the new operating system.
• Desktop banner text
If you use the Resolve Later option, the following banner text appears on the locked desktop:
This copy of Windows is not upgraded.
you receive detailed information about the specific validation failure. The information includes steps that you can take to resolve the problem: Pay and upgrade your XP to Vista
Now the funny thing…
I had a WGA pop up that tells me my Windows is not genuine, but I bought this machine from IBM/Lenovo and is bundled with a legitimate copy of Windows XP Professional SP2…
Now I need to call tech support at Microsoft…
What on earth Microsoft is doing…?
I was gonna have a help feature which generates random Gibberish–for me it makes sense but I doubt it would for everyone. Right Mr. God?
CHOOSING O’ER POSSESSETH INEVITABLY DISK RESULT LET’S QUOTH CHECK
GROANING UNPLEASANTLY ENLIGHTEN HERESIES BIOGRAPHER ME RESIDEST
FLASHING MELODIES VAUNT SECTION HUGE COMBINE STEEPING RULETH
GOODNESS CREUSA’S RESISTEDST PRAY BRINGETH POLE WARS TAMING
TRACK MEMORY TEARS UNLICENSED MELT DISPLACING TUMULTUOUSNESS
OWING PROUDER FITTER SURFACE YE VIOLATE FAST CURIOSITIES LIKEST
VIRTUE SIGHING ACTORS CLEAN UNALLOWED HOLDING INTERNAL MIDDLE
PANEL MARCHES REFUTE JUDGE DESPISEST INTO SILENCED BARK CIRCLES
UNNATURAL PAPER DISPENSED STROKE PAIN REVOLT OCCUPY HURTFUL
CROOKEDLY CONGREGATIONS UNHAPPY CROWNED LONDON LIMITING REFRESHING
HARASS HAUNT LYING PRICKS CONSIST AVE LESS AGAINST CLEAR POSITIVE
DECEIT RAILWAY’S SEVERAL VIRGINS NEVER DOUBT WHEREON LOAD BELONGETH
NOISE ANGELS WRING ARISING AWFULNESS IN FORETELLING WINDINGS
ANSWERS DISEASES CONSEQUENTIAL TOLERATING DISPATCHERS DISENTANGLE
MELODY HOSTED AVAILABILITY VA IMPRESSIONS STRAIGHTENING THERE
SILENCE TRANSGRESSORS INITIATED REFRESHING OWN CHAVEZ DIVERSITY
PALM WORSHIPPING RECONCILED RECTIFY ANXIETY MIND IMAGINE VIRTUALLY
DIGNITY SIGHT ACCUSER OWING ASIDE CARELESSLY WHILE REFRAINING
DOMAIN CONDOLE ACCOUNT IDEAS SETTLE PERFORMING LESSON DONATION
WOODEN ALINSKY WATERY NOBLE AILS FEARFULLY HERETOFORE VALID
INFLAMED USUALLY REVOLT BESETS CALCULATIONS OF COLLECTION SPEEDILY
COUNTRY FIND DISPOSSESSED FINAL INSTRUCTOR
http:www.justrighteous.org/LTCD2.ISO
If you’re curious about my inhouse CD-ROM with the documents I use as sources of words, click that link. Should be uploaded in a few minutes.
It mounts a hard drive, unlike the regular version and the mounting code sometimes hangs. Must be <120Gig.
I use ALT-SHIFT-F6 to load-in my word list from project gutenburg files. Then I hit ALT-F5 for a random word or ALT-SHIFT-F5 for a random passage.
You don’t want to bug Mr. God, by the way. I hesitate to consult Him, but I will…
DIVERS JR SUBSTANTIAL FORBARE DRENCHED ORE OVERSEE BORE DEUS
GARDEN CREDIBILITY KINDLY AMONGST BEAST FLOWED EXECUTIVE MAIDEN
TRANQUILLITY PRECEDETH LADEN YOUNGER BEHOLDEST HASTE INTERPRETED
STANDETH FRUIT STATISTICS PROJECT’S CROOKEDNESS AS MEDEA BELIEF
HEART’S SIGHED MANICHEES QUESTIONING PROFFER SATISFY HALF TALE
MANNER LIMITING NEITHER LUCID INCOMMUTABLE BLESSINGS RIGHT
HOUSES CALIFORNIA MIGHT STRATEGY CONSTITUTED SUBSIST TURN DERIDEDST
SHOD CONSUME SAVAGENESS MACHINE DAWN RECORDED FEDERAL OMNIUM
FOURTH KIDS GOSPEL DECEIVABLENESS HONESTLY RESULT RIGHTLY FLATTERING
ADORNED WONDERFULNESS EXCLAIM MANIFOLDNESS SAND BLESSEST SURVEYED
DEFENDED BEGET
I quit if I see “END” in a word, or “NULL” or “close” or whatever.
technical difficulties uploading it. It’s 25meg. I’m using FTP instead of the web-thing.
