Vista: 5 Months Later

The word you are looking at is slower; available to a minority of desktop owners.

I experience less latency with audio apps, video rendors better with less resources then XP, and the desktop is far smoother then XP. Resizing windows even on a modern system with XP results in visible repaints, passing a window over a video with xp leaves a trail of blue behind it, and when an app is overloaded and stops responding, passing a window over it leaves a trail of garbage. I’m not even talking aesthetics, I’m talking capability.

I think the CHOICE people wanted was whether DRM was included or not. Because its effects are further reaching than those of being able to play modern media.

No actually, it isnt.

You are not being forced into buying DRM protected content, or DRM protected hardware when you install vista. You can happily run vista, and deal with DRM as little as if you were running linux.

HOWEVER

if you run linux, you are stuck with open formats, which while technologically comparable, are completely unsupported by commercial industry. That means that if install linux, you do not have the choice anymore of viewing media you legally bought. the reason? the lack of support of drm media.

So, lets reiterate.

Vista: the ability to choose whether to view drm media or not view drm media

Linux: no ability to (legally) view the majority of commercially supported formats.

Which one of these options offers choice? The argument on the evility of protected content is a completely and totally different issue, the fact of the matter is that it is here, and vista gives you the option of buying in, or not. linux doesnt.

*sigh* its so hard to talk to zealots.

Vista: Has Trusted Computing; Built into the OS; You can only view HD Protected content through a major upgrade in hardware or which a small number of computers on sale support. Your Protected(sic) media causes your computer to pass information to a third-party, which can change at *any* time though an update. With any false positive crippling your machine; The ramifications of this go *beyond* that of the OS itself to the hardware which comes with exiting technology.

You do a fine job describing what modern content providers are demanding from devices to view modern content. Congratulations. Like I said in the previous post, the evility of DRM is a complete side issue. The fact is that this is what it takes, and windows users have the choice of buying into it, or not.

If they choose not to, they end up with what you have in linux, the inability to view modern content legally. If they choose to, then they can.

Linux: buy a Chinese HD-player.

Exactly. Linux does not provide the ability. This is not a feature, its the lack of a feature. Its not a choice, its the lack of a choice.

Which of these offers choice *Linux*. Linux has offered the choice of buying an OS that is not crippled by DRM

How is windows crippled? It is the one with the capability to view, or not view this media. Linux on the other hand doesnt have this ability. Maybe you just dont understand the language.

Cripple Crip”ple, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Crippled (-p’ld); p.

pr. & vb. n. Crippling (-pl?ng).]

1. To deprive of the use of a limb, particularly of a leg or

foot; to lame.

He had crippled the joints of the noble child. –Sir

W. Scott.

2. To deprive of strength, activity, or capability for

service or use; to disable; to deprive of resources; as,

to be financially crippled.

More serious embarrassments . . . were crippling the

energy of the settlement in the Bay. –Palfrey.

An incumbrance which would permanently cripple the

body politic. –Macaulay.

Linux deprives you of the ability to view media you bought. Windows does not.

Ok, I’ll try to explain it again.

Yes, its true, vista does limit and reduce functionality in hardware to meet the rather stringent and insane requirements of play HD content. You are 100% right on this, I know, acknowledge it, and am not argueing it.

However, this only applies to HD content, and the reason it applies to HD content is not because MS likes to screw with people, it is because that is what the content providers require.

So how is vista crippled? The functionality is there to be used if you wish, but noone is putting a gun to your head to go out and buy an HD-DVD. But by contrast, if you run linux you can’t even legally play a DVD, which has far less stringent and more acceptable DRM in it. How does that make linux not crippled as a desktop os? On linux its ogg, xvid, mpeg, or the highway. On windows, its whatever you want.

Vista is rubbish. I actually write that with glee. Its worse than XP and is starting to slip behind Linux!? and that has had advantages for a long time. A project started by those people you attempt to ridicule.

