FYI: Microsoft: Upgraded Motherboard = New Windows License

[landdaddy]

Microsoft recently made a change to the license agreement saying that a new motherboard is equal to a new computer, hence you need to purchase a new Windows license.

http://www.aviransplace.com/index.php/archives/2006/02/15/microsoft-upgraded-motherboard-new-licence/

What is Gates trying to do to us DIYers?
Linux anyone?
Many flavors to choose from!

[shoelace414]

1. "You have no choice, so I'll do what I want"

[acmejack]

2. You will learn to love it.

Life without bill is not bad at all.

[Beelzebud]

3. This is for the OEM version that ships with Dell, HP, etc.

This does not apply to a regular Windows XP copy obtained through retail...

[Caution]

4. This applies ONLY to OEM licenses

OEMs get a significantly discounted rate when purchasing bulk licenses for Microsoft OS's.

This isn't quite the gestapo technique it is being made out to be.

(And believe me, I have much greater reason to hate MS than just about anybody out there).

[guruoo]

32. MS let me transfer OE XP Pro to a new machine about a month ago

I've always heard that you couldn't transfer an OE copy,
but being the stubborn skeptic that I am
I gave it a try anyway. All I had to do
was assure the rep that it had been removed
(he asked twice)from the original machine.

Piece of cake.

[DemonGoddess]

5. First of all,

how can these people say that a new mb equates with a new computer? It's just a main board for cryin' out loud. I've upgraded my cpu independently of my mb many times, where the mb supports it. That's sorta like saying you upgrading your hard drive is a new system. :puke:

--on edit--
Even after reading that it's for OEM licensing, still, replacing a mb by itself really should not constitute a new MACHINE.

[Warren Stupidity]

27. It only applies to OEM vendors.

After you buy your freaking Dell you can upgrade to your heart's content. If for some bizarre reason you send your box back to Dell to have them upgrade it they are going to have to put a new os on it too. This whole thread is much ado about nothing, unless you are selling pcs with your microsoft oem license.

[alfredo]

33. That's probably how they can tell if your copy of Windows is

pirated or not. If the registration doesn't match up with the ID of the motherboard they will assume it is pirated. Most likely that is done when you register your computer, then it is probably checked when you visit the MS site.


I'd install Linux, then run the Windows apps you can't live without through emulation. Most people just use a browser, e-mail and office type apps.

Gamers might find alternatives to Windows lacking, but many of us have a Play Station for that.

I'm solidly in the OSX and Linux camp.

[guruoo]

35. They say this also can happen if you make a lot of hardw upgrades

with the same motherboard within a short period of time,
i.e., drivers, cards, ram, processor, etc.

They also say this 'short period' of time runs
about 90 days, before the anti-piracy bugger resets.

[alfredo]

41. Remember when the customer was always right?

Now we are the enemy.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. My DIY box runs Linux

for precisely this reason. It is somewhat bizarre, but with so many people building their own computers these days, where do you draw the line? If it's the same case? The same hard drive? Motherboard seems as reasonable a place as any.

[DS1]

7. That's why I've got an enterprise-class license code tattooed

to the inside of my leg :rofl:

/not really

CT6GT-.....

[ET Awful]

10. I have my MSDN license from the initial XP release

I no long subscribe, but the license is still good for 10 Pro and 10 Home installs of XP. :P

[DS1]

12. *pfft*

Mine overrides the check in the first place :P

[ET Awful]

14. I have that for my Office 2003 install

:P

[DS1]

20. got that too

Office, XP Pro, all Office 2003 suites, office XP suites, etc

:D

c'mon, what else ya got?

[ET Awful]

23. LOL . . . I didn't know that XP Pro could perform spreadsheet and

database functions :P

[DS1]

24. see edit, I just pulled out my list

[ET Awful]

26. LMAO . . .

You win. . . of course half the shit you have I would never need anyway.

I have earlier versions via MSDN of most of the MS products, but nothing after 2002 when my subscription expired.

