Microsoft Software EULA: You (don’t) have the right to *
Horrendous EULA restrictions for the upcoming Vista. While EULAs are of arguable legal status in many countries, I’d like to believe that they might be enough to persuade some Windows users who respect their rights and are on the fence to switch to software without such ridiculously restricting licences.
It kind of reminds me Amazon’s EULA for downloading movies. ( I couldn’t find the link). But who cares about Vista (SVista in Greek) Edgy Eft looks really nice. And it seems that the next ubuntu release will be focused on multimedia.
Well, about 90% of the computer using population. :)
Let us not kid ourselves. As I’ve written in the past, both here and elsewhere, Linux on the desktop still has a long way to go and while distributions like Ubuntu may be very usable for a certain type of user, they still do not offer the polished experience, functionality or software quality found on OS X or Windows. Luckily, some of Linux’s longstanding failings are being worked on, but for anyone following Linux for more than 5-6 years, it is losing, not gaining, steam in terms of development. Linux and its graphical/application platforms (Gnome, KDE, etc.) have been very marginally improved upon in the last 3 years. Specifically, a comprehensive, unified configuration system, a good and unified/common multimedia backend and API, modern graphics infrastructure and API (XGL/AIGLX are hacks at best and it will take many years before we’ll see XEgl), better UI guidelines, games, productivity software on par with Office etc. are just some reasons for which many people might not want to ditch their Windows or OSX Operating Systems.
When I switched to OS X as my main OS, back in early 2002, I felt like it offered all those things I wished Linux offered but never saw realised. I saw the control and focus of a commercial company, building upon Open Source and community based software (back then Apple heavily publicised their Open Source affiliations). It’s 2006 and Linux is still very far from OS X; indeed, I’d say that OS X evolved much faster in these past four years than I expect Linux to evolve in 10. In any case, I still hope, deep down, that there’ll be a day, sooner rather than later, when Linux development will be standardised to a high degree and different vendors (IBM, Novell, Redhat, Google?) will collaborate to create the definitive Open Source OS, without the pointless, time-wasting quarreling that takes place today. In any case, while it is an interesting topic for discussion — I fear — it is beyond the scope of this article. Going back on topic, and while I do think that Microsoft’s licensing is horrible, I doubt whether many will turn to Linux in the near future.
Happily writing on a Mac (office), I agree on most points you make. My short experience with Linux, gave me the feeling that the community is not concentrated in an effort to build an OS that can compete with Windows/ OS X. Instead there are internal arguments about trivial issues, see for example the recent Debian/Ubuntu “controversy”. I agree that Windows XP/OS X are in many ways superior to any Linux distro. But I find many EULA’s really restricting, such as the one used from the iTunes store for selling mp3’s, just to give an example. The coming DRM’s controversy is going to make things worse. I would have bought an iPod was it not for it’s licence. Why can I not use it for a portable hd and store my files? Back to the topic, if Apple decides to add a right click to any mouse, I would buy a Macbook Pro. They are really powerful…
You can. I’ve been doing it for years. Perhaps you’ve been misinformed (or you’re referring to something else, such as dumping your mp3s as data files and being able to play them through iPod, but that’s another story)
All of the mice currently sold by Apple are ‘mighty’, if I’m not mistaken. That’s the trend anyway. The Macbook Pro trackpad still has one button, but I believe that this should not be a reason for which you wouldn’t buy the machine. First of all, the trackpad is close enough to the keyboard for you to ctrl + click, secondly you can always attach a proper wheel/mighty mouse if you so wish.
Finally, I wholeheartedly agree with you, wrt to your aversion for the ridiculous restrictions found in modern EULAs — that was the point of this mini post. However, I don’t think that OS X is restrictive really and let’s not forget that OS X != iTunes, that is you don’t have to use iTunes (or the iTS) to use OS X.
Absence of right click is not as important as it seems - replace right-click with ctrl-click in your mind and you’re done. My black Macbook is connected to a tiny Microsoft wheel mouse for about a month now.
They cooperate really well, those two. Almost like those photos where you can see a tiger nursing a piglet.
;)