First of all, contrary to common slashdot wisdom, vista sales are higher then forcasted. Combined with strong office 2007 sales, MS is currently enjoying record profits.

Secondly, I have nothing but respect for the OSS camp. ESR, Linus, and the rest of them. The goals of the FSF are a pipe dream, the goals of the OSF are a practical reality.

Does Linux offer the same rich(sic) multimedia as Windows. No for the price of downloading a few codecs it provides a *better* experience.

Yes, but these codecs are ILLEGAL. If you use fleurendo, you can have legal MP3 playback, but very few people actually do. DeCSS cracks the encryption scheme, and w32codecs directly copies dll files from several applications, BLATENTLY violating their terms of use.

So why are you down the bottom of a forum posting away…because thats all Microsoft have got their primary products are mature so they are after control of content. Its worth Billions.

Im posting away cause I enjoy debating things with people, its a hobby 😉

MS is not after control of content. I would be shocked and amazed if apple ends up supporting HD-DVD shortly, and you will see the same list of requirements. MS didnt invent this list, it was created by the content creators. THEY are the ones crippling media, not ms, and certainly not vista.

Thats why hardware is going to cost *more* to buy from a driver development/Hardware perspective, why HD content will be blurry or not be able to play at all. Why hardware can be *switched* off remotely by Microsoft, or small changes can cause *soft resets* of your graphics. Expensive hardware being rendered useless. Of course this is in the future because the hardware is simply not readily available, or the premium content(sic)

You keep on talking about how horrible HD DRM is, to be honest I actually agree with you. But it has nothing to do with MS, and the only thing that it has to do with vista is that it SUPPORTS it, noone is shoving it down your throat.

The sad thing is. I feel *better* than you. This is happening to *your* platform. You are actually *supporting* this kind of lock-in to a platform. Microsoft abuses its position and you *support* them. Anything that keeps Microsoft a monopoly makes them *worse* seriously look at Vista, its embarrassing.

If you look at my posting history, I alwas advocate a diverse market. Windows has a place in business, OSX has a place in the home, and Linux has a place in the server (and of course, on the desktops of geeks). A computer mono-culture on the internet not only paints a big target on one OS, but it allows for one worm to take out half the worlds computing systems. Not only that, as can be seen in recent times, competition is good for everyone.

That being said, Vista is the first version of windows that I have actually enjoyed using. I have been forced to use it most of my professional life, and as a former mac classic user, it has been pure torture. The (significant) UI improvements in vista has fixed most of the things that has alwas driven me up the wall about using windows.

but you keep up with your sick little words to marginalize those who do care. The trouble is its *you* thats the minority.

I use the best tool for the job, I do not use things based on mythical battles between good and evil. While (as previously mentioned) as a programmer I have a great deal of respect for OSS, I am not going to use products which do not fit my needs or the needs of my clients just because I can modify the source code.

Dude, I am honestly debating, you are arguing far too much from emotion, and refusing to actually deal with the things I am saying.

1. To legally play HD-DVDs on computers, you need to go through the crippling process you have described over and over. That is the only reason. MS doesnt own the media, they have nothing to gain from “controlling” it. The ones to gain are the ones that require these measure in liscencing the technology, and that is the creators. Think about it, why in the world would a company deliberatly cripple playback of a specific type of media, without gaining anything from it? The second part of the drm issue is that if you dont use it, it doesnt effect you. that part of the pipeline only kicks in on protected content. This is what I have been saying from the first post, all that the DRM in vista does is offer the ability to view the content, if they didnt immplement DRM, they couldnt (legally) offer HD playback.

2. If you only read tech forums and tech news, Vista is a raging failure. If you look at how many people are actually using it, it is a shining success. Record numbers of PCs were sold when Vista was released, and the initial vista sales far outstrip what XP did. You measure success by how many people buy into it, not who screams the loudest on the interweb.

