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-

[Redcloak]

From the article...

When Microsoft introduced Windows 95 more than a decade ago, it adopted the Rolling Stones "Start Me Up" as its theme song. As millions of consumers contemplate the company's latest upgrade, the legal and technological restrictions may leave them singing "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

<snicker>

But seriously...

At this point, I'm just not seeing any compelling reasons to switch machines to Vista. First off, nothing we have in house qualifies as "Vista ready". We can't afford that kind of hardware bill. Also, I don't even want to think about moving old applications onto a new platform. We've still got software running on old NT boxes! We can't afford that kind of increased development cost.

[George W. Bush]

Do you normally have a hard time counting to 5, thats the number of versions of Vista, including their Enterprise edition?

I think you're forgetting Starter and the two versions required for the EU market. Since most of these versions are available as both retail and upgrade packages, you have more versions. And then there will be the OEM versions.

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

You can buy Tiger discounted. $80-$100 generally, lowest I've seen is $70. Also you can buy the family pack with 5 licenses that runs around $140 now at Amazon. Microsoft, with a clearly inferior product, charges more across the board. And Tiger doesn't have a bunch of peon second-class (or third-class) users. Nor does its slick desktop features and solid UNIX underpinnings require expensive high-end machines to run it since even my old 1.4 Mini handles it pretty easily.

Personally, I think Microsoft should give Vista away. And I might turn them down even if it was free.

[Turbopilot]

The legal stuff, more than any technical aspect, appears to be the big problem with Vista. I have zero security/malware issues and spend zero time on security/malware with my existing XP boxes, and I doubt Vista would end up being less secure when configured properly. I don't want or need any of the graphical nonsense, but it can probably be disabled. In short, it seems like Vista is mostly a wash and I could take it or leave it.

Except they want to throw a bunch of legal language that appears to benefit 1) Microsoft and 2) "digital rights owners" like the RIAA, with no benefit to me as a user. I don't want my computer reporting back to some company about every piece of audio and video on my computer, or constantly phoning home to make sure all my software is legal and "Microsoft-approved". I certainly don't want to be prevented from using third-party utilities like firewalls and such. If they fix those issues, I'm sure I'll end up happy with Vista. But until then, I may stock up on a few extra XP Pro licenses and see what MS has up their sleeve for SP3.

[postaldave]

don't go to xandros. give pclinuxos a try . ver93 was VERY stable and "just works." they are in beta for pclinuxos2007 aka 94 right now and will be done within a few weeks. the beta is very stable on a PC but has some known wireless problems with laptops.

[CedarDave]

No. Microsoft will refuse to sell copies of XP to Dell/HP/Gateway or in retail packages. So they'll sell them because you won't be able to buy computers with XP and Vista will be included "free". Just like they've done before.

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

[Still Thinking]

Well, you were doing oxymorons, so I thought I'd pitch in my two cents.

[George W. Bush]

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

Not tonight. But sometime this spring, they'll suddenly pull it. No more XP. This is MS's usual marketing. I expect it before mid-March.

[George W. Bush]

give pclinuxos a try

Why not Linspire (yeah, not inspired but installs/works easy)? Or Ubuntu/Kubuntu (which means "it takes a village to destroy a pumpkin" or some such rot in some African language)?

One of the most interesting and exciting things on the horizon is the KDE 4 release. Using the same x86 binaries, you can run the KDE programs on Linux, Mac, Windows. And they have a very nice educational suite along with KOffice. I can't wait to see KDE 4 so I can run the K apps in any environment.

I see KDE 4 as having the potential to finally make Linux ready for the desktop (for the masses). Once you make it all about using familiar apps that actually run on all the platforms (like Java was supposed to do easily), you overcome the real hurdle. Windows is so powerful in the market because so much software is Windows-only. And penetrating the schools with good quality free software is a good start to building mindshare.

I'm really lusting to run Konqueror on my Mac. Great machine and a decent BSD distro but that Finder is a horrible file manager.

[Señor Zorro]

But MS Works is actually a pretty good little suite for the price.

When I last used MS Works (several years ago), it was absolutely terrible. I loathed it. And I don't do much advanced word processing, so it should have fallen right up my alley (for just about everything I need, AbiWord works fine). Have they improved it in the last few years?

[rzeznikj at stout]

Completely agree...

If I get my computer back up and rolling, I might actually go out and buy a copy of Office '07--I was impressed by the betas, and it looks like the final copy is just as good as what I have now (Office '03)...

