On Tue, 9 Jan 2001, Blank Frank wrote:
But according to Whistler testers, Microsoft issued build 2410 of its next version of Windows on Thursday. New in this build are many user-interface tweaks, as well as the incorporation of new anti-piracy code.
... No more casual copying? The most potentially controversial addition to Whistler 2410, however, is anti-piracy code that Microsoft is calling "Microsoft Product Activation for Windows,"
Until now it has been easy for people to be hypocritical about software piracy - to claim they're not doing it and don't support it when in fact a fair number of their IT procedures would not be possible if it were not done, at least in some small and usually transient ways. Did anybody else temporarily create a "pirate" installation of Windows NT 3.51 when they discovered that the installer for NT 4.0 beta refused to delete the primary partition and they needed to repartition their hard drives? It lasted twenty minutes, but since for that twenty minutes it was on more than just the original machine, it was a violation of EULA. But if Microsoft and its ilk do in fact successfully create systems that prevent "piracy", it won't be possible to be a hypocrite about it any more. And with commercial software flatly refusing some kinds of use, perhaps a fair number of people who now *think* they are not doing any piracy will have to face some harsh facts. Perhaps they will eventually realize that the way to avoid piracy without sacrificing usability is to use open-source free software. We can hope so anyway. In that scenario, this anti-piracy stuff could be one of the nails in Microsoft's coffin. Bear