Reasons to Avoid Microsoft

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Piracy

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• SQL Server developers face huge royalty bills. How many, how much? (The Register, 2003.02.20)
  ...Some SQL Server developers could face bills in the millions of dollars. ... 'every Microsoft customer, including ISVs, VARs, and corporate end users, who wished to customize SQL Server by adding code or product to meet the specific needs of users would have been required to purchase a license from Timeline to do so.'
  

• Profits from piracy (Salon, 2002.Sep.26)
  Asked about the glaring lack of a copyright enforcement clause in the new deal, Microsoft president and CEO Steve Ballmer did a quick Nixonian shuffle. 'Certainly, software piracy rates in China are high, but there is nothing in the agreement specifically around that,' [Microsoft President and CEO Steve] Ballmer told a reporter ... shortly after the June announcement [of a $750 million 'memorandum of understanding' between Microsoft and China]. ...[T]here are some who make the case that ... Microsoft might actually benefit from illegal copying. ... The argument for allowing piracy boils down to two words: network effects. Without a critical mass of users, most software products tend to wither and die. Conversely, the more users a software product acquires, particularly a consumer-oriented software product, the more valuable it becomes.
  

• Catch WMP (Guardian Unlimited, 2002.Aug.08)
  "I have been collecting music using Windows Media Player to copy from CDs. When I needed to reformat my hard drive, I copied all my files to CD-R, re-installed my operating system and copied them back, only to find my music would not play." ... Microsoft's web site says: "By default, Windows Media Player ... is configured to protect content that is copied from a CD to your computer from unauthorized... When this feature is enabled, each track that is copied to your computer is a licensed file that cannot be played on any other computer unless you backup and restore your licenses on the other computer." Reformatting the hard drive has made your PC, in effect, a different computer. Since you did not back up and restore your licenses, there is no obvious way to play the protected files.
  

• Microsoft winds up on both ends of software piracy stick (Newsforge, 2002.May.08)
  ... Microsoft was convicted of software piracy last year by a French court ... it illegally included another company's proprietary source code in [one of their programs].
  

• Keygen routine producing valid WinXP product keys? (The Register, 2002.Feb.14)
  A cracking system for Windows Product Activation publicised this week may present Microsoft's anti-piracy system with its most serious problem yet. ... whether or not Microsoft has any way to differentiate between generated keys and the ones it has issued itself [is the question]. If not, this generation of WPA is now surely toast.
  

• Shiver me timbers (InfoWorld, 2001.Oct.22)
  [Windows Product Activation] is an irritating control scheme that can ... require you contact Microsoft ... [to activate (unhinder)] XP's operation. Microsoft has promoted this new behavior as a means to reduce mass software piracy ... WPA is dependent on Wpa.dbl, a file stored in XP's System32 folder. This file is so easy for software counterfeiters to reproduce that it poses no barrier to them at all... WPA, in truth, wasn't designed to impede true pirates but to stop novice users from installing a second copy on a laptop or a child's PC.
  

• MS digital rights management scheme cracked (The Register, 2001.Oct.19)
  The motive here is said to be an assertion of fair use and a check against the abuse of copyright for purposes of consumer extortion. ... 'When I buy a piece of music (not rent it, and not preview it), I expect (and demand!) my traditional fair use rights to the material.'
  

• Microsoft Cracks Down on Sharing Windows XP (Wall Street Journal - Personal Technology, 2001.Jul.05)
  If you're one of the millions of consumers with multiple PCs in your household, and you plan on upgrading them to Microsoft's forthcoming Windows XP operating system, you're in for a rude surprise. For the first time, Microsoft plans to force families to buy a separate, full-price copy of Windows for each PC they upgrade. Each copy is expected to cost around $100. Not only that, but [you are required] to let Microsoft create and store a profile of the configuration of every PC on which you install Windows XP ... If you don't allow Microsoft to collect this information, your copy of Windows XP will simply stop working ... [it] might still stop working at some point if you make a lot of changes to your PC's hardware. I am not making this up. ... What if your PC malfunctions, and you have to reinstall ... you'll have to explain the situation to Microsoft...
  

• Microsoft: Prizes for Rat Finks (Automation Access, 2001.Apr.25)
  Turn your customers over to the Microsoft license police for fun and nifty prizes.
  

• MS To Users: Pay Up (InternetWeek, 2001.Mar.29)
  Microsoft is cracking down on enterprise customers it believes aren't paying for all the software they're using, calling on them to perform audits and stick to a narrow interpretation of license terms, according to several big Microsoft shops.

  'These days, the only thing that Microsoft is interested in discussing with its customers is licensing issues.'
  

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