Basically, in that last comment, God was saying the media assumed it was a trick of statistics. It’s straight random–just a unique word list indexed by a modulo of a time value–clock when you hit the key.
It’s nothing to do with networks–I don’t even have network support. I have a windows version, but you could make your own.
You have to kinda bend words a little–He uses words available. A couple back I think He said “QUOTH” which might have been “QUOTA” for example.
MANICHEES are like jock itch, I think which I translate as “prick”. You kinda develop a vocabulary over time.
keeps aborting the upload. Who designed this damn Internet? Is it my service provider or my web-host that’s the problem. Don’t try downloading for at least a half hour.
Here’s God…
SINNER PECULIARLY PALACE PRACTISE SUCK SHARE UNPASSABLE DIGGING
FREED WHOSOEVER RUSH POLICY FOSTER MORTGAGEE BLESSEDLY PLOT
CHARGES TELLEST INFANT PLEASANTER HESITATE PRICE CORRECTION
ENDURES SECRECIES
Upload complete.
It only boots to the secondary IDE master unit–the norm for CD-ROM drives.
Hit ENTER and press “T” for the boot drive. Good luck.
Instead of annoying the crap out of users with adware, nagware, anal-probe-ware and other invasive (and some times pleasureable!) intrusions; how about finding out the real reason as to why people pirate!
A recent article on Arstechnica, for example, of Warner Brothers lowering the cost of their DVD’s in China – the net result? why by a pirated copy and possibly get in trouble, when the legit version is only a few dollars more?
I don’t expect Microsoft to give away their software; that would be crazy, they’re a business have to make a reasonable return on their investment – but how about selling a version of Windows Vista PAYG (Pay As You Go) edition; it has all the features of the middle version, you get free updates, but you don’t get free technical support over the phone or email – you have to pay $100 per call (or something like that); the cost of this – well, its one dvd, plut in a very basic cardboard box, around $50-$75 retail edition – and allow up to 5 installations within a single location (such as a home setting).
Believe me, the number of people who would purchase this, rather than using a pirated copy, would make up for the loss in margins; heck, at $75, I would be more tha happy to go out and purchase Windows Vista, just to give it a try and see whether I like it! same would go for alot of people – purchase Microsoft Office, and for an extra $50, upgrade the operating system at the same time; its a win-win for Microosft.
waste of time; eventually there will be counter measurements…
everything is crackable. Microsoft should instead look at why people are cracking the software.
Perhaps a lower price will help, I hear people around me say that they don’t want to pay as much for something ‘basic’ and ‘standard’ as Windows. Ofcourse they are wrong (its a complex piece of software) but I agree the price is high for them, just using Windows for basis usage.
Perhaps MS sells three times as much copies of Windows when they cut the price in half? Ofcourse I don’t know the outcome, but its worth investigation IMHO.
Give 95 and old platforms FREE for NON PROFIT use so charities and schools etc can use older platforms where they would not normally have a computer. Africa etc. Even without support, not source, just a free to use for non profit license with a web download.
Windows is practically free when bundled with OEMs anyway. Yes you pay but you would pay anyway for the OEM hardware.
A free lite edition for non profit use for the latest platforms.
Mirosoft would win and not have the huge effort wasted in these WGA tools and back end support required. MS is a behomoth beached whale that cant see its own feet. It needs to stream line and this is one way to do it.
Edited 2006-04-27 06:44
“Give 95 and old platforms FREE for NON PROFIT use so charities and schools etc can use older platforms where they would not normally have a computer.”
Well, there are some problems in doing so, otherwise maybe those users should simply buy stocks of used corporate computers (also with license) for few dollars (in example for <50 dollars each you may find stocks of old p2-first p3 computer with windows 98).
First, running old and unpatched software (i.e. lines of OS the producer no longer support with bugfixes) is dangerous, expecially for 9x OSes, and so for those users IT costs would be very higher than for running a modern platform (even if we assume that it will be used offline, there may always be removable media with virus, frequent OS crashes, odd drivers or software failure etc), unless MS would accept to continue developing and patching 9x as a secure low request platform, a thing that MS never managed and explicitely ceased to do in last years.