3. Media on Linux is a mess. Lord knows I love the OS, and have probably been using it longer then you, but that is one place where it falls on its face. Your copy of XP entitles you to IE and WMP intalled and MS fonts, thats pretty much it. w32codecs blatently uses pieces of WMP, Quicktime, and Real in ways that are in direct violation of their respective liscences. If you use fleurendo, then you have legal mp3 playback, if you use MAD (which most people do), you do not. DeCSS literally cracks DVD encryption on the fly, and is also wildly illegal in any country that supports international copyright law.

That is the state of playback. Moving on to creation, I don’t have experience with video, but there is yet to be a professional graphics editor on linux. the GIMP and Inkscape are good enough for hobbyist endevors, but neither are of professional calibur. Even linux artists like Everaldo who do the icon themes use adobe products, as the linux equivilents are simply not there. When it comes to audio, don’t get me started. On vista with a crappy audio card, I can do multi-track recording with about 10ms latency. On linux with a decent sound card, you are lucky to get 80ms, which is completely unacceptable. I have tried with multiple distros, it simply isnt there.

4. RAD (rapid application design) on linux is non-existant. The two major APIs are both written in obsolete languages, and neither offer the abilities that VB.net does when it comes to banging out some quick enterprise specific software. Nothing in the free world compares to ASP.net (which I use professionally), the methodologies allow for cleaner, more reusable and modular code on both the front and the back end, not to mention that Visual Studio is simply the best application MS has ever made. KDev is nice, but it is a toyota to MSs cadillac. As such, the windows platform is simply the best tool for me to do my job.

5. The UI improvements make me not feel like im under going torture at having to use windows all day, every day. If you want a more complete list, here we go:

The compositing and anti-aliasing are stellar, easily on par with mac and a generation or two ahead of apple. The effects are tasteful and not over done, which I perfer over the more flashy OSX, and the sometimes ridicules Beryl (can anyone say wobbly windows?). The audio framework is redone, giving me better latency on a crappy laptop onboard sound card then my slightly aging but still god sound blaster on my PC with XP. The per-process mixer is also a godsend, allowing you to listen to music loud while not having earth shattering browser clicks, or IM blings. The network stack is self-optimizing (which no other OS currently does), the UI for networking is vastly improved, giving the best network tool I have ever used on any system, and the network profiles give the option of one click configuration when connecting to new networks. The os itself is both self-optimizing and self-diagnosing, after about a week photoshop launches as fast as notepad, when an installer goes bad and corrupts your registry, you are notified of the problem and told how to fix it. The security systems in place are actually too well done to be comfortable on a workstation, but never the less, offer far more then osx, and the only way that linux comes close is with heavy duty use of the non-standard SELinux. IE7 is on par with FF in terms of functionality, meaning as a web developer I no longer have to groan when testing a site against it (the dev tools on IE are at least as good, if not superior to the FF extensions). The integrated search still needs work. But while not on par with OSX, it is good enough to never have to drill through start menus again, and is one or two generations beyond the current linux offerings. The onboard documentation is actually well done, and while with google access linux documentation is at least equivilent, as a laptop user i dont alwas have internet access. as such, it is greatly appreciated over the arcane man pages.

Is that enough? I could go on and explain in detail what UI improvements I was talking about when I was talking about the improvement that I appreciate most, but this post is already long enough.

6. The FSF are hippy nutjobs. Thats right, I said it, and I challenge anyone to argue. They got nowhere in the first 8 years of RMSs crusade, and it was only the more moderate Linus inadvertantly being the catalyst to the creation of the open source methodologies that gave any sort of success to the works of the FSF, other then of course, emacs.

What the FSF believe simply would never work or even be accepted in todays world. The OSS people took the practical bits from their way of doing things, and took it in a more intelligent and pragmatic direction. Things ESR says make alot of sence, I have read all the CatB papers so far, and agree with alot of it. The hardline FSF stance that control over something you create is morally wrong is simply going way to far.

