Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Message-Id: <5.2.0.9.2.20030401095832.028ac2d8@pop3.cris.com>
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 10:07:21 -0800
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
From: Randall R Schulz <rrschulz AT cris DOT com>
Subject: RE: Big Brother is Real
In-Reply-To: <006b01c2f877$f930b230$6e01a8c0@testsite>
References: <5 DOT 2 DOT 0 DOT 9 DOT 2 DOT 20030401082203 DOT 02e42c30 AT pop3 DOT cris DOT com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Günter,

At 09:56 2003-04-01, you wrote:
>I missed out on that.. What does sp3 for win2k do?

It opens a back door for MS snooping. DRM indeed!


>Btw. I only use amd cpu's. To my understanding they don't have the cpu id (I
>don't trust a software that allows me to turn the id of because obviously
>software can also turn it on ;)

Pentium IV has dispensed with the CPU ID, too. Bad PR, I guess...


>If star office and open office can read/write Micro$oft documents there is
>hope, otherwise don't hold your breath. Too much has been written over the
>last 2 decades -and stored in word documents-. If you can't open it the tool
>can't be used in production environments. If it can, a seamless transition
>is possible. I just got a new laptop (birthday) and the first time of my
>life I will install 2 (TWO) OS's on it. (you know which ones)

It's a constant battle since MS applications will continue to extend 
their file formats while giving out specs only under non-disclosure. 
This forces the Open Source community to reverse engineer the file 
formats. But they're not cryptographic after all. They're meant to be 
readily encoded and decoded by software, so it's a manageable problem.

Keep in mind that there's a world outside business, too, where things 
like TeX, PostScript and PDF are the linguas franca. Many communities 
either formally proscribe or informally eschew DOC and PPT files.


>About the license policies integrated:
>
>I know that's not the right newsgroup and I will be very careful:
>The X box has highly sophisticated copy protection integrated in hard and
>software. It took a whole half year until it got cracked, but the point is
>that it cot hacked.

I think we have to work with the legal system, not try to subvert it. 
Microsoft has a right to set the licensing terms it wants. We have a 
right to tell them to go to hell. Currently however, and as you note, 
the power relationship is highly skewed. It ain't easy to "just say no" 
to Microsoft.


>I heard/read that there are already a wealth of xp versions for download
>that have the 'call bill back' inherently disabled. The same is true for MS
>software. I haven't the latest statistics at hand, but the private
>household; those who made a copy from the office and brought it home for
>business and private use, won't pay extravagant prices if this is not
>possible anymore. Those will 'get' the grey copies because of the internets
>endless sources.

Some OEM versions are also excused from the call-back requirements.


>A big problem seems to be the de facto standard of behavior by MS products.
>I loved Sun One's debugger since the function keys are identical to Visual
>Studio. I love JEDIT since the Ctrl-<char> functions are identical to the MS
>way (Ctrl-X, Ctrl-K, Ctrl-V, etc.). If the main competitors can (and no
>copyright can forbid that) emulate this functionality/behavior I see hope on
>the horizon.

Many high-end applications, even jEdit, have user-configurable keyboard 
mappings.

In other words: "Have it your way!"


>If, lastly Office 11 would not be backwards compatible with their previous
>documents, I see the sun rise!

It's still cloudy here.


>günter

Randall Schulz 


--
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple
Bug reporting:         http://cygwin.com/bugs.html
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/