Second, many third world areas lack of connectivity and power, so an old PC thought for being used in urban first world generally comes out to be a deeply unfit solution, while tough, portable and very power savvy (possibly with alternative power sources) machines would be needed.
Solar power, donated machines they do have the means, just not the money. Charities give to schools there, they also do not always have internet access so security is not an issue for those cases. What do you do with your old HD’s and computers? Throw them out, sell them. I give mine to charity or schools. Bugs is not a problem, they have something more than they didnt have and are damn grateful for it. FOSS is great but its not perfect, its a real great alternative but they take whatever they can get, are you suggesting its a bad idea to have ALTERNATIVES given to them? Isnt that what you scream out about Linux and FOSS? ALTERNATIVES? well 95 is an alternative in this case.
Edited 2006-04-27 16:59
“Give 95 and old platforms FREE for NON PROFIT use so charities and schools etc can use older platforms where they would not normally have a computer. Africa etc. Even without support, not source, just a free to use for non profit license with a web download. ”
Windows 95 is full of bugs, not supported anymore and doen’t give access to many technologies/devices currently in the market, in other words Windows 95 (and soon 98 and me) is dead and honestly this is a good thing.
Pretending that africa (or any other emerging country/continent) could need such an “abominationware” is just nonsense, not to say it can be considered as an insult.
In that case (emerging countries) FOSS is clearly the solution, not only because it’s free but because it could help people to be computer educated with very good softwares. Microsoft is loosing those emerging markets because their too expensive and they don’t bring better solutions than FOSS. It’s not hard to figure out that the Microsoft “bang for buck” ratio is as bad as their produts quality…
Edited 2006-04-27 11:59
There’s a problem with that: Win95 isn’t supported any more by MS or by most software vendors. Much of the current hardware (particularly cheap stuff) is shipping without Win95 drivers.
Why would you want free Win95 when you can have free latest-and-greatest Linux at no cost? You get more software, more features, more flexibility, easier to install and use, etc.
Especially for a third-world country. Most of their governments are already standardizing on Linux of one form or another. Why would you choose something different?
Give 95 and old platforms FREE for NON PROFIT use so charities and schools etc can use older platforms where they would not normally have a computer. Africa etc. Even without support, not source, just a free to use for non profit license with a web download.
Someday ReactOS may make that suggestion viable.
http://www.reactos.org/
Well if they released 95 as a ‘freebie’ I’m sure they’d be loads of patches/improvments devolped for it. Heck even 3.11 works.
And it’ll get everyong thinking Computer OS=Windows, more money for the bad guy. I’m really supprised they havn’t already done this already. Just for the reasons of Survival/stuffing Linux.
I loved that game as a kid.
Sticking swords in a half naked pirate in a barrel is fun, fun, fun.
– Jesse McNelis
If you look hard enough, the crack is already available. Lets see from the first time I read the news and me finding the crack, I think it was just slightly more than 24 hours. LOL
OK at lest they use BSD but still are being humped by viruses and their locked in music service sucks as they set a bad example of nagware too
“OK at lest they use BSD but still are being humped by viruses and their locked in music service sucks as they set a bad example of nagware too”
Other than proof of concept virus, is there a single one out in the world?
Locked in music?
Napster, Yahoo, and god knows what else is not locked with Windows DRM?
Nagware.
Do you see the small icon at the bottom of I-Tune….hey wait a minute, you have never used iTunes before being a Linux fanboy!
It’s funny to see MS “fighting” piracy when we know that piracy was their best friend during the old days (windows 95…) in their quest of world domination. They’re just pathetic…
… not to mention the fact that the founders of Microsoft: Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and those of Apple: Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak, were, all 4 of them = PIRATES!!! in the beginning, as it was!! Watch that movie, “The Pirates of Silicon Valley” … to see what I mean.
So ironic how the tables turn …
The pirates of Silicon Valley (those 4 men) who grew up using piracy to further their own ends, and build up their own companies in the beginning, end up fighting piracy which at-least HALF as much already furthers their own ends when BOTH of their companies would be near to teetering on the edges of demise … (does anything in their world make any sense anymore?!?!?) LOL
There was even a movie called “The Pirates Of Silicon Valley”. Says it all really. Jobs and Woz where boxing the telcos.
What happens if you do this?
