Hardware security in PCs to accompany new Windows

[Colin McGregor]

--- Mike Newman <presidentofthefuture-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> Stronger anti-copying measures for Windows would be
> excellent. Almost
> everyone I know runs Windows but I think only one or
> two of them is
> using a copy that they bought, or received bundled
> with their
> computer. Home users would flock to GNU/Linux if
> they actually had to
> pay $300 for Windows.

Well, the last (legit) copy of Windows I got was free
(a giveaway from Microsoft as part of their "we are
afraid of open source" tour last month :-) ). 

But quite frankly I wam waiting for the other shoe to
drop with the proposed hardware security changes. The
saying used to be (back in the day) that "DOS isn't
done until Lotus won't run". The point then was that
Microsoft wanted to kill the biggest non-Microsoft
spreadsheet program, and they had no qualms about
"tweaking" MS-DOS to hurt the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet
program.

With Linux, Microsoft can NOT tweak the software that
Linux depends on, but by putting preasure on hardware
vendors they can put through hardware changes that
will hurt Linux. Face it Microsoft got their 90+%
market share not by offering a very good product at a
reasonable price (the way say Heinz achieved dominance
in the ketchup market). Microsoft achived their
position by using their dominance in one area (DOS,
then Windows) to extend dominance into other areas
(application programs, game consoles, etc., etc.).

One of the things that keeps Linux a serious threat to
Microsoft is that it can run on cheap easily available
hardware, take that away and Linux gets hit with a
serious blow, a blow I am sure Microsoft would be
happy to inflict...

Colin McGregor
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