Vista's Legal Fine Print Raises Red Flags (All your computer are belong to us.)

The Toronto Star ^ | January 29, 2007 | Michael Geist

[quidnunc]

Vista, the latest version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, makes its long awaited consumer debut tomorrow. The first major upgrade in five years, Vista incorporates a new, sleek look and features a wide array of new functionality, such as better search tools and stronger security.

The early reviews have tended to damn the upgrade with faint praise, however, characterizing it as the best, most secure version of Windows, yet one that contains few, if any, revolutionary features.

While those reviews have focused chiefly on Vista's new functionality, for the past few months the legal and technical communities have dug into Vista's "fine print." Those communities have raised red flags about Vista's legal terms and conditions as well as the technical limitations that have been incorporated into the software at the insistence of the motion picture industry.

The net effect of these concerns may constitute the real Vista revolution as they point to an unprecedented loss of consumer control over their own personal computers. In the name of shielding consumers from computer viruses and protecting copyright owners from potential infringement, Vista seemingly wrestles control of the "user experience" from the user.

Vista's legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the prospect of deleting certain programs without the user's knowledge. During the installation process, users "activate" Vista by associating it with a particular computer or device and transmitting certain hardware information directly to Microsoft.

Even after installation, the legal agreement grants Microsoft the right to revalidate the software or to require users to reactivate it should they make changes to their computer components. In addition, it sets significant limits on the ability to copy or transfer the software, prohibiting anything more than a single backup copy and setting strict limits on transferring the software to different devices or users.

Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, an anti-virus program that actively scans computers for "spyware, adware, and other potentially unwanted software." The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software.

-snip-

[Echo Talon]

Now to all the Apple and Mac people out there, this may upset you a bit, but, yes, Apple operating systems = suck. All of them. Actually, it’s Apple itself that sucks. It shoves its terribly overpriced “froo froo” hardware down my throat to make me get the OS, and, quite frankly, I am just not buying it. For those of you that will label me as an “Apple hater,” I will staunchly wave my three iPods in your general direction. Give me the opportunity to buy Mac OS X Leopard for PC, and it will be getting some prime time on the home-built system under my desk. I have always wondered if Steve Jobs limits Mac operating systems to his proprietary hardware configurations for the cash or if he just won’t admit to the fact that if his OS powered 90% of the world's computers, its shortcomings would be more apparent and his snappy ad campaigns would fall flat.

Kyle Bennett [H]ard|OCP

'ol Kyle hits the nail on the head again...

[Echo Talon]

"highend" version of vista... oh boy a whole $199...

[Echo Talon]

btw, I thought we were the "rich" ones...

[Echo Talon]

Vista will have more marketshare by next year than mac does...
;) book it.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

bookmark

[George W. Bush]

'ol Kyle hits the nail on the head again...

Actually, it's more like ol' Kyle hitting a big nail right into his own head, piercing his crack-addled brain.

Where to begin...

Let's start with the "terribly overpriced". When I bought my Mac Pro with dual 2.66 Xeon dual-core chips and a GB of RAM (since upgraded to 3GB) and a 250GB drive with a 256MB Nvidia card, I shopped Dell for comparable dual-Xeon machines. The closest I could get was a machine with identical specs and a slightly more powerful workstation graphics card but with only one Xeon CPU (not two). The price of these CPUs is/was about $670 when bought in lots of 10,000. Dell wanted over $4000. My Mac Pro was $2250. And Dell's low-end workstation graphics card didn't come close to being worth $650 especially for a home workstation. When you start examining Apple's line closely, the Macs are generally as cheap or within a few hundred dollars of a comparable quality machine from Dell/HP/etc. I used to believe the Apple=overpriced thing. And they were. But there have been real changes there. If you want some cheesy commodity machine best suited for impoverished Third Worlders, then buy that crapola thing Dell builds for that $499 market. But the rest of us will buy hardware with quality components, knowing that we get longer service life, better driver support, etc. And while there is still a premium for Apple, it fades or even disappears as you get to their strongest offerings (Mac Book Pro, iMac 24", Mac Pro). While Apple's other high-end machines aren't quite as compelling, the Mac Pro was for my purposes and most creative or tech or high-end home users by far the cheapest option.

As for his 'For those of you that will label me as an “Apple hater,” I will staunchly wave my three iPods in your general direction.', I would point out that lots of Microsoft employees also own multiple iPods. I'm not sure what MP3 players have to do with quality computer hardware. I guess it means that even M$ Fanboi Kevin would be too embarassed to admit to owning a Zune. But he might just neglect to mention that part where, as of Dec. 2, 2006, when the Zune still couldn't operate with Vista machines. Maybe they finally fixed it, I haven't heard. But it indicates how shoddy their support for their own flagship MP3 player was on their new flagship OS.