Oh yeah, and the BK debacle was nothing like forbes reported. Try finding the relevent posts on the LKML, or find a story on kerneltrap. You can never trust the tech media for accurate reporting.

If I remember right, what happened was this. BK was a small company, trying to make it in the linux world. To give back to the community, they offered free use of their incredably powerful product. The kernel devs gladly and gratefully accepted.

A small but vocal group of kernel devs started making noise about how horribly unethical it was to use non-free software. Linus told them to shove off, so they decided they would create a BK clone under the GPL, which would basically drive the origional out of business. Its hard enough to make money on linux as it is, if someone is deliberately trying to push you out its damn near impossible to survive.

The BK dude basically said sorry, we can’t afford to give our product free for non commercial use anymore, if this is what we get for our altruism. Linus basically said fair enough, but we don’t want to pay for something that we only use a small percentage of. So he decided to make his own (git), which replicates the small percentage of BK he actually used.

The moral of the story? I’ll let you figure that one out on your own. Go to the source on this one, I was reading it as it happened. And do yourself a favor and never trust what mainstream tech media reports on linux stuff, 99% of the time they have no idea what they are talking about.

Vista the little devil constantly checks for this protected content. Could you give me figures as to how this is not constantly taking up CPU of memory it seems to do this an awful lot, or isn’t a potential vulnerability.

Of course you are aware of the multitudes of *alternative* ways this could be implemented. None of which are as intrusive.

MPF only kicks in on protected content, it isnt constantly scanning any mpeg playing. As for the alternative ways of handling protected playback, to my knowledge this is the only option that was given. Feel free to link to something that proves me wrong, but AFAIK, there are heavy restrictions placed on playing HD content, both on computers and on dedicated players.

I’m glad we agree the general consensus by technical people that after 5 years Vista *technically* is a failure. Of course you don’t realize the there are *twice* the number of computers in the world as when XP launched. Thats without all the upgrade vouchers; mass buying by manufactures etc etc…but you know all this. Vista is not selling to expectations; Monopoly product sells, but then I would to hear your theories on how you measure the success of a monopoly product, because I’m stumped how to measure it. CLearly if there is any indication its how many people don’t…and the number that don’t is rising.

There is no burning need to upgrade windows immediately, and history shows that most of the world doesnt. Vista blew MSs expectations and the wallstreet forcasts on its success out of the water, and drove a record number of PC sales the week it was launched. You can blame it on monopoly, but MS has been a monopoly since 95, and compared to previous windows releases, Vista has done extremely well.

I’m a little pleased at your little list, because it didn’t cover anything. I’m certainly not true. Otherwise I wouldn’t be using my *legal* copy of realplayer here. I can understand that Microsoft codecs not being legal…but people arn’t using them…yet show me where to license them, but what about *all* the other codecs, you have nothing to say about those. Your just making all this up. The sad thing is I’ve never used my computer to play DVD’s, and wouldn’t watch degraded HD-Content on my monitor ever it kind of defeats the point. I’m sure people do. I do watch those plash movies over the internet though, but basically you have no idea. seriously point me to a place of purchase with a proper list.

I am specifically talking about the w32codecs package. Yes, you can use real player to play real content, but you are not allowed to rip DLLs out of real and use them in other software without permission. w32codecs and DeCSS are illegal anywhere where copyright law is upheld.

I loved the way you have moved onto Adobe products. You really must need some support for Vista could you post the prices I believe they are a little expensive. Could you post the numbers for copies sold worldwide vs the one billion computers in circulation, or those already using an alternative platform to Vista already. Could you point out a single feature of photoshop that the vast Majority of people are likely to want from a package. The reality is professional graphics artists are thin on the ground, and the problem is becoming less that the problem is Gimp, Gimpshop removed all doubt its that graphic artists over many years find photoshop natural….but again what has this to do with Vista

You said multimedia is better on Linux then windows, I used examples showing that linux is only viable for hobby use at the most in media creation.

