MS Product Activation for Windows (licensing)

[Ray Dillinger]

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