The rantings of a beautiful mind

On life, society, and computer technology.

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Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

I live in the Fortress of Solitude. I drive the Silver Beast. My obsession is justice. I used to be a Windows software developer. I retired in 2000 when my stock options helped me achieve financial security.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Bad Vista

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/bad_santa.html

Microsoft's sense of self preservation doesn't make the company or Vista evil, as BadVista insinuates.

Gates is a technologist giving away money to help others, which is social activism.

Microsoft adheres to a philosophy of licensing software, as does FSF in its pursuit of the GNU.

Microsoft created Windows as a platform for building on products, not as a platform for making philosophical arguments.

Self-preservation leads Microsoft to do many wrong/unethical things. One only needs look at Microsoft’s history.

Gates is a philanthropist and social activist—Microsoft is not. What have Steve Ballmer and the current Microsoft management done for the social good?? Then recount all the harm that has been done to us by Windows...

Windows is a platform for building products, yes, but it’s also an instrument for our enslavement, our loss of individual freedoms and rights. Can we spell D-R-M, boys and girls? How about E-U-L-A?

BadVista may not be perfectly objective, but nor is Wilcox. Both sides have an agenda. But whereas BadVista has an honourable agenda—to fight for consumers’ freedom—what is Wilcox’s (and Microsoft’s) agenda? To push Windows (and Windows upgrades) and line Microsoft’s coffers!


In the same Friday statement, John Sullivan, FSF's program administrator, called Windows restrictive and new Vista features a "Trojan Horse to smuggle in even more restrictions." Oh? Linux isn't a Trojan Horse for spreading the GNU?

I love the way Wilcox twists words to suit his own agenda. C’mon, Linux isn’t a Trojan horse for anything...there’s nothing wrong with GNU...you still have the freedom to run commercial software or do anything else you want with your computer. With Vista, OTOH, you are limited by DRM to what you want to do with your software and media content. And you have an insanely draconian EULA.

FSF and GNU are about freedom. Microsoft and Vista are not.

R


On 12/18/06 11:44 AM, "Richard Eng" wrote:

http://badvista.fsf.org/

“Vista is an upsell masquerading as an upgrade. It is an overall regression when you look at the most important aspect of owning and using a computer: your control over what it does. Obviously MS Windows is already proprietary and very restrictive, and well worth rejecting. But the new 'features' in Vista are a Trojan Horse to smuggle in even more restrictions. We'll be focusing attention on detailing how they work, how to resist them, and why people should care.”


“BadVista.org will focus on the danger posed by Treacherous Computing in Vista. Commonly called Trusted Computing in the industry, it is an attempt to turn computers from machines controlled by their user into machines that monitor their user and refuse to operate in ways that manufacturers don't authorize.”


Also, help fight DRM...

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/en/node

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