Oh you mentioned RAD. I love this one. I love the words. Yes there are RAD tools for Mono, because clearly nobody uses things like C or Python or Peal or Java or C++ etc etc. If thats what you want, but if we really are talking about “Rapid Application Development” Linux does have one thing in *Droves* and that is source. Its quite useful for RAD. Oh and has come great IDE’s do like eclipse. Again could you point me to the figures of how much Visual studio cost. The percentage of people in the world who bought it etc

Java is its own thing, and I would not call the SUN Way to be RAD. Python, Perl, and Ruby are nice, but they lack something like VS, and as such they really don’t hold a candle to the speed you can make a functional gui app in vb. Libraries are libraries, most in linux are pre 1.0, and the rest are comparable to any other os. And I don’t think anyone seriously compares Eclipse to visual studio.

Wow I love your list wow font rasterization thats like available for every OS, oh yes it is.

fonts look significantly better on mac and windows then linux.

I’m glad you like audio on Vista you do know that thats crippled on Vista due to DRM, and for many people who bought high end cards Vista currently does not run, but please go on your computer plays sound.

DRM is only active when protected media is being played, which for me so far has been never. Audio on linux has been brought from the stone age to the dark ages by ALSA, but a huge amount of work needs to be done to make it comparable to the other operating systems.

New network what. I do find it funny when you cut and paste. Networking is slower on Vista. I liked saying that. I’ll say it twice networking is slower on Vista. Oh I’m glad its improved becuase you have to set up your network like *once* for a home network…shame its slower.

Read reviews closer, CONNECTING to networks is slower on vista. Network PERFORMANCE is improved accross the board.

I’m glad you use Ready-boost technology it sounds great for those people with 4GB of memory although I’m sure prices of memory will drop.

I have 2gig, and I am not talking about anyone but me. The fact remains that the system self-optimizes.

Although I’m sure your aware that Linux support has always been better than that of competing platforms, but I’m sure those troubleshooting buttons will be useful.

Linux onboard support has alwas been god-awful. Forum and newsgroup support has been great, but when man is your most complete form of documentation, theres a problem.

Wow FSF “hippy nutjoys” well I never attacking a group of people who desire code to be available and those that use that code to share with others, these people sound dangerous. Why was I not warned? Seriously these people sound dangerous. Help!! I do find it funny when you are so over the top about that. Want people to Share code eh? scumm.

I am not attacking them for that, I am attacking them for their blind belief that NOT sharing ALL code is morally EVIL. I find that silly, unrealistic, and depending on the person and their approach is evangelising, offensive.

Notice how I have great respect for the OSF, as they tend to push their methodology based on merit rather then morality, and admit there are places where open sourcing makes no sense.

The bitkeeper fiasco was nice and simple, Linus used a propriety tool with lock-in implications becuase it was free, and suddenly it wasn’t available any more. He was stuffed, I think that thats the last time he does a favor for a friend.

That is pretty far from what that forbes article was saying. The reason the propriatary tool became unavailable was a direct corralation to the behavior of FSF nuts in the community, who directly attacked a friendly business because they believed closed code is “immoral”.

“Users will find their PCs’ compromised by the persistent and continuous content access checks carried out by Vista.”

Please point to an informed article that says otherwise, and please stop using the term HD content that is deliberately misguiding use the correct ambiguious words “premium content” or better yet “DRM crippled content”

How about the response to that paper, written by the people who wrote that subsystem in the first place? They point out numerous flaws in that paper, including this

“When are Windows Vista’s content protection features actually used?

Windows Vista’s content protection mechanisms are only used when required by the policy associated with the content being played. For Windows Vista experiences, if the content does not require a particular protection, then that protection mechanism is not used.”

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/01/20/w…

I’m temped to believe the CEO of Microsoft than you sorry.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/pcs/how-to-piss-off-balmer-and-steal-vis…..

