[Upd-discuss] Microsoft

[James Davis]

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004, Martha Luehrmann wrote:

> Would the group be at all interested in Microsoft's attempts to control
> its after-sales markets and maintain back-door access into people's
> computers?

As much as some of us would like to hear it, I've seen nothing that
indicates that XPs activation opens a 'back door' to Microsoft. I'd like
to think I'd have noticed if there was since I work in security and have
to deal with this operating system on a regular basis.

I'm 99.99% sure that Microsoft would have more sense than to put any back
door into any of their products but we'll never really know. If you're
very worried then Windows XP is available without activation under certain
licensing schemes.

I'm not sure the car analogy holds: you'll find that certain car
manufacturers will insist on your use of authorised dealers to make
repairs and having problems fixed elsewhere is likely to invalidate your
warranty. In that respect you have been forced to 'register' your car with
the manufacturer to keep it working.

'activation', registration, serial numbers, upgrades are all things you'll
have to accept if you are set on using non-Free software.  Thankfully, due
to the hard work of the GNU project and many many others, the choice of
having a usable Free software system such as GNU/Linux exists. I won't
pretend that making the switch is always an easy one but I do promise that
the effort is worth the reward.

Being mainly concerned with the enhancement and preservation of the Public
Domain I think a discussion of these issues may be better discussed
elsewhere (even though most/all of the members of this list will be
advocates of software freedom). If you've got further questions I'd be
happy to answer them off the list.

Regards,

James

--
"You're turning into a penguin. Stop it"
http://jamesd.ukgeeks.co.uk/