[DS1]

28. I had a subscription at one point too

all the access to every package and all that goodness.

but then, when I poked around, I realized I couldn't be bothered to actually download any of it

it too, expired sometime around 2002, this list I have here is from a different organization. punch in the license key and the activation crap is totally skipped.

[ET Awful]

30. I never had to download it, they shipped me CD's.

I probably could still have the subscription if I'd BS'ed my boss about the need, but I was honest with him and told him there wasn't a legitimate business need for spending the money.

[jayfish]

38. I Wondered About That.

Thanks for the info.

Jay

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

8. Linux, everyone!

I just had to buy a new copy of XP home for someone. At the usual supplier(NewEgg, one of the biggest sellers in the world...and the best), you can no longer get a bog-standard OEM version of XP home, only XP home with Plus! for $139, a full $50 more!

Also, a job I was doing wanted me to run Windows at home, so they bought XP Professioal x64 for me. It is not bad, but(!) I cannot find drivers for my printer, scanner, webcam...But, Mandriva Linux x86_64 Powerpack? Everything just worked.

No, Linux is definately ready for primetime and you will never miss Windows. Get out from under The Beast of Redmond. Them people are crazy.

[Beelzebud]

18. "Linux is definately ready for primetime" - I've heard that since 1999

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

73. Hey, it's true.

That said, if you fall back on that phrase, in regards to trying it, then don't bother. You won't like it as a matter of course.

[jayfish]

39. Never Buy XPHome For Anything.

It's junk.

Jay

[ET Awful]

43. There is almost no difference between XP home and XP Pro

In fact, the average user has no use for the additional features of Pro unless they are in a networked environment using a Windows domain.

[Solon]

60. My parent's hit that limit a while ago...

Hence their switch to other systems. I find the idea of ANY type of cripple ware charged at a hundred bucks to be tantamount to highway robbery. Did I mention the limits on file permissions in Home as well?

[ET Awful]

9. As others have pointed out, this applies to OEM versions only

which are sold at significant discounts with the express intent that they be used only for the computer with which they are sold.

It has no effect on the fully-licenses copies which are transferrable from one PC to the next.

[Solon]

11. Interesting little fact...

If you are a DIY you have to get the OEM version of Windows Media Center, which is NOT sold in stores like Windows XP Home and Professional. In that case, I don't get why they would change the license.

[ET Awful]

15. Window Media Center, to my understanding was never intended

for the DIY market, it was always intended to be sold as part of a complete PC, thus the licensing structure.

[Solon]

22. True, but you can get it at newegg with any hardware purchase...

Microsoft also sells it to you if you claim to have built your own computer. Hell, right now, I'm building a Media PC(prepackaged sucks), but no way in hell will I use Windows on it, Linux with MythTV on it for me.

[ET Awful]

25. Yes, but when sold as an OEM product, you are bound by OEM

licensing, which is to say you are treated as the manufacturer of the PC and bound by the same licensing restrictions as any other manufacturer.

[Solon]

34. Hence the reason MCE isn't that popular with DIY mediaPC people...

Including me, but what's even worse is the fact that even standard build it your own people, like me, get annoyances with our PCs due to Microsoft paranoia, look at my other post for that. Hell, just maintaining my Grandmother's computer, an old Gateway with Windows 98 was a pain, hence Linux comes in, now I don't get calls twice a week. My sister was given an old Compaq Pesario a while ago, with Windows ME, i.e. blue screen hell on it, I actually got rid of the drive on it, put a new 200 GB drive in it, installed Linux, put it on her home network as a File Server(her other computer is a Dell with Windows XP), with the added bonus that I can maintain it myself from home, miles away.

Slowly but surely I'm moving away from Microsoft systems, not so much because of the security or ease of maintaining Linux systems, believe me, I avoid the terminal like the plague myself, and am not experienced with Linux all that much. Learned a lot the past year I had it, but still a lot to learn, I can now set up the systems easily enough, hell its easier than XP, which I thought was odd. What I like is the freedom, with Windows 98, I could gradually upgrade my systems on a budget and be sure that 98 won't complain too much because of it. Now, with the lock in's of Windows XP and now Vista, I say fuck Microsoft, and I refuse to steal the damned thing either, it simply isn't worth it to install Windows anymore.

