Vista's EULA Product Activation Worries 439
applejax writes "SecurityFocus is running an article regarding some concerns about Vista's activation terms. Do you have the right to use properly purchased but not validated software? What happens if Microsoft deactivates your OS that was legally purchased? The article goes into some detail about Vista's validation and concerns." From the article: "The terms of the Vista EULA, like the current EULA related to the 'Windows Genuine Advantage,' allows Microsoft to unilaterally decide that you have breached the terms of the agreement, and they can essentially disable the software, and possibly deny you access to critical files on your computer without benefit of proof, hearing, testimony or judicial intervention. In fact, if Microsoft is wrong, and your software is, in fact, properly licensed, you probably will be forced to buy a license to another copy of the operating system from Microsoft just to be able to get access to your files, and then you can sue Microsoft for the original license fee."
Yet another WINDOWS GENUINE DISADVANTAGE (Score:5, Insightful)
For those who sleepwalked through past adventures in "keeping you and your data apart": This "feature" exists only for the purpose of DEACTIVATION, so let's be honest and call it that.
Switch to something that's AlwaysActivated(TM): Linux, OS X, BSD, Solaris 10. Then we can talk about genuine advantages. As in "genuine" and "advantageous", rather than "marketingspeak" and "sure to bite you in the ass".
Upgrade (Score:2, Insightful)
Does the EULA (Score:2, Insightful)
Could this be illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
-b.
Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem solved!
The amusing thing about this is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows Vista? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Could this be illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yet another WINDOWS GENUINE DISADVANTAGE (Score:4, Insightful)
I just know I'm gonna get modded down for this, but who cares?
Wait. Who said that OS X is 'always activated'? That's true if you run OS X on only Apple hardware, but switch to some non-Apple hardware and your 'AlwaysActivated(TM)' turns into 'NeverActivated(TM)'. OS X should work with any hardware, just as Solaris does. (And, yes, Solaris Sparc will work on Sparc-based clones that are not manufactured by Sun)
Why do people want to give Apple a break for exhibiting the same behavior that Microsoft gets lambasted for?
Other options (Score:4, Insightful)
Check out Sabayon [sabayonlinux.org]
They said the same thing about XP. (Score:5, Insightful)
Bottom line, if you dont like it dont use it. For the non geeks this is a good thing as is the whole bundle of software signing and certs that Microsoft is trying to get out there. People dont want to have to understand how the computer works, they just want to download software and have it do its thing without sending porn spam to half the country. If things like this worry you or you think they're not needed. Then perhaps Windows is not the right OS for you.
Can Microsoft handle it? (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems to me Microsoft wants a constant surveillance license check to happen and they took steps to make it happen without considering that the average user is not going to want to deal with these complications and will likely stay with XP or switch to MacOS or an easy Linux install like Ubuntu. Of course, MS will probably respond by end-of-lifeing XP, but will that give them the desired result or alienate more users?
You'd think a multi-billion dollar company would have enough to fund a "common sense" committee somewhere.
Re:Upgrade (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems that being a pirate there's really nothing to lose. In all other situations, you lose.
Re:Could this be illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm willing to bet both arms and both legs that Microsoft has this one covered legally. The writing of EULAs has become a finely honed art. They will cover this in the EULA, and there won't be a damn thing that people who have agreed to the EULA can do about it.
The only real escape is not to use Vista.
because it doesn't (Score:4, Insightful)
(Personally, I don't think it would be good for anyone if they did.)
Who owns it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not at all sure this is true. Not that, maybe, it makes all that much difference in practice in this particular instance.
If they own it, its an asset, it must have value, be on their books, be depreciated. None of which is true. But it is on your books, and you can depreciate it, write it off against taxes and so on. If we're saying, it is theirs, you have licensed it, by a one time payment with no further obligations to them, how does it differ from a sale except in name?
I suspect that legally what is going on is that you have bought your copy alright. Its just that what you have bought is a product with certain features/limitations, of which activation is one.
