News Microsoft simplifies EULA language, ditches grace period

I can totally understand why they are doing that: 30 days to try the OS.... or 30 days to download, install and run the crack or keygen program or spoof the license check

Can't install or run a keygen during the installation process...

 

Who's going to track and crack Windows 8? It'd be like breaking into a house when you know all that's inside is someone with a machete.

 

No need, just turn of the internet, input the code, crack. As usual.

 

Yep, this won't affect piracy one bit. Although the ease and benefits of using a pirated OS are somewhat limited these days anyway. Better to just stump up - it's not that expensive anyway.

 

Or breaking in to find the toilet has flooded the whole house.

 

Sooo negative in here. I think it's a good move that they are sorting out their EULA. I hope this leads others to do the same.

 

All this will mean for me is that I'll have to put in a pirate key off the internet, then await the release on MSDN AA before I put my legit key in.

 

Aside from pirating, I think this is going to disable the trick of buying an upgrade version of Windows and doing a full install on a clean drive

 

What are you talking about? I've used pirated windows 7 basically since it came out and haven't yet needed to reinstall. To me, piracy is more of a principal. Linux in most ways seems to be better than Windows (for my purposes) in nearly every way imagineable, with the exception of playing games (which I don't do often), equivalent GPU support (which doesn't matter if I don't play games), and setting up surround sound with just ALSA. To me, its stupid to pay for an OS that I find worse than a free one, especially when I use it much less often than linux. I wouldn't mind paying for linux, but the only variants you pay for don't interest me because they're geared more toward businesses than home users.

I do the same thing with games - I'd rather pay $120 for a bunch of indie games than $60 for another COD, even if I would find the COD game enjoyable. COD today is made strictly for profit and nothing