[high density]

71. Yes

OEM licenses have always been closely tied to the original computer anyway, so I'm not sure if there's really anything new here.

This is unrelated to licensing, but I do know from personal experience that installing a new motherboard will certainly freak out Windows XP. In Windows 98 this used to be a fairly simple process but Windows XP almost requires a complete reinstall when the IDE controller changes. Windows XP definitely could use some sort of console based disk manager that can set drive letters in cases like this. I haven't had any problems with activation yet even though I've had to do it about four times since 2003 after hardware changes (retail license.)

[DemonGoddess]

72. I've not had problems with activation either

but what it does, when it's a MAJOR hardware change with XP retail, is that it screws up the registry. You SHOULD be able to run a repair installation to overcome it, but that doesn't always work.

[Dunvegan]

13. So, if you buy computer (hardware) from Dell, et. al., and it gets fried..

...this means you have to buy a new motherboard AND now new operating system (which was originally freely bundled)

This is a way for Microsoft to attempt to keep up quarterly growth in a saturated marketplace. In other words, you no longer have a free operating system for as long as you have a particular computer if you ever have to replace motherboard/chip components.

Expect more and more restrictions as the marketplace saturation of MS operating system slows profit growth.

[ET Awful]

16. No, that's not what it says. It says if you upgrade the motherboard

for reasons other than hardware failure.

Did you read the article?

"If the motherboard is upgraded or replaced for reasons other than a defect, then a new computer has been created and the license of new operating system software is required.”

[Beelzebud]

19. Read the article? LOL And miss all the M$ bashing?!?!

[ET Awful]

21. Really, why educate yourself when you can hop on the bandwagon?

:evilgrin:

[trotsky]

31. LOL

Nice. :thumbsup:

[Solon]

17. Hell, I got rid of Windows XP because after my last upgrade...

Which wasn't much, I just put in a new hard drive, but then it demanded to be reactivated over the phone. I call the number, after a half-hour on hold, I was like "fuck it" and deleted the partition and made my system a single boot Ubuntu Linux system.

[Warren Stupidity]

29. Headline totally misleading.

Thanks for wasting my time.

[FormerRepublican]

36. Easy fix for this - my next computer will be a Mac.

[ET Awful]

37. So, your solution to a clarification of a licensing requirement regarding

upgrading motherboards in PC's containing OEM versions of the software is to switch to a computer on which the motherboard can't be upgraded?

[jayfish]

40. Not To Mention The Fact That Apple Is No Less Stringent...

in it's policies than MS

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060217-6209.html

Jay

[ET Awful]

42. Also not to mention the fact that with Apple, you must use Apple computers

and nothing else. You have no choice.

[FormerRepublican]

46. NOT true. I've worked in plenty of mixed environments.

By the way, did I mention that before I became disabled, I was multi-certified and did Network Administration? I've ripped 'em all apart and reloaded them.

[ET Awful]

47. That's not what I said. I said that with a Mac, you must use Mac hardware

as in you can NOT install OS-X on a PC. You can not use a non-Macintosh motherboard.

I am an IT administrator in a mixed environment, I know whereof I speak.

When was the last time you installed OS-X on a computer that was not using Apple parts? Please enlighten us.

[FormerRepublican]

50. You are aware that Apple recently switched to Intel chips, right?

How the heck do you think they will load OS X on that? And if OS X is BSD based, and has the capability of altering the OS with BSD components - which it DOES - then I can do pretty much whatever I want to with it.

[ET Awful]

52. For someone that claims to be an expert, you don't know much about

computers.

Please read up on Apple's comments on the issue wherein they state that they have NO intention of making the OS compatible with PC systems.

BTW, an Intel chip does not mean a compatible BIOS for PC's . . . you did know that right?

[FormerRepublican]

66. Dude, I used to be a support engineer for a Mac hardware Mfr.

Macs aren't as propretary as you might think. We had hardware that went into both a Mac and a PC, and the only difference between them was the driver. No, the hardware isn't completely the same - but it doesn't have to be. It just has to be similar enough to have widely available components. Most of the add-ins to Macs are now moving to more readily available (and thus cheaper) hardware that is also used in PCs.