I quoted the wallstreet journal, you quote a blog that points to a mac site, which no longer has the page.

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=9

If you read the article you linked me, they say that these results are debatable, and the only thing that test really proves is that the new compact tcp technology works well.

“Without the ability to separate Vista’s networking stack from the drivers for our NICs, it’s impossible to tell if this slowdown is the fault of the networking stack being worse for this situation, or if the Vista drivers for this line of Marvell NICs are not quite as tuned, so as a comparison to XP this test is inconclusive…The one bright spot however is that when enabled, Compound TCP is clearly having some effect even on our low-latency network.”

I’m still trying to figure out how you think multimedia means media creation go on. Show me the figures I asked for. You changed topic becuase you thought you were on safer ground talking about how Adobe Products are available for Vista…so Vista must be better.

You claimed that Linux offers a superior multimedia experience. Multimedia experience means both. This is redicules, both in playback and creation. Vista is still not at the level of OSX, but to say that linux even has an acceptable multimedia experience is kind of laughable.

I hate to point out the only language that I think you can’t get is “D” and I’m sure there is an implementation somewhere. So basically you were talking nonsense.

Mono is a buggier, far less performant, and not complete version of .net. Noone really disputes this, when you are copying a moving target, you will never overtake it, the best you can hope for is to keep up.

Python and Ruby are the closest things linux has to RAD languages (perl is unmaintanable for projects of even medium size). While Python, and especially Ruby, are exceptional languages, neither has the tools that MS provides to its developers. The most compelling reason I have ever heard of how MS got to where it is no is because it had VB, and noone else did.

Wow Linux fonts use the *same* implementation as that of Apple. How can they be better. Oh they can’t. In reality you can’t tell the difference. font problems on Linux went away years ago.

I have been told before that if you muck with sub-pixel hinting enough, you get decent anti-aliasing on your linux box. All I can tell you is I can go from Vista to my Mac, and not cringe, however I can’t go from Vista to Linux without cringing. They may use the same technology, but it still isnt done well.

Don’t even begin to compare sound architectures. I click on a sound file it plays music.And a Video file too. Hey both of those have volume controls. Seriously thats shameful.

Vista offers per process volume control. That means that any app that touches the sound card can have its volume changed. Where is the volume control on FF, or on Gaim?

As for being able to play video and music, congratulations. Chances are, you broke copyright law on both. I am also talking about media CREATION, which is where you really see the house of cards that is the current linux multimedia frameworks.

Seriously unless you can point to direct infringement; have knowledge of the law, stop talking nonsense but clearly you know nothing…You have already shown your lack of knowledge with the whole realaudio thing.

I talked about two packages, w32codecs, and decss. Both of these are illegal. Without decss, say goodbye to DVDs. You are correct when you say you can play real content with real player on linux. However, if you are using the dll from w32codecs to decode it, you are breaking the liscence agreement from real. It doesnt matter if you are allowed to use a program to decode it for free, that doesnt give you the right to rip pieces of that program out and use it in your own without permission. Reverse engineering is a grey area, this is outright copyright violation.

So your saying you find the FSF offensive….I do like the way your prepared to back one open source group over another when they both speak from the same hymsheet just one from a political bent and the other from a development one, and they both have a low of shared beliefs.

SOME share the same hymnsheet, not all. OSS says you should use our methodology because in certain cases, it makes alot of sense. I read that, and yes it does make sense. They of course will push their horse as much as possible, but you can get an OSS supporter to admit that certain things make no sense to open source.

FSF guys on the other hand not only say its good to share, they also say you are being immoral if you dont share. THAT is what I have a problem with, they say it is ethically not right to not give anyone the ability to modify and redistribute your source code. You can give any example you like, and an FSF hardliner will NEVER say it is anything but wrong of you to not share your code. Even when sharing would put you out of business, and when you share portions, they say it is not enough, and only half free. This attitude is what I have the problem with. It makes no sense unless you have no conception of how the world works. As such, the FSF went nowhere for a good 15 years, and continues to go nowhere. Opensource is compatible with Free Software, and as such they have inadvertantly seen their cause moved forward substancially in the last few years, but not for the reasons they want.