This probably doesn't matter when it comes to the present situation, because product activation and so on are just part of the product. But if it were a case of stopping you from moving it from machine A to B to C, it might. If they were to tell you what machine to install it on, it might matter also. Or, whether you can run it under Wine. In all those cases the difference between them and you owning your copy might matter a lot. But not in terms of what features it has.
All the same, I think you bought your copy, and you really do own it.
Re:because it doesn't (Score:3, Insightful)
So?
I buy a MacIntel. This gives me a legitmate copy of OS X.
3 years goes by, the MacIntel is beginning to become obsolete and I need something newer.
I could either whitebox the machine and save money, or buy Apple's latest offering.
With OS X's DRM, I'm locked into Apple hardware. That's right vendor lock-in. Without OS X, I won't be able to get at my data, either.
Now what's the difference between Apple's behavior and Microsoft's, except that Apple happens to sell hardware?
Re:The amusing thing about this is... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is true. Largely, the reason for EULAs is so that software companies can claim full rights over everything and no responsibility so that they can absolve themselves from lawsuits no matter what happens on your computer. Whether they cause a problem by accident, purposefully, or not at all, they don't want to be sued.
The problem is, when you pair this with something like Microsoft's activation/WGA scheme, it means that they can cause otherwise working software to cease to work for any reason whatsoever and the user has no recourse.
Personally, I think that Congress should pass some laws that would replace a basic/general EULA, i.e. software makers aren't responsible for most things unless they make claims to the contrary or cause purposeful damage. Instead of EULAs, we should have a general consensus of what rights/responsibilities/powers we generally grant to software authors vs. their customers. Then we should allow EULAs in certain circumstances where they're merited, but not allow other terms to be in EULAs. For example, no EULA should grant spyware and virus makers to take permanent control of a user's PC.
However, my point is that EULAs are stupid. It's an issue that should be worked out by lawyers and law-makers, because it makes no sense for end-users to be entering into legalistic license agreements, different individually for every piece of software they run, when nobody understands what the terms actually allow.
And in no case should Microsoft be allowed to cause my computer to stop working because an automated system is suspicious that my license might possibly be invalid.
Re:Yet another WINDOWS GENUINE DISADVANTAGE (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do people want to give Apple a break for exhibiting the same behavior that Microsoft gets lambasted for?
Perhaps because Apple is not exhibiting the same behavior in this case? I hope you can appreciate the difference between 1) Windows Vista may stop running on a PC it was intended to work on because Microsoft decides that you're running a "non-genuine" copy; and 2) Mac OS X never works on a machine that no one, most relevantly Apple, ever said it would work on.
OS X should work with any hardware, just as Solaris does.
Why? Because you said so? Shouldn't the above read, "I want OS X to work with any hardware?"
Re:because it doesn't (Score:5, Insightful)
You're locked into your existing hardware and possibly your existing OS (if newer versions of OS X won't run on your old Mac). No one is threatening to render your old Mac unusable.
-b.
Re:because it doesn't (Score:5, Insightful)
It shouldn't matter. If I go and buy the complete OS X product in a box, I should be allowed to run it on my toaster if I can figure out how to do so. Whether or not Apple would be keen to support my toaster configuration is another story. But to have licensing restrictions as to what I can do with a product after purchasing it is counter to basic consumer rights.
Re:They said the same thing about XP. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yet another WINDOWS GENUINE DISADVANTAGE (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt we'll see a large desktop migration to Linux just because of Vista, but we'll certainly see quite a few business clients maintaining a 'wait and see' approach longer than for past iterations of Windows software. For most business users, there's just no driving reason to upgrade from XP until software is developed that only runs on Vista
This needs TV commercials (Score:3, Insightful)
This needs to be expressed as a TV commercial. An entire business shut down because something went wrong with Vista licensing, with people on the phone to Microsoft support. Listening to music on hold.