On to his "Give me the opportunity to buy Mac OS X Leopard for PC", it's a moot point. An Intel Mac is a PC. Apple is a hardware vendor and, in computers, that is their profit center. Essentially, he's saying that Apple should let him have OS X so he and other people can drive them out of business entirely. Look at what happened when Apple tried allowing third-party hardware vendors in the Nineties. A real disaster financially. Just as important, the machines they built were poor clones of real Macs and subject to a lot of mysterious hardware errors. As Jobs recently reminded us, if you care about software you will build your own hardware. The two are intertwined for a good user experience and reliability.

Byle Kennett: "I have always wondered if Steve Jobs limits Mac operating systems to his proprietary hardware configurations for the cash or if he just won’t admit to the fact that if his OS powered 90% of the world's computers, its shortcomings would be more apparent and his snappy ad campaigns would fall flat."

More commodotization FUD. The control of basic hardware configurations is absolutely essential. For instance, I bought Need For Speed 4 (or was it 5?) for my PC. I even got juvenile and bought a quality driving wheel. And while the AMD machine I used and video card easily exceeded the requirements and my machine had only quality parts, the game was not uniformly smooth or well-executed. As is so often the case with games and multimedia, uniformity of hardware is a great equalizer and makes a game fairer. And designers can focus far more effort on actual playability and fast transitions from one menu to the next, contributing to a fast-paced fun game experience. Unlike PC first-person shooters, you don't necessarily win because you blew $4000 on a machine with dual video cards and watercooling an overclocked processor so you can get some microscopic advantage over the rest of the pack. Or just so you can have lots of eye-candy special effects. Since I had a hacked XBox, I grabbed a copy of that same game for the Xbox. In general reviews, it was considered okay on the PC but strong on the Xbox. In fact, I never again played my more expensive PC version. I just like the play and feel and consistent experience on the far better engineered Xbox version. Now, there is a reason for this. Because the console market is about ten times bigger than even the Windows game market, the stakes for success in a PC game are far lower for any game company. The console is where they win or lose and that is where they assign their best talent and do their best work. Interestingly, with enough programming talent, my little Xbox competed pretty well against my AMD machine which had four times the graphics, three times the CPU power, and 15 times as much RAM. It comes down to programming talent and genius and designing for a closed platform. Since I once worked for a game company (assembly language programmer for a coin-op 680x0 system), I do have a little relevant experience but that was 15 years ago and that kind of programming is a young man's game. Again, Jobs is right: if you care about software, you build and control your hardware.

It would make about as much sense for Bennett to complain that Xbox 360 and PS3 software isn't opened to commodity hardware machines. They are, after all, little more than run-of-the-mill desktop computers in a console case. But Sony and MS won't do it. Why? Same reason as Apple. They have a direct financial interest in the hardware and, more importantly, it allows them to control the user experience by targeting a very limited hardware configuration. Much like Apple, over the course of a console's lifetime, you may have several revisions of major components and peripherals added. But you strictly control the hardware. It relates directly to whether and how well the machine performs as designed. It's the only way to do it.

By contrast, Vista requires you to buy hardware 2-3 times more powerful to run the trickle-down versions of major console games, nearly always with degraded playability but with more eye-candy. Oh, and 200fps @ 1080p instead of a puny 80fps @ 1600x1200. No thanks.

You can have the commodity hardware problems. You're welcome to them. I'll take a closed hardware platform and playability any day. And I'll take a solid UNIX OS with a strong user-centric GUI design any day. And, BTW, since I have an XP license and run my Mac Pro as a full quad-core Xeon XP machine, I don't really suffer when I boot Windows to run what few games the MS platform has that interest me.

I'll leave out all the times Apple has wisely EOL'd outdated hardware and terminated software support (currently, the Intel Macs will not run OS9). And Apple is smart to do that. MS almost never does it entirely and leaves all kinds of ancient cruft in there. It's bad design and bad corporate policy. It's just sloppy.

BTW, when will MS finally provide you guys with an iLife suite? Well, I guess you can at least play Solitaire until you run out and spend a bunch more money just to get decent video/music/photo software. Since MS only sells you crippled versions or offers nothing at all, it just raised the price for a basic Windows setup. Is it really so cheap now?

I think ol' Kyle is an idiot. Or merely a tool. At any rate, I don't have any financial motive to like my machines in the way he does. So his flaky fanboism is pretty transparent.

[George W. Bush]

"highend" version of vista... oh boy a whole $199...

Vista Ultimate is over $400. The cheapest in U.S. distribution is Vista Basic Home Upgrade for something like $150. Total ripoff. You can buy the five-license Tiger pack for only $140 at Amazon.

Really, go check.