How much differentiation do you think Apple can do when the system is Intel processor based? How much differentiation can they do when the OS is Unix BSD based? There are standards that must be adhered to for both those products when compatible hardware is built. Apple doesn't control this - the standards associated with Intel processors and Unix BSD do. They have to work within the industry standard framework.

What the freak, a G4 has standard PCI slots, uses standard memory, uses standard USB... They're half way to PC Compatability already.

And dude - a BIOS is proprietary to the motherboard, not PC compatibity. The BIOS = Basic Input Output System, and it tells the processor how to address various hardware components in the system (through the MB), which is unique to each motherboard, though it is industry standards based. (By the way, did I mention I used to work for a PC processor mfr too?) For example, I couldn't load an ASUS BIOS on an Intel motherboard, even if the processor were identical.

[jayfish]

54. Yes But It's Proprietary In The Fact That...

you cannot simply put together a IA32/64 home built box and run OSX on it. The hardware (power PC or Intel) must come from Apple.

Jay

[ET Awful]

55. Thank you.

It's nice to see someone who actually understands what they're talking about.

[guruoo]

75. OSX86

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?s=30d5c8271aa3b62890c3014ff929f62b&showforum=60

[FormerRepublican]

67. Probably the most proprietary thing are the Motherboard and the OS.

The rest is pretty standard. No, you couldn't use your own Motherboard. I checked the Intel web site to see if I could track down pin-outs for the processor Apple will be using, but they didn't have much technical data that I've been able to find yet. Most of it is standard PC processor architecture.

WRT peripheral hardware, I think whether or not you could find a Unix driver would be the limiting factor. I know when we had new unreleased hardware that didn't have a Mac driver written yet, we put it in the G4 box and loaded Unix drivers. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't - pretty much the same as PCs in the bad old days before industry standards. But for a lot of hardware, it can still be done if you're geeky enough to troubleshoot the problems.

Lordie - now you guys have got my techie curiousity roused, so I think I'll look into the technical side of things to see how far from PC compatibility the new Macs will be. I've been away from it for a couple years and I'm curious...

[FormerRepublican]

44. Macs are moving to standard PC hardware. And every part in a Mac...

...can be replaced, just like a PC. How the heck do you think they repair them?

[ET Awful]

45. The point is that YOU can't replace it.

A consumer can not go buy a Macintosh motherboard and replace it in a Macintosh case. You are required to go to Apple to have the work done. You are still restricted in hardware, you are restricted in many ways.

Continue deluding yourself if you like, but the FACT is that you can not replace your own motherboard in a Mac, you can't go choose an off the shelf motherboard and install it in your Mac case which is also chosen by Apple. You can't go choose the CPU you want out of a box and plug it into the motherbaord you chose off the shelf. You can't choose any soundcard you like and install it. You can't choose any video card you like and install it.

If you don't consider that limiting, then you would be perfectly happy with a mini-Mac with no upgrade paths.

[FormerRepublican]

48. Er... OS X is Unix based. If I can find BSD drivers for the hardware...

...I can install it in a Mac. In fact, I can hack OS X and customize it up the wazoo. Far more than Windows.

[ET Awful]

49. You do know that hacking or reverse engineering the OS is a violation

of your license agreement don't you?

You begin your post by saying you're going to switch to Mac to avoid licensing restrictions, then explain how you will circumvent license restrictions on the Mac?

:shrug:

[FormerRepublican]

56. Uh - how much do you know about Unix?

OS X is actually a shell for Unix BSD. And it was designed to allow Unix Administrators to utilize Unix on the box. I don't have to reverse engineer the OS to install drivers - I can do it within BSD (which is the core of OS X). Generally driver load is transparent because it loads in the compiled kernal, but it CAN be done manually, including in a script that runs at startup. There's more to OS X than that pretty picture you see when you boot up the box.

[Solon]

58. In case you are interested...

http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html

[ET Awful]

64. You have to hack the kernel in order to make it work with PC hardware

thus it is NOT open source.

