One of the things about being a Mac user, for 20-odd years now, is that you just like your corporate hero. Sure, they stuffed up on a number of hardware releases, and their delay in getting a multitasking OS out the door is only redeemed by the quality of the OS they did release, but by and large, they have been a pretty good graven idol, especially since the Holy St Steve returned to guide them.
But now...
... a local developers' site has noted that Apple have patented a DRM daemon like Windows Genuine Advantage, which as everyone knows is a genuine advantage to Microsoft and nobody else. Apple are going the Corporate Dragon route, it seems, as they become more popular in reaction to the grand train wreck that is Vista. And this is a Bad Thing.
I hope it's just a patent they are floating In Case. Because nothing is guaranteed to piss off the Worshipers of the White Fruit than to emulate the worst of the Dark Side. If they want to make people move to Linux, that's how you do it.
Look, I know software piracy is a problem of lost income, but so far as I know, DRM never works well. It is a hardship on the users, and let it be noted that by using the users' own internet, a cost upon them too, and causes all kinds of unintended consequences. It makes the functioning of your desktop or laptop depend on the administration of the registers at another site, and why should that happen?
If a vendor like Apple finds people have pirated their software, then persecute them, not the Rest of Us.
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This is one of the reasons why my next computer is probably going to be a Linux box.
Over the past few years, Apple has been pretty shameless when it comes to disregarding ethics. In large part thanks to iTunes, they've become the biggest pusher of DRM in the business bar none.
This is hardly surprising, and I doubt it's going to turn many people off Apple. If anything, recent history has shown that the fanboys just don't find out about this sort of thing, or if they do, that they either forgive it or forget it immediately.
I honestly think Apple is now a worse company than Microsoft, but because they're much smaller, the impact of that isn't felt as much.
Either way, I'll continue to use the Lunix.
If I may take this opportunity to post one of my favorite Bruce Schneier quotations:
DRM daemons, in the broad sense, aren't new. I've been cursing the FlexLM license manager for over a decade now. I hope for Apple's sake that theirs works better.
This story is a mountain out of a mole hill, and I'm surprised to actually see it be posted here, in this manner.
Firstly, there Steve Job's own 'Thoughts on Music', posted here: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/. At the time, it was unprecedented for Apple to post something like this on its own corporate web site. It is clear that Apple's high ups have a low opinion of DRM (on music at least).
As regards to software piracy, I highly doubt that Apple would introduce anything like WGA for MacOS X. Certainly not while Jobs remains CEO.
I suspect this patent is to deal with the iPhone, specifically the SDK due in a few months as a means of preventing arbitrary code from executing that could potentially disrupt the network. And the patent doesn't describe a system that 'phones home' in the manner of WGA, but rather one that is locally verified - this will probably be iTunes when you sync your iPhone.
We need to open up new vistas.....
I hope you're right, Silver, but the article suggests it is for OS X. And while Apple want to have DRM-free music and video on iTunes, that affects the recording industry, not Apple's profits. OS X piracy affects their profits, and if they are thinking of doing this, I want it known that it's not acceptable.
We need to open up new vistas.....
No. We absolutely do not.
I notice that Microsoft is offering business users the option to downgrade from Vista to XP an I'm not surprised. My wife's new laptop has Vista and neither of us like it at all. From a design point of view, Apple looks a lot cooler and I love the simplicity, reliability and functionality of my Ipods. If I had the money now, I would definitely go for an Imac or Ibook.
DRM, schmeeRM. What is Apple doing to make MacOSX stable?
¿Que? In the time I've been running OS X, I've had exactly two kernel panics, both with 10.1. In the same time I would have had several hundred crashes of XP.
I have been using Ubuntu-Gnu/Linux now for about a year. Heard anything horrible about them? I think not. Apple's too expensive but good. Vista's too trashy for the price. There's more coming. Gnu/Hurd should be coming any time and Linux derivatives on handhelds (like the Maemo run N800/810) are so so good. Why would anyone want to use trash from MS?
Considering OSX doesn't even have a serial number, nor does a single user license care if it's installed on multiple computers (basically, you buy a "Family Pack" to be nice, not because you need one), I think galloping down the trail shouting "ZOMG, WGA TIMES TWO!!!" is a bit premature.
Considering they'll be rolling out the iPhone SDK soon, and they have both it and the iPod Touch which will be getting a glut of software--which Apple no doubt wants to make freely available--it more relates to the extra steps they'll need to take to convince developers that they can properly protect the distribution of their software, and get them willing to accede to their other demands. ("Low price" being at the head of them, I'm sure.)
FairPlay in its current form probably wouldn't cut it for complex, interactive, network-aware software (games that they have now you mount once and leave there), so I rather imagine they're moving on something a bit more robust for what is to come. (And likely to make it capable of being used on multiple devices--iPods, iPhones, Macs, AppleTV's, etc.--and be open-ended enough to apply to other devices they may create in the future, managing their access on the fly.)
They'd get a lot more bites at the hook to produce software and distribute it for, say, $5 through iTunes, provided they know it won't get hacked and passed around freely, and know that it will be dependable down the line, whatever changes happen.
And it will be able to run Duke Nukem Forever!
You're just not trying hard enough: I experience your total accumulation of OSX tarfus in the average week (and I don't mess with beta versions, system-tweaking utilities, or even Terminal.app).
Maybe if I studied more epistemic philosophy, or otherwise cleaned up my sinful ways...