Zimmerman and Hayden, sitting in a tree...

[Tom]

Roy Silvernail wrote:
> >    Linux advocates should announce Windows XP
> >    is the time to switch to Linux permanently.
> 
> Concur.  MICROS~1 is moving steadily toward a secured platform that gives
> them full control of what will and won't run.  Were it up to them, there
> would be no third-party development.  Ironic, considering third-party
> development has played such a large part in their rise to ubiquity.

I doubt they want to get rid of 3rd parties. but I bet that someone had
a wet dream about "run-license-fees" in addition to money for
development kits and MCSE batches. so, the future for M$ may be even
MORE 3rd party developers - but unless they ship, say, $1 to M$ per copy
sold, their software simply won't run. oops.

10:1 that there will also be a deactivation feature. so the next DeCSS,
asfrecorder or other thought-crime can be remotely disabled.

just think about the potential! possible marketing lines include: "100%
guaranteed virus resistant!" and, of course, "multimedia experience".
but behind the scenes, practically anything that M$ or someone who can
pay them enough for the favour doesn't like can be disabled. say that
plugin which encrypts your passwords before storing them on the disk. of
course, the program has a fallback to write plaintext passwords if it
can't save encrypted ones...

in short: if the software doesn't trust you anymore, you have ample
reason to distrust the software in return.