You're right, there IS more to it than the pretty picture, such as restrictions as to what hardware it will run on without hacking the kernel.

[Solon]

51. Actually, there is a hack now for Mactels...

For MacOS on Intel architecures so it can run on non-Apple hardware, though, to be honest, I don't see why they WOULDN'T just market it as a replacement for Windows, and don't tie it to hardware so much anymore. That would be a boon for many people, plus with the Mach kernel and the BSD and Nextel derived systems, which you can already download for free to run on any Intel, Darwinx86, I would say that development and support for drivers and stability will happen quickly.

[ET Awful]

53. Once again, by hacking the system, you violate the license agreement

which was his whole argument for switching to Mac in his initial post . . . I don't like MS's licensing, so I'm going to a Mac so I can violate THEIR license agreements instead. . .

Doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense now does it?

I still haven't heard Apple explain why they spent years explaining why their Motorola processors were faster than any Intel could be (even at double the clock speed), and then dumped those processors in favor of Intel.

[Solon]

57. Actually, I was just making an observation, plus I'm critisizing Apple...

too you know. I know all about that shit, I frankly don't really care, I'm critiquing their stance on tying the OS so much to the hardware, like they have always done. I think that is dumb, it is possible, if they would get their heads out of their asses, for them to actually demolish Microsoft's monopoly on the PC market by allowing OS X to be used on any PC. I'm only saying that if they do that, it wouldn't be much more expensive than keeping it locked in to their hardware due to the OSes that MacOS X is based on. There are plenty of drivers and such for BSD systems that can easily be ported, and people will port many of them for free at that. Apple doesn't even have to open source their system, just make it able to run on any standard PC system. If they did that, then I might be interested in buying it, just saying that if they changed the business model a little bit they would open up their market even more.

[ET Awful]

63. That wasn't really addressed at you per se. n/t

[FormerRepublican]

59. Again, OS X is based on Unix BSD, which is open source.

If the core is open source, then regardless of the proprietary shell that rides on top, you can do pretty much whatever you want to with it.

Take a look at this on the Apple web site:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/unix_open_source/

Note that Apple themselves are directing more experienced users to Unix open source applications that they can run on OS X. Please note that if these applications will run, so will Unix drivers. The only downside is that you might not get complete access to the hardware through the OS X shell.

This is NOT an OS hack or reverse engineer. It's utilizing the Unix core of OS X.

[Solon]

61. I believe the Mach kernel is proprietary though...

I'm not sure, I do know that to port MacOSX, the commercial version, to any intel based system requires you to hack the kernel, so I'm not sure if you are allowed to do that. Also, the only thing I hate about Darwin is the fact that while you can run it on any PC platform, that programs like iTunes and Quicktime rely on the proprietary shell, I wish they would develop X-Windows variations of it, plus porting to Linux would be easy too then.

[ET Awful]

62. You are not allowed to reverse engineer the OS in any way.

It's not an open license.

Being based on Unix does not mean it IS Unix. Being based on open source does not mean it IS open source.

For instance, the proprietary operating system in most hardware-based firewall devices is Unix, the particular kernel is NOT open source and it is not legal to reverse-engineer them or hack the kernel in any way.

[Solon]

65. Who said anything about reverse engineering...

I said I didn't know whether the kernel was covered by Apple's own license, which is here by the way:
http://www.opensource.apple.com/apsl/

I didn't read it that closely, however, it seems to me that Apple is allowing great leeway in allowing changes in code, the only thing I'm aware of that is forbidden is reverse engineering the Cocoa interface, Quartz, and proprietary programs. Other than that, it seems like the license is similar, though not exact, to the MIT or GPL licenses.
Also, in case you are interested, here is a CD image of Darwin for the x86 platform, give it a spin if you want.
http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/darwin/6.0/release/darwinx86-602.iso.gz

[ET Awful]

68. Hacking the kernel is, by the legal definition, reverse engineering. n/t

[Solon]

