On 5/3/01 5:05 PM, "Bill Humphries" <bill@whump.com> wrote:
> Well there are ways, but none of them are particulary welcome (pay or
> disconnect the silver thread connecting you to the license server).
I can't wait until an F-22 with "Windows Inside!" on its final attack run
somewhere deep in Shanghai province noses into the ground because the U.S.
Military forgot to renew the software license. :)
But seriously -- an OS is arguably an essential service (Microsoft would
certainly like us to think that about NT/2000/XP/whatever) and should always
be perpetually licensed. The opportunity for catastrophic error here dwarfs
even that of Microsoft's code base.
There would be court cases -- research teams stranded in the Amazon Jungle
with no way to communicate their whereabouts, etc. Such is the conundrum.
Where the application is resident on a network and therefore is only to be
relied upon by connecting to the network, the "silver thread" makes tons of
sense, but are we at a time and place where the network has evolved enough
to support reliability here?
> I have no problem with MS selling licenses. I do have a problem with MS trying
> to legislate their competitors away.
>
> It's part of a long-standing grumpiness I developed as an economics grad
> student... I assume that once you've reached a critical mass, it's easier to
> buy a Congressman than it is to innovate.
>
> Hum... interesting empircal thesis topic. Comparing R&D, lobbying expense to
> size and determining if there's a switchpoint.
It's funny Microsoft argues this now -- aren't they the guys that tried to
destroy Netscape by giving away their web browser? Nothing surprises me.
-Ian.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun May 06 2001 - 08:04:38 PDT