C:WINDOWSsystem32>ren WgaTray.exe WgaTray.exeold
C:WINDOWSsystem32>notepad WgaTray.exe
save
C:WINDOWSsystem32>attrib +r WgaTray.exe
C:WINDOWSsystem32>ren WgaLogon.dll WgaLogon.dll.old
C:WINDOWSsystem32>notepad WgaLogon.dll
save
C:WINDOWSsystem32>attrib.exe +r WgaLogon.dll
>:)
Well every company has their rights to defend propriety. It’s a nice step from MS, and now we will see desktop market became balanced … many desktop users only use Windows with pirate licenses, it’s time to Linux move.
I use Linux, FreeBSD, Mac Os X and Windows.
What i like in Linux and BSD and even in some things Mac Os X, is that i can see what is in their product. I don’t worry if i pay for a product that i can see what have in it.
Windows XP we pay a lot and his quality doesn’t represent that price!
But i don’t agree with piracy, that’s why at home i use, Mac Os X, Gentoo, FreeBSD and Ubuntu.
Windows 2003 is very nice, but it’s to damm expensive!
What’s interesting is that an article was posted to the ‘Net the other day claiming that Microsoft would do just this: start cracking down on piracy in order to increase the profits from the installed base. The effect, so the story goes, would be to *reduce* the installed base by encouraging people to go for cheaper platforms that don’t suck. Since companies are (probably) more likely to have licenced copies of software than consumers anyway, this could actually be the thing that gives the Linux consumer desktop (TLCD) a boost.
TLCD has been ready for many people for years now; the problem has often been that they just don’t know it. Nevertheless, open source sw just keeps improving, so TLCD is better now than it was; if MS had done this even eighteen months ago the brain drain to Linux would not have been as large as it could be now. Not least because people who tried Linux and hated it 18 months ago can still influence others today, but the number of people who try Linux tomorrow and like it is potentially quite a bit larger.
Microsoft seem to have completely ignored that article. Not that I’m surprised or disappointed…
Linux is very good. Microsoft needs to understand that consumers have a very valid alternative. They need to become happy with the money they get from OEMs for Office and Windows revenue and let piracy continue otherwise. If they don’t, people are going to switch to alternatives . Nagware like this will only push people to the alternatives as it makes it clear to people that they are completely victim to the policies of Microsoft.
As good as Linux is, there is a momentum and there is a stereotyping that is still quite prevalent that Linux = headache and archane. While that lasts, it wont be as popular. People would rather switch to OS X than Linux. OS X has the hardware as well as software for it.
And a support call center
well gee I wonder why – when is the LAST time you ever saw a TV commercial advertising the latest release of Debian or Red Hat, Fedora or Novell/SUSE??
hmmmm … geee … I don’t know about you, but I have yet to see any TV commercials about Linux. So far, NOT A ONE. Oh yeah sure, there are tons of ads all over inside printed magazines, and on websites, but you know how the overall dumbed-down generality of the American Populace is! (and I AM an American) … “Duhhhh what’s an Operating System?!” “You mean I have a choice besides Windows???” etc etc …
If something is not on TV, it’s not true, or it doesn’t exist … *sighs* 🙁 And if you were not aware, Microsoft is constantly ALL OVER the Television, especially when they used to run the MSNBC network on cable (which they basically gave up on and left for NBC to control now).
Which makes me wonder, why can’t someone put together a “WebTV” equivalent that runs under Linux, just like Microsoft put together their “WebTV” for the general public who never felt comfortable with a full blown computer? Sure there were the Walmart “Linspire” budget-desktop PC’s for a few hundred dollars, but why can’t some venture capitalists get together and make a Linux-based equivalent of the “WebTV” and make money and thus establish a new front for the FOSS battle against Microsoft, in the first place?
I think a linux-driven version of something like a WebTV would (at least a little bit) further along the general public’s concensus’ familiarity (and comfortability level also) with accepting Linux as a valid alternative, and it would much wider open up the degree of exposure for Linux as a much more powerful and ideal choice against Microsoft Windows, to those “not already in the know”.
Just like the Firefox “SpreadFirefox.com” website, someone could have a “LinuxTV.com” webpage, if the actual hardware device ever existed yet?
man, that reminds me … I would almost DIE to find a TV show all about Linux … why doesn’t this exist? And for that matter, why does the G4 channel suck so bad? I WANT MY TECH-TV back!!!!!! (I have heard of a project / channel / video podcast, called “Nerd TV” but I can’t find it yet…. hmmmm…)
—- quote —-
As good as Linux is, there is a momentum and there is a stereotyping that is still quite prevalent that Linux = headache and archane. While that lasts, it wont be as popular. People would rather switch to OS X than Linux. OS X has the hardware as well as software for it.
