Stan Beer
Sunday, 08 October 2006 19:22
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Until a couple of days ago, like many others, I was looking forward to the long awaited release of Windows Vista. Then the news broke about Microsoft's intention to crack down on software piracy by putting what amounts to spyware on users' computers. Now I'm thinking twice about whether I really need or want this new operating system.
Microsoft's so-called Software Protection
Program (SPP) has been presented to intending users as a fait accompli
just a month ahead of Vista's scheduled release. It will mean that
those who use Vista and other Microsoft products will have to put up
with their systems constantly being checked online to make sure they're
not using any products deemed to be pirated software.
I say deemed to be pirated software because as sure as night follows
day there will be many cases in which the SPP will make mistakes and
label legitimately acquired software as pirated.
In such cases, users will have to convince Microsoft that they bought
their software legitimately and, if they don't succeed, they will have
to hand over extra money or their system will be disabled.
In some cases, users who have activated a legitimate copy of Vista may
need to do a number of reinstalls because they have suffered a hardware
failure or their system isn't running well. Hopefully, Microsoft will
be able to differentiate between that and users installing a single
copy of Vista on multiple computers.
Perhaps we should be grateful to Microsoft for letting its intentions
be known in advance of the Vista release. It gives us a chance to
evaluate the alternatives.
There is of course Linux, an operating system that enterprises are
considering with increasing frequency. Relatively few have made the
jump to the Linux desktop but they now have a clear choice between
moving to Vista with its tight validation controls and Linux
distributions without such controls from Vendors such as Red Hat and
Novell, as well as freely available distributions such as
Ubuntu.
