Today, with great enthusiasm and quite emphatically, GHalleck
laid this on an unsuspecting readership ...
Especially from Carey, who seems to know almost every KB
article and download involving Windows XP. But not so
forthright here... there is a downside to this MS initiative.
Carey also oft comes under fire from folks other than me for his
frequent strangeness, so I take what he says with the proverbial
grain of salt.
Installing WGA notification may result in some very trying
issues to the user. One needs to do some research before
downloading and installing.
After waiting and watching for quite some time, I did finally
allow WGA to be installed, but again, only after taking my ultra-
conservative and multiple redundant protection steps. I've not
noticed M$ being entirely obnoxious about requiring WGA yet and I
certainly hope they either voluntarily withdraw it or are forced
to do so by the class-action suits filed against them.
Whether it be Bill the Gates or any other developer with more or
less onerous "authentication" bullshit activation and "ET call
home" crap, I cannot for the life of me see the upside to the
developer in lost credibility and loss of good reputation with
their paying customers by continually implying we are all
thieves. Do the "suits" really think people are that easily
fooled by euphemisms such as "to ensure you get an authentic
product"? It is like the security folks at computer stores that
want to check your bill and what's in your bags to "ensure you
got everything you paid for." Good Grief, Charley Brown, do these
people think we're all that damn dumb?
And, the little that I understand M$'s intent with WGA and the
rise of activation in the first place, it seems far more aimed at
the big OEMs and them that are licensed OEMs that do "home brew"
systems bootlegging or attempting to pirate Windoze, and not the
retail customers. Although, for the apps M$ sells, such as
Office, the temptation to "borrow" another's CD or ask them to
burn a copy is probably irresistable.
Having developed software as a hobbyist and professionally (at
work) as well as writing a small amount of commercial software
back in the Apple ][ days, I didn't like anyone stealing my
intellectual property or my (meager) income, so I thought then
and still think today that people deserve to make a /reasonable/
profit from their efforts. So I don't "acquire" pirated or broken
apps and don't even accept "gifts" of software that doesn't
require activation from friends. If I want it, I pay for it or I
don't use it. And, that includes shareware or nagware - if I like
it, I will buy the full registered version if there is one or
consider making a donation if there isn't one.
But then, I am a Pollyanna about quite a lot of things involving
integrity, so I am not at all naive enough to believe that others
share my views.
--
ATM, aka Jerry
"Gentleman, you can't fight in here, this the War Room!" - From
the movie 'Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love the Bomb'
. I feel like I am where I