Then again, I've generally been happy with MS-Office.

[rzeznikj at stout]

When I beta-tested it a few months back in lab, the only things I noticed were different from XP/Server 2k3 was the stupid "pretty-eye-candy" interface and an NT 6.0 kernel.

Other than that, I still think it's little more than XP on steroids...

[George W. Bush]

It's not as user-centric as it should be. But I thought that the 2005 version was good for the kids to do homework, granny to do her word processing, able to make sports stat charts, generate easy budget worksheets.

No, not great software. But not everyone is a computer scientist. A lot of people can't handle and don't need MS Office. Most people, actually. Quite often I see people using MS Word that seem to think it's a typewriter (no concept of tabs, justification, text-flow around images or callouts, have no idea of the drawing annotation tools). And homework and granny's Christmas letter seldom need a lot of fancy work. More often, they're more personal and interesting if they aren't all dressed up in with some stock clipart package.

I am a little biased. I like software that lets the user focus on content, not frills. And not everyone is ready for the advanced interaction of Clippy.

[Danette]

I went to Best Buy on Sunday to buy a computer. They wouldn't sell me one. Said I had to wait until Tuesday when Vista is available. I told them I didn't care to have Vista and would take XP. They said they don't have that on any computers anymore.

They suck.

P.S.
Circut City said the same.

They suck, too.

[George W. Bush]

Amazing. I didn't expect it this early. But if they're stocked to launch with Vista machines, they couldn't beat MS's launch date. And MS is doing a sad little PR blitz to pump up sales, even a few tawdry midnight store "events". People that flock to BB and CC at midnight to buy Vista must have pathetic lives.

If you look around, HP or Dell should still be offering XP as a choice. The machines they're selling with Vista installed shouldn't be too bad so it's still worth considering. If nothing else, its license rights last longer. In the first two years of Vista, we'll see very very few games or software that requires Vista.

[Echo Talon]

And if Vista is so great, then why are they already planning the release of Vista Service Pack 1 later this year?

If OSx is so great why does it have updates all the time?

[George W. Bush]

Faster than my quad-core dual-Xeon 3GB machine? I think not. It's likely I can run Windows with just one CPU core and a GB of the RAM faster than your machine does, and still have three 2.66GHz cores and 2GB of RAM left to run OS X. All of this on the same screen. Or I can just make the Mac Dock occupy the left side of the screen and the Windows taskbar on the bottom and run programs from both OSes side by side with integrated clipboard support.

But what's more interesting is that Tiger runs almost as smoothly on a puny 1.4GHz PPC Mac Mini I have here. And Vista does almost nothing that Tiger doesn't.

The conclusion is pretty clear. Vista is a terrible resource hog, another piece of bloatware. There is no good reason in the world why MS has shoved out something so mediocre and required such powerful machines to run it. It's sheer laziness in coding, design and software architecture. And they have already announced they will release a SP1 yet this year? Essentially, they're admitting they've sold you something they know to be flawed when they sold it. Reminds me of how just yesterday they had to retract that new patent because they actually admitted they knew they were stealing it from someone else and it was prior art.

So did you run out to CC or BB for their little midnight "event"? Which Vista did you buy? The Ultimate at $400, uh, no, your machine isn't powerful enough (BTW mine is but I have passed up many opportunities to grab a copy). Maybe you could get the high-end home package to run, more likely the Vista Home Basic since you have integrated graphics (probably that cheesy Intel graphics chipset, the 970 maybe?). Seems unlikely that you have the Third World peon version (Starter).

Notice that Mac's OS X has only two versions: standard and Server. MS is offering very little in their high-end expensive versions that Tiger hasn't done for years. And those few features often revolve around making Microsoft the hub of your digital living room, features like UPNP network streaming of media to an Xbox 360 (big deal, I have a router with USB hard drives that's been doing that for the last year).

I don't like the proliferation of versions and separating the customers into different "classes" of user. It smacks of elitism and price-gouging. Given how few new features Vista really offers, it's just sad to see the already-victimized MS users further debased in their little Balkanized Vista ghettos. And for what? So MS can make tens of billions more so they can gobble or destroy actual technology innovators as they've done so many times before?

There is nothing that justifies pricing Ultimate at $400. Or separating the home user into ones with and without the media center features. It's just ugly to do that to your customers.

Buying Vista just allows Microsoft to palm off its uninspired and insecure operating system longer. It allows a company with bad and mediocre ideas to dominate the market and crush the real innovators on all platforms.

[this_ol_patriot]

Smug alert!

