life, liberty, and the pursuit of open standards

Michael Geist has a nice write-up of some of the concerns about microsoft’s eula for vista. However, I think some of his points need some elaboration. For instance, “…technical limitations that have been incorporated into the software at the insistence of the motion picture industry.” doesnt really mean much. What he’s trying to tell us is that microsoft has handed control of the content that you purchase over to the RIAA and MPAA. Those groups want you to never own music or movies. They want to control those things the way a tuxedo rental shop controls the tuxedos they rent. More from Geist’s article:

“The net effect of these concerns may constitute the real Vista revolution as they point to an unprecedented loss of consumer control over their own personal computers. In the name of shielding consumers from computer viruses and protecting copyright owners from potential infringement, Vista seemingly wrestles control of the “user experience” from the user.”

Assuming you really do want to purchase the same music or movie over and over and over again, and this isnt a problem for you, microsoft has gone further and pretty much said they get to decide which applications and files you are allowed to have on your vista pc. Is this an exageration? As Geist points out:

“Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, an anti-virus program that actively scans computers for “spyware, adware, and other potentially unwanted software.” The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software.

Once operational, the agreement warns that Windows Defender will, by default, automatically remove software rated “high” or “severe,” even though that may result in other software ceasing to work or mistakenly result in the removal of software that is not unwanted.”

The problem is, the decision is completely up to microsoft, and they dont even have to check with you. The other side of this is that microsoft also gets to determine what is “good” software. But we can trust them on this, at least, right?

Well, based on history, no. See, if microsoft has a reason to allow spyware, even their own, for their own financial gain, they’ll do it. Witness their own ‘anti-spyware’ software ALLOWING one of the biggest spyware applications to sit on peoples computers when they were looking into buying the company. Everyone in the world classified this software as spyware, except for microsoft and the application developer. Huge conflict of interest. But thats really of no concern to microsoft.

Don’t even get me started on why an operating system company is developing anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Doesn’t it make sense that if you can create software to catch hackers breaking into your own system, that you could just fix the system? I guess not. But who wants to bet money that microsoft’s a/v software somehow manages catch the most viruses and spyware somewhere down the road. But thats another topic.

The main thing is when you install vista, you’re handing control of your computing environment over to microsoft. Handing it over to anyone is a bad idea. But microsoft is even more untrustworthy than others. Why someone would conciously make this choice is beyond me. Especially when other, much better alternatives exist.