And anyone who has been a part of the open source community for any length of time will know that RMS hates Linus, says he is “Just an engineer”, and is pissed off at how an engineer succeded so well when a revolutionary failed.

The FSF I would love you to point out the FSF *nut*. I believe the protocol was reverse engineered by a kernel developer was the instigating factor. So I’m calling you a liar.

By FSF nut I mean someone who buys into the Free Software philosophy pushed by the FSF. The motivations I gave were the motivations used, and that is that they had a problem because BK wasnt free. Even though it was a company who gave back to the community, that wasnt good enough, and the result of their actions led to the whole fiasco.

I was not lying, I just happen to have been around when that whole mess went down.

I never said terrible, I said I hated it 😉

Maybe its time to give beryl a try again, things like that have a way of doing quantum leaps very quickly on linux, and i’ll refrain from giving more of an opinion on it till I try a newer version.

DRM is not about Richard Stallman or even Linus.

If you think that talking about them makes you feel better feel free to carry on. Clearly you need to work on your ridiculing.

DRM is the arch-nemisis of RMS, and he has a burning, vitriolic hatred for it that he does his best to pass on. Linus is a highly respected, and more objective engineer. Pointing out those two things illustrates there is more then one viewpoint in the FOSS world.

Nobody likes DRM; Nada; Nobody at all, and when I mean nobody I mean consumers; customers; potential buyers…and thats well everyone.

Of course they don’t, DRM by definition restricts their use of a product. But to look at only one side of the coin is kind of shortsighted.

I’ll tell you a little secret how you make lots of money is you make it good; cheap; and readily available product.

People are willing to jump through all kinds of hoops to get a 15$ product for free. Heres a few game examples (just the part of the industry I know the most about, results of a misspent youth 😉

Look at the game dev house, G.O.D. (gathering of developers). They did high quality, innovative, fun games (without drm) that sold between 15-20$. They were an small shop, and they figured that if they used your equation, they would succede. Every gamer knows about mafia, or the serious sam games, they were real popular. But because of the ethics of people nowadays, they went out of business. People were playing their games, but noone was buying.

Another game example would be Loki in the linux world. They would go and make deals with companies to port older games to linux. They did a good job, and charged very little, while providing kickass support. Again, they went out of business, because noone was willing to pay money. Ironically, a similar company called MacPlay has been successfully doing this for years on the macos platform. For some reason, mac users are the exception to this rule of universal cheapness (or at least they used to be back in the day.)

Last but not least, Id games, with the most high profile gaming-on-linux supporter out there, John Carmack. From day one, he said OGL fit the requirements, and it was worth developing and supporting linux, as bringing games to multiple platforms is a Good Thing. Id is a really cool company when it comes to this stuff, and carmack was constantly touting the awsomeness of OGL and how they would alwas support linux.

This went right up to Doom3. By the time D3 hit development, he had so many issues with OGL not doing what he needed it to do, they blew deadline after deadline. After finally getting the game out the door, with a simultanious linux release, it sold so poorly on linux that John completely lost his way. Now Id is a MS house, John praise DX all the time, and is alwas talking about how great it is to write for the xbox.

Proper DRM could have prevented the first two cases from happening. G.O.D would have made money using your formula, and Loki would have gotten the miniscule amount it needed to survive. The reason people hate DRM is because without it, they can get things without paying for them without consiquences. This is also the attitude that has prompted a significant amount of growth for linux desktop use, which is what the third story is there to illustrate.

All that to say, behind all the moral bluster most people just want a free lunch, both in the DRM argument, and in the rightousness of using FLOSS.