Or some guy in a strange city with a laptop that won't work, unable to get help. He calls Microsoft and gets the "visit us on the web at www.microsoft.com" pitch, and he's frantically getting coins from a cafe owner to feed into a pay phone while on hold.
Re:To be honest (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should I build houses for the homeless for free?
Why should I add another $50 bucks on to Bill's pile of unused money?
Is it better to trade my time on opensource stuff for others time on opensource stuff than my money (which took my time to earn) for microsoft's products?
Re:because it doesn't (Score:3, Insightful)
3 years go by and while that MacIntel is going to be "obsolete" it will still work. You will still have access to both it and all your files on it. Additionally, you can throw that sucker on the network and get at it with *NIX (via ssh), or windows (SAMBA, puTTY, whatever). Hell, you can even make it into a glorified FireWire external hard drive. So you can buy a whitebox and...get all your files off it! Sweet Jesus, where did all the vendor lock-in go? Now I suppose a guy like you is anal, and is going to point out that OS X is "locked-in" to Apple's hardware. But that's not vendor lock-in. You are free to move to any vendor for your hardware, and you can take your data with you. However, Apple, as a hardware vendor although throws in a very nice perk by also providing OS X with its hardware instead of Windows. That doesn't mean that its trying to "lock you in" except that OS X is nicer than Windows, so you'll want to continue to use it. But...that's what every corporation does to differentiate it from the competition. If you have a problem with that, go live in North Korea.
In case you were still wondering, the difference between Apple's behavior and Microsoft's is that...Microsoft locks down access to the filesystem so you can't access your files with anything. Microsoft also decides for you whether you can access your data. Apple does neither of those things*.
*By migrating to the x86/x64 architecture, Apple is aiding and abetting Microsoft's vendor lock-in schemes by allowing their users to also fall into the trap.
Re:Upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
I use Linux where I can, and where I can't I try to use OSX rather than Windows. Still, there are times where I have to use Windows. I have no choice.
In the end, I'm not on a quest to end closed-source software, or even get rid of Microsoft. I just want Microsoft to stop doing crappy things to hurt their own customers, and if they won't, then I think their customers should organize a formal boycott. We should make an example out of them for other software companies to see: Pull something like this activation/WGA crap, and your customers won't put up with it. Microsoft isn't the only offender, and all the activation, forced registration, dongles, etc. in the software industry is ridiculous. It hurts customers, but real pirates just find a way to circumvent these restrictions.
I'd like to start a website where people can voice their annoyance, sign a petition, see others' opinions, and generally organize a formal boycott. I'm sure lots of tech-savvy Windows users will not be upgrading anyway, but I think it's important to send a message to Microsoft as to why. However, I'm sure that there's someone out there who is more militant and web/tech savvy than I am, who'd do a better job setting it up.
Re:Upgrade (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't boycott it. This is really a non issue. Mickeysoft will release their program will all its activation and DRM bugs. And someone will just come up with a patch that will fix it for them. It was the same way when they released that genuine advantage bug, someone came up with a patch to fix it. The activation bullshit in windows XP/x64/2003 was the same way. I have half a dozen patches that fix that bug.
Even then there might not be no patch needed. Sometimes there is a hole in the bug that you can fly a B52 through. Like that safe disk bullshit a few years ago that everyone shit bricks over. Turned out a magic marker or just holding down the shift key fixed that bug. People paniced over DRM music. Well there was an easy fix for that. Just burn it off to CD then rip it to high quality mp3. Simple.
People get all bent out of shape over this crap. Remember, as a group, we are smarter than they are.
Re:Or... (Score:4, Insightful)
My experiences with Vista are rather different from yours. I like a good portion of how the interface has changed. I don't like how much has changed (re: the control panel, or how they split lots of the configuration options up into spearate windows, cluttering up what was once rather tidy (but could have been improved further)). It's never crashed on me (not even once!), though it did take a few betas before it supported the onboard sound in my HP z2308wm laptop. ATI has yet (to my knowledge) to make their graphics driver support OpenGL, so I have been unable to play City of Heroes/Villains in it.