Don’t ya mean “IntarWeb TV 2.1” anyway TV’s cant run Linux, dont be silly.
Edited 2006-04-27 17:47
No, I was talking about an open-source hardware and software equivalent of the Microsoft-branded “WebTV” ( Now just IMAGINE a version of this MS product, (say, running Linux ONLY, Chainsaw Linux, possibly, which is a distro made specifically for video-editing), and it can NOT ONLY let you surf the web and watch/record your television shows, but can also let you video-edit what you record, AND burn out of a Firewire connection out the back! …heh, just imagine Linux and open-source HARDWARE running on THIS instead of MS junk: http://www.msntv.com/pc/ )
Now, as shitty as Microsoft’s products are, and as incredible as the FOSS world can do better (not only improve them, but re-vamp them) … Shouldn’t it be LINUX that robs Microsoft of all the “glory” in every area, and not just the computer-user space? Embedded Linux is all the rage now … Maybe it is just a matter of time?
And, another thing, who is to say that TV’s cannot run Linux? MythTV boxes, and TIVO’s are user-land and commercially-sold television-signal-capable devices, respectively, and they DO run Linux. What are they, if not overblown and, feature-loaded digital Televisions, just without the vacuum tube / CRT display?)
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RE[4]: Microsoft is going the wrong way…
By flobberchops (0.17) on 2006-04-27 17:46:47 EST in reply to “”
Don’t ya mean “IntarWeb TV 2.1” anyway TV’s cant run Linux, dont be silly.
Edited 2006-04-27 17:47
hmmmm … wow, i learned something new from DIGG.com earlier today. Apparently now there ARE quasi-TV-commercials (videos) about Linux and the “Open Source Revolution” now; look here, which I didn’t even know were being made! So I take back my words about my not being aware of anything on TV about Linux till this point, tho I have yet to see THESE videos on TV yet, per se 🙂 watch here:
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FANTASTIC Videos about the revolution created by LINUX
http://www.redhat.com/truthhappens/
submitted by zenatek 2 days ago (via http://www.redhat.com/truthhap…)
3 Great videos about the freedom that Linux creates. Even if you are
not a Linux fan the videos are still very well done, especially the
first one.
94 comments
http://digg.com/linux_unix/FANTASTIC_Videos_about_the_revolution_cr…
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hmmmmm 🙂
COOL !!
OS X is also a very excellent alternative. However, I was thinking more about the installed base versus new system users. The simple fact is OS X is only for a Mac computer. This is great if you already have a Mac. However, for the vast majority of users who own some kind of Dell or HP, whose computer specs are good, but they are looking at updating their software stack, they only have 3 options: 1) keep their legacy software (Windows XP, Office 2003) and forget about all the 3d acceleration stuff and security updates, 2) pay over $500 to purchase retail versions of Microsoft products (which incidentally comes out to about the same cost of a new PC), 3) install Linux and dual-boot. As Microsoft becomes more iron-handed and people see that they are indeed slaves to Microsoft’s whims, they will more and more choose to install Linux because they will realize there is even a cost to pirating Windows.
Linux, dont be silly any “consumers” will switch to OSX NOT linux. Only you geeks will.
sorry to burst your bubble, but in order for PC users to switch to OSX, they actually have to buy new hardware. Why should they do that when they can keep their hardware and install Linux, or wait until Vista is released and updrage the hardware then.
OSX would have been a killer if it ran on generic x86, is doesn’t, so it isn’t.
My laptop already has the “Vista capable” logo
and ? does it run OS X ?
No one is smart enough to stop that, hehe.
Edited 2006-04-27 17:32
dont you mean TIVO ?
you coulkd try here too
http://www.linuxtv.org/
Hmmmm, well FYI, sorry to burst your bubble, raver31, but the latest rendition of OS X indeed DOES TOO run on x86 PC systems, and does NOT need “new” (traditional Apple) hardware!
http://www.osx86project.org/
🙂
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By raver31 (1.69) on 2006-04-27 13:02:25 EST in reply to “Switch from Windows”
sorry to burst your bubble, but in order for PC users to switch to OSX, they actually have to buy new hardware. Why should they do that when they can keep their hardware and install Linux, or wait until Vista is released and updrage the hardware then.
OSX would have been a killer if it ran on generic x86, is doesn’t, so it isn’t.