[George W. Bush]

btw, I thought we were the "rich" ones...

No, Microsoft just thinks you are. You'll pay and pay for puny upgrades and can sort yourselves into different classes of uses.

On Mac, there's one class of user. Period.

I find MS's "class" system for its users about as attractive as the old Indian caste system. Or the British social classes. It's just plain repulsive, especially from a company that doesn't need the money that badly.

[George W. Bush]

Vista will have more marketshare by next year than mac does... ;) book it.

I agree. It's due to their monopoly grip on the industry. But you'll notice the PC market expanded only 3% last year. Apple increased its computer sales by over 30%. So don't think you're quite so safe. But, yes, for at least 3 years, the lemmings will continue to plunge over the MS cliff. Oh, well, cheap smugness points for us Mac owners, I guess.

[Echo Talon]

On Mac, there's one class of user. Period.

really? then why do they have have a Pro line? Mac Pro users are "more" special aren't they...?

[Echo Talon]

Vista Ultimate is over $400. The cheapest in U.S. distribution is Vista Basic Home Upgrade for something like $150. Total ripoff. You can buy the five-license Tiger pack for only $140 at Amazon.

Really, go check.

Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Ultimate for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM $199.99

[FreedomGuru]

It's a lot more than five. I guesstimate it as 12-15 different Vistas.

Well don't forget the packaging colors perhaps you can create even more "versions".
And Tiger doesn't have a bunch of peon second-class (or third-class) users.

Congratulations fan boi, you have just confirmed all the stereotypes of Mac users, Pompous,and Arrogant. You have already demonstrated your disinformation. Not too mention your liberal-like hatred of MS, with your hatred of MS for making a profit (and still today January 30, 2007, never has Microsoft forced me to spend a penny).

[FreedomGuru]

So, after tonight we won't be able to buy a legal copy of XP? Is that what you're saying???

Don't believe the disinformation being spread here knee deep, actually hip deep now.

[George W. Bush]

That's a discounted OEM version only for system builders (no transfers, no upgrades, no real support as in not even Abu to answer the support phone, etc.). Not the same as the "real" Vista Ultimate. As you'll soon find out if you buy it. You're not a system builder, are you?

If you buy it for personal use, caveat emptor. And read that fine print very carefully.

And you can still buy the more powerful and secure Mac Tiger OS and get five licenses for 30% less. And with Tiger, no sneaky restrictions to screw you later on your 'bargain'.

Fresh from a new thread at Slashdot today:

Microsoft threatens licence dodgers, Changes of tactics as BSA is called in

Since Ultimate includes Business and Home Media editions, that means holding an improperly licensed copy of Vista may get you an audit from Microsoft. If you refuse, they'll send the BSA and their lawyers to make your life interesting. Maybe your "cheap" copy of Vista will cost more than you think. They're indicating legal action against businesses that have a lower "class" of Vista than you apparently have.

Are you so sure you want to connect to WindowsUpdate now? Oh, yeah, and did you read that fine print where Microsoft reserves the right to delete anything it wants to that it finds on your hard drive without your permission or even telling you? And they mean anything. And that means they're going to scan your entire machine and look at photos and videos, maybe warez. It'll all go into some nice file they have on you in that new massive datacenter.

Why do you even want to do business with a company that treats you like that?

[Echo Talon]

You're not a system builder, are you?

LOL!!! as soon as that retard allows me to install osx on a PC I'll think about buying it... :P

[George W. Bush]

really? then why do they have have a Pro line? Mac Pro users are "more" special aren't they...?

I'm not going to waste my time explaining what a workstation is and why some users do need them.

Actually, Apple is priced very low for these entry-level Xeon workstations. I can't complain, having shopped the Dell and HP machines in very similar configs.

[antiRepublicrat]

Back to the actual license topic, the benchmarking clause worries me. If you want to publish a benchmark, you have to do it on Microsoft's terms. This is a restriction on freedom of speech that has normally been on Microsoft's server products.

That it is enforceable is questionable. Microsoft has used its power to stop unfavorable, although legitimate, benchmarks before. But McAfee lost in court for trying to stop unfavorable reviews using a similar clause.

[George W. Bush]

never has Microsoft forced me to spend a penny

What a strange statement. I guess I could lower all our IQ's by pointing out that Apple and every other company has never "forced" me to spend a penny either.

Go drink two cups of black coffee and try again.

[corlorde]

I agree. It's due to their monopoly grip on the industry. But you'll notice the PC market expanded only 3% last year. Apple increased its computer sales by over 30%.

Yeah, the PC market is well saturated and the trend I'm seeing is, people who opt for a second computer, may opt for and Apple. I know people who have a laptop and AMD/INTEL desktop at home. having both is kind of neat.

[Echo Talon]

PC's domination for '07 ;)