In my job, I've also been running it on a Dell GX280 (P4 3.6, 1gb RAM, 80gb SATA) with little problems either. Very soon we'll have our Vista Enterprise edition for me to load up on the PC to evaluate how soon we are going to switch (lets just say it's not going to happen at *least* for the coming year).
Oh, by the way...I was running on 2Ghz athlon64 with 1gb of ram, Gamer's video card and SATA hard drive and performance was abysmal. Turning off the Aero features made clicking between file browsing windows a little less painful, but still not very responsive. I didn't see any benefit to the Aero features for the average user anyway. Based on this experience, I am declaring Vista the most skippable Windows version since ME. Hopefully, MSFT will come back and redeem themselves with a truely worthly OS like they did with Win2K.
Either your computer is screwed up in some way, or you used a fairly early beta (and, if that is the case, you really should try a much more "final" version before being so venemous while speaking of the product). I'm sure it has it's problems, but it's not quite *that* bad.
Re:Microsoft Wouldn't Do It (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Any copy WAS a win, 20 years ago. They already are number one. You already have to have their OS (for most applications). You will not choose an alternate system if you can't steal it. You will buy. Nobody I know chooses Linux because he can't pirate Windows (people choose it for the increased liberty).
2. Revoking will essentially generate nothing. People have been writing about DRM/TCPA/Palladium for years. And? Nada. The unwashed masses don't even notice it. You think that would be different when some Joe Blow gets deactivated? Who'd report about it? Slashdot, Digg, maybe some other online media. And? Who reads that? Only people who already know what's cooking. The only way this would get the masses' attention was when it happens in such a style that even the NYT reports about it.
Re:Upgrade (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:because it doesn't (Score:1, Insightful)
but if your mac breaks, beyond reasonable repair, you're forced to buy apple hardware (and another copy of your os) to replace it, if you still want to access your old data reliably
Bull crap. If the hard drive still works (presumably where your data is located) you can connect it to any machine running Windows or Linux and mount the relevant partition, granted on Windows you need to buy an HSF+ driver. If the drive is busted, you can either use a data recovery service (completely independent of what platform you go with for your next machine) or you can't access your data, no matter which platform you go to. If you have encrypted data, that's your own intentional lock-in, and has nothing to do with Apple or Microsoft or Linux.
Re:They said the same thing about XP. (Score:3, Insightful)
We were not fear mongers, we were MS customers who went to tech shows and heard/read the proposals for WGA and reacted appropriately. I give credit to MS for at least backing off those tactics due to customer disgust (At least in the OS, they kept most of the draconian WGA crap in Office). But it placed a sour taste in my mouth and I have stopped going to their tech summits and buying/using their software wherever possible.
This is not a new Idea, we should react the same way we did last time. Let them know it Smells like Bullshit. Legitimate customers should not be accused of being pirates merely because their clocks are set incorrectly (Current WGA). Bottom line, if you dont like it dont use it.
Good Advice, Don't Use it.
For the non geeks this is a good thing as is the whole bundle of software signing and certs that Microsoft is trying to get out there.
This is most certainly not a good thing. How many out of date certs have you seen in the last 2 yrs? I want software that works, without having to prove where I got it. Is there a study or chart showing the number of negative WGA's that correlate with XP sales? No but I bet there is a direct correllation with hacked XP's with the advent of WGA. Hacked XPs are a much bigger security risk than pirated copies of Genuine XP. You see this right?
Re:Yet another WINDOWS GENUINE DISADVANTAGE (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me make an analogy. If you go to a game store where they are having a Warhammer tourney, you have to play by their rules. But you decided you liked the D&D minis better. Why should the store allow you to play with the D&D minis? Likewise, Apple says if you buy their OS (you want to play the game) then you have to use their hardware (the warhammer figures). Just because you like your homebuilt computer (D&D mini warband) doesn't mean they have to let you use OS X (the game store does not have to let you play the game).
