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11/22/2003 Archived Entry: "Microsoft lock-in"

Wendy has invited me to start contributing to McBlog. For those that only want to read Wendy's posts, mine will appear in a different color, so they'll be easy to identify. My focus is more on tech and science matters, but I've been known to vent my libertarian opinions, so occasionally I may comment about current events like The War. Today, however, a computer diatribe.

Those who are considering an upgrade to their Windows operating system -- or to Office 2003 -- may want to read this article, Microsoft's Customer Lock-in and Competition Lock-out, on the excellent Groklaw web site. It's lengthy and a bit technical, but the upshot is this: if you think it's difficult to move away from Microsoft now, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Among the egregious traps Microsoft is planning:

(1) New file formats, so that anyone who wants to read your documents has to upgrade to the new software; plus legal strategies to prevent open-source programs from reading or creating the new file formats. Right now, a free, cross-platform program like OpenOffice can read and write Word 97/2000 documents. Microsoft seems to be crafting the new software (and the new license agreements) so that revealing the new file formats is illegal, and reverse-engineering them is criminal (under the draconian Digital Millenium Copyright Act).

(2) Digital Rights Management, which is a minefield worthy of its own blog entry. Suffice it to say that under DRM, you may not own the documents on your own computer. The RIAA wants DRM so that you can buy a song and play it on your computer, but not make copies for anyone else (or for your laptop). Microsoft thinks this would be a good idea for documents and email as well. So who owns your computer, you or Microsoft?

(3) The privacy-infringing Palladium framework for "secure computing." Once again they're trying to sneak an identity number into your computer (those with long memories will remember this "feature" of the Pentium II). So forget about sharing a program between your desktop and your laptop...and forget about anonymity when surfing the Internet. Palladium is worthy of a blog entry in its own right, and when I find the excellent article I read some months back I'll revisit this topic. Meanwhile, read last year's take from The Register, which noted, "Isn't it ironic that the company responsible for nearly every major computer security problem, virus, and backdoor -- thanks to its poor software development and testing among other factors -- is now heralding its ability to make everything right in a stroke?"

Groklaw's editor summed it up: "if you are ever thinking of switching to Linux, now is probably a good time." Or be prepared to be in thrall to Microsoft for the rest of your computing life.