69. OK, your right, but that also doesn't mean it violates the license...

Apparently Apple says that if you do modify it, that you have to distribute the source if you distribute the modified binary. The license I linked to says nothing about the kernel being sacrosanct, so its probably under that same license. Think about it this way, there are 4 (basic)versions, outside of the server, of MacOS X, the first two, MacOS X PPC and x86 will only run on Apple hardware and have the Cocoa and other proprietary software on it. Darwin, both PPC and x86 versions are the guts of the OS, without the proprietary interface or software(Quicktime, Quartz based stuff, etc.), and is under a Free license, along with being compatible with a wider range of hardware. So, knowing that, if you could you can write drivers for Darwin to be even more compatible with PC hardware, like Sound Cards, Graphics Cards with 3D acceleration, etc. without violating the license, the fact that those same drivers, both source and binary, are also compatible with the commercial version of MacOS X is a bonus.

[Dogmudgeon]

70. Bill Gates, Operation Footbullet, and King Canute

"Operation Footbullet" is the nickname Internetters gave to the Church of Scientology in the 1990s when it tried to remove sections of the Internet where they found "entheta" -- nasty things being written about L. Ron Hubbard and the Church. It then went around trying to sue the Internet. After making itself an on-line laughingstock, it targeted a few dozen Scientology critics and managed to find friendly judges to put the hammer down on a handful of them. This naturally generated emnity toward the Church that it would have otherwise taken Ron's followers ten or twenty years to accomplish. Now that's "up-stat"!

Bill Gates is now doing the same thing, hot on the heels of the RIAA, and Jack Valenti and the MPAA, who have dedicated themselves to keeping greed clothed in its finest raiment as Morality. But Gates' dream is far more ambitious -- he wants to ensure that every computer user will pay him a dear royalty, and keep paying him, preferably on a rental or subscription basis, just to stay a part of cyberspace. Far from the dark visions of The Matrix and Colossus: The Forbin Project, cyberspace has become the frontier of the freedom seeker, the rebel, and the malcontent, espousing the Gospels of saviors as diverse as Karl Marx and Ayn Rand, allied against common enemies as various as the government of China, the Church of Scientology, and international intellectual property laws gone wild.

Now, Bill's an intelligent guy, and he's not the devil incarnate, but he is a hard-competing businessman, only this time he's taken on his own market. The only reason why DOS and Windows took over the market was because it was so easy to copy the software and set it up at home. The superior machines of the day, the Mac, Atari, Amiga, had burned-in operating systems, and new ROM sets cost more than twice as much as the upgrade from DOS 3.3 to 4.1 -- even Windows 3 was a bargain compared to Atari's POSIX clone ROM, and certainly compared to the early, pricy Macintoshes.

But he's already pushed me to move to Linuxland. And I was a Microsoft Office developer for years. He outsourced as much as he could, a move which cost me a full-time job and several subsequent contracts, and then demanded I pay twice as much to keep my copy of Microsoft Studio 6 registered.

The on-line world he created is likewise dismal. Non-Microsoft development shops also charge high prices for the simplest utilities imaginable, from the $29.95 "state-of-the-art screen capture all-in-one suite" that simply copied the built-in "Print Screen" key function to another hotkey, to "shareware" that cost upwards of $200 and locked me out of my entire computer at the end of 18 -- not 31 -- days, requiring a full re-install of Windows 95.

Linuxland -- the whole "FOSS" (Free and Open System Software) scene is the opposite of this. The software, every piece of it, works perfectly or nearly so, even most of the betas. The documentation teams, volunteers though they are, regularly apologize for errors so minor that they would pass proofreaders in Redmond/Hyderabad. The main difficulty with most of the software, when it exists, is usually ugliness and quirkiness, problems that could be fixed by "front end" programmers (like Yours Truly). There are some oddities that will face the Windows user, like the idea of "mounting" things in Linux/*NIX systems -- an oddity that quickly becomes logical, easy, and intuitive. And since there is no overwhelming proprietary mindset, the functioning of the programs is explained clearly and accurately.

There is even a full-bore clone of Windows NT/2000/XP under development, ReactOS. It is still in its early stages, but if Mr. Gates provokes a stampede toward Linux, ReactOS will (like everything else Linux) be like Popeye with a fresh can of spinach.