Re:because it doesn't (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way your Mac gets disabled is if it dies a natural or unnatural death, totally independently from Apple. If Apple decided that your Mac will only work when it has a working Internet connection and they can disable it on a whim, then I'd agree it's the same thing.
Re:Upgrade (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, you're still paying money to businesses who are putting their resources towards efforts to make your life harder, rather than efforts to make your life easier. For every "fix" or "work-around", you're still exerting extra effort where you just shouldn't need to. You're making your software buggier, and your music lower-quality for what it essentially 0 net-gain for anyone. And by buying the products that do this, you're sending the message to these companies that it is acceptable behavior, and that their efforts are good.
If you buy Vista, even if you crack it, you're telling Microsoft that their product is good. Buy pirating it and cracking it, you're telling them that their product is good, but that their "piracy protection" isn't good enough, and that they should put more resources on that front. But the only way to tell them that these "features" are unacceptable is to refuse to buy it or use it. And what will you have lost anyway, by not using Vista? What does Vista actually give you that Windows XP doesn't? Incompatibility and the need to buy new versions of the software you've already bought.
If Microsoft isn't servicing your needs, then you need to let them know. Even if we all simply refuse to buy it, Microsoft will claim that the reason Vista isn't selling is due to piracy, and their lobbyists will put forth a case that this means we need more restrictive laws on software use. It's important that, instead, we make a public case that Vista is not a good product.
and then ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, I assure you that it'll be for MUCH more than for for the original licence fee.
Re:because it doesn't (Score:3, Insightful)
If the mac dies, and I don't have another one, and I need to load up the OS to get my data, then how am I going to accomplish that? The only reason I can't just move the disk to any wintel machine is that Apple has deliberately made it incompatible.
Just another reason why, though it may take twenty years or more, FOSS will eventually rule all. It's about freedom and users DO understand that if you put it in terms of costing you money :)
Re:Upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
What you should do instead is start a campaign to educate whomever is in charge of making platform decisions at companies/schools/governments.
What you're talking about would still be a "boycott". I am, in fact, the decision-maker for an IT department, and I can tell you that I am not going to be upgrading to Vista anytime soon. I've talked to some of my peers (in other companies), and they aren't exactly eager to upgrade, either. When I suggest a "formal" boycott, I'm saying that instead of just not-buying Vista, we could publicly talk about why we aren't buying it, in order to spread the word and raise awareness of these issues. The truth is, your Directors of [whatever] and Chief [whatever] Officers aren't all PHBs who make arbitrary decisions. However, many of them aren't reading obscure Slashdot postings, and if general public awareness is very low, they might not be aware. They aren't hearing about it on the news, and Microsoft has their marketing people out in force. I believe that this is one instance where fear, uncertainty, and doubt is valid.
Re:because it doesn't (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the entire difference.
I just spend 10 hours trying to get ATI's fglrx drivers running on my 1-year old ASUS Pundit-R based entirely on an ATI chipset. ATI: "go talk to ASUS" - ASUS: "Go talk to ATI" - me: "Go talk to nVidia".
Apple doesn't compete in this space.
Re:because it doesn't (Score:2, Insightful)
Wordpad.exe : File -> Exit
Paint.exe : File -> Exit
windows movie maker : File -> Exit
iexplore.exe : File -> Close
calculator no file menu.
hyper terminal : File -> Exit
windows media player File -> Close (closes current track) | : File -> Exit exits media player
defragment tool : File -> Exit
system information : File -> Close (closes current open SI file) | : File -> Exit exits SI
Address book : File -> Exit
schedule task tool : File -> Close
sound recorder : File -> Exit
Just to name a few. Looks fairly consistent to me. I can't speak for dialog boxes, other than; please give some specifics of a program that uses O for No. Most likely a 3rd party app written by someone who was unaware what CUA [wikipedia.org] stands for.