[George W. Bush]

If OSx is so great why does it have updates all the time?

OS X has never had a successful virus attack. Only a few Macs have ever been subverted into a botnet and it's likely they were only compromised because the owners were very reckless.

Care to contrast XP's record? At last week's world economic summit in Switzerland, they revealed that it is now estimated that 25% of all Windows machines are controlled by botnets. That means that their keystrokes are logged and mined for credit cards and password info and the info is sent to the real controller. And those machines are where over 90% of all the spam comes from. They're the machines that launch DOS attacks. They're the machines that are serving warez and porn all over the IRC channels. They could use those machines to close down major corporations and have already ruined a few companies. They also hire out their botnets to businesses to attack their web competitors, hitting them with over 20Gb/second DOS attacks. The cost isn't even very high. Just think of the havoc they can wreak upon our governent and financial institutions. These criminals have successfully blackmailed a number of companies to buy "protection" from their attacks. These criminals are now boasting that they could shut down Amazon and even Google if they wanted to. Think about it.

Last week, we had more reports on these "Free Wi-Fi" wireless hotspots in the airports and many other places. If you connect and aren't very secure, they'll bot your machine. If not, they'll just sniff all your traffic to grab financial info and passwords. WinXP allows this kind of crazy insecure grab-any-connection stuff as the default. It's the same throughout Windows. They leave the doors wide open and then ponder why those naughty burglars carry out a home invasion. It's just sick that they do this year after year. As for Vista, it's actually more insecure to the Free Wi-Fi attack because it's more difficult to discern what the access point really is. Again, incredibly stupid security flaw, entirely preventable.

OS X issues patches because that is policy. They fix any known issues promptly, much as the Linux and other BSD/UNIX folk do. Microsoft's performance is a joke by comparison, refusing to fix truly dangerous security holes for years on end. ActiveX, anyone? Welcome to hell.

If there are 20 people on this thread running Windows, chances are that 5 of them are not actually in control of their computers. You should have seen this laptop I had to fix recently. A nasty rootkit and an interlocking set of viruses designed to keep coming to life. The browser was hijacked and there were over one hundred spyware/malware infections. The damned thing could have starred in an Exorcist movie. The owner is just an ordinary guy but MS left him open to these kinds of attacks. He wasn't browsing the porn or warez sites. He is typical of what I consider to be the victims of Microsoft products. Computer techs shouldn't see this over and over and over for years and MS does nothing to fix the well-known and fixable problems in its products. And the cost of fixing Windows and keeping it secure can cost as much as the machine itself over a 3-4 year life cycle.

For OS X, yes, there have been more patches this last year. But then, Apple deployed a half-dozen new models with the new Intel processor and upgraded half of those models to higher-powered CPUs as well. Despite that, I would estimate that just the Critical Updates for my XP Pro are three to four times as many as OS X. For instance, I forced a friend to update his XP Pro last night because he'd been neglecting it since September. He had to do over 40 updates just for five months. That's probably more updates than for all the Mac products in the last year combined.

OS X isn't perfect. Nothing is. But it runs circles around anything Microsoft can produce. That's because OS X is just Apple's GUI layer on top of a rock-solid BSD Unix OS so it's to the credit of the BSD programmers working for decades that makes Macs more secure. BTW, Apple pays for their BSD license and other technology licenses too, unlike Microsoft which has a nasty habit of just stealing other people's technologies and using their legal team and honeypot contracts to then destroy the actual innovators and deprive them of a fair profit.

[George W. Bush]

Smug alert!

If you had one, you'd be smug too. I really like using my Mac to confine WinXP in its own little sandbox where it can't do harm to itself or anyone else. And the moment I get suspicious of it, I can just relaunch my clean backup. Instant pristine Windows again in less than a minute.

Yeah, I'm a little smug. What's surprised me is how rarely I run WinXP any more. All those Windows programs I thought I needed so much? They weren't very necessary after all.

But to do the same virtualization with Vista, you have to buy the high-end versions of Vista. With Apple, they don't force you to pay extra so they'll allow you to use your machine as it was built to be used. Just like with XP where you couldn't use multiple CPUs unless you ran XP Pro or XP Server. There's no great magic in doing this for Microsoft and they incurred no expenses to support multi-CPU machines. It was just an opportunity to abuse anyone who had the money to buy a multi-CPU machine. You'd think they'd be ashamed to treat their customers so shabbily. Whether one core or eight cores, OS X is the same price. And it's far lower than MS to begin with.