I still have gripes about Linux, and as a Microsoft Office developer, I get to see all of the little kinks and quirks and downright errors in OpenOffice. But I just downloaded 2.0, and folks, it's one fine piece of warez. I'll make my complaints known on the developers' message board, but it's already a Killer App. As for programmability, it is now more programmable than MSOffice -- it has pre-defined hooks and interfaces that allow C++, Python, Java, Javascript, and OpenOffice Basic (a VBA clone) to be used with minimum stress.

I'm still using Windows 2000 at this moment, but those days are quickly closing. I am still dependent on a few functions that Windows and Internet Explorer give me that nothing else does -- one is the ability to use Web Archive, or MHT, files. There's a Mozilla / Firefox-based add in, but it's broken; and I have nearly 22,000 MHT files.

I need to keep at least a minimal Windows presence around, too, since any work I get will likely be in Windows. However, the Linux market is growing.

Gates and the rest of the industry heads predict that Microsoft and Windows will dominate the market for years to come. They should not count on it -- after all, the invincable IBM fell in less than a decade. Linux now accounts for something like 5% of the worldwide computer market, but with a "managed subscription" money collection scheme, Windows will quickly become a business-only system. Unable to play with their home computers in the same way they work on their bosses' computers, people will shift their skill sets to their home systems'. This could dramatically increase the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for Windows Vista, which is planned to be locked down tighter than the virgin daughters of any 14th century royal house in Europe.

Gates has made mistakes before. He seriously missed out on the Internet, and it took him until 2000 to pull up even with the pack. (In 1994, he tried to buy the Internet! Would the Church of Scientology then have been able to delete Microsoft and replace everything with RONdows?) Early versions of Windows were garbage, and set him back five to eight years in GUI technology, although Apple helped by suing GEM out of existence. But if Gates fumbles this newest challenge, he will never catch up, because the computer OS will pass into the public domain wholly or even "just" conceptually (BSD isn't quite as free as the GNU open software license). The idea of a locked-down OS will become absurd. Microsoft will then have to adapt or die, at considerable expense to Gates and his investors.

I'm sure Bill will survive, though. He might yet ease up on home copies of Windows, which will be the real competition Linux will face. This year will tell -- Vista is already being toyed with by thousands of propeller-heads, and should be available for a mere $150 under full license by 3Q06 - 1Q07. They may even let users change floppies without calling Redmond for permission. I'm sure that millions will be added to the "digital divide" as their numbers are multiplied when they have to subtract whole packages from the variety of software they can run.

I'm moving to Linux, and expect I'll be spending many unpaid hours contributing to the effort of making it a superior choice to Windows. Bill, I did my best, but your incessant demands for my money -- and exportation of my employment -- has made our continuing relationship impossible. I'm 47 years old, and I grew up in the hacker era, whose energy you rode to your fortune. But that wave has crashed on the shore, and somewhat like King Canute, you're commanding the ocean to send you a tasty new wave. It's amazing that all those guys standing barefoot in the sand in their business suits who followed you to the beach think you can do it.

You once knew the thrill of teaching machines to work their magic for your delight. You were one of a legion of programmers who conjured an entire technology out of simple beach sand. Today, you cut a foolish figure on that beach, thinking you can replace human intelligence with cold, lifeless cash. You can't command the ocean any more than you can command money to build what millions of ecstatic volunteers once built for love -- you were one of them, Bill, remember? -- and a new generation who have found that thrill just as alive and enlivening.

See ya 'round cyberspace, Bill -- and if you ever want to pitch in, just roll up your sleeves, change your nick, and say hello to Tux. You'll find most of your old pals and fans have been there for a decade or more. We'd love to have you with us again.

--p!

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

74. Firstly, It Is Only OEM For Non-Damaged MoBo's. Second, You Might Want To

verify the article. You have no way of knowing the credibility of this no name site and there are no other legitimate sources of this story.

It very well may be a crock of crap and I would suggest digging a little deeper prior to passing it off as fact.