Re: [Off Topic] Windows Genuine Advantage

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Harry Binswanger wrote:
. . . turn it around: what
value, proper or improper, could MS get from having pointless
revalidations of the software license--hundreds of millions of them?!
But does anybody really believe MS is going to sell info to advertisers
or something like that? That would be business suicide.

What has a lot of people worried is that there are
persistent rumors (which I don't think M$ has
unequivocally denied--and if they did, could we believe
them) that they may someday use such a
hook to deactivate an older opsys when they, in their
infinite wisdom, have decided that everybody must
upgrade to their latest and [supposedly] greatest. One
day you boot up a 9x or W2K box and up pops a message:

"Microsoft has discontinued this version and it is no
longer operative. Please upgrade to Windows Ultra" (or
whatever).

Also that they may prevent you from using applications
that they "don't like" (published by a competetor that
they're trying to buy out or put out of business).

Or suppose I were more vocal in my dislike, and was
working on a book denouncing M$. If it looked like
hitting home, and they found the text on my hard drive,
you think they wouldn't do something? (Assuming I was
stupid enough not to encrypt it.)
I trust them to be greedy enough to see that there
is >>no future for them in doing that.

Well, yes, but didn't Aristotle say something to the
effect that "men do not become tyrants to keep
themselves warm"? Or as a later philosopher put it,
"All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely."
But we're getting 'way off track. As the chief
offender, I suggest that if anyone wants to continue
this, we take it off-list. I can almost hear Robert
cursing in the background at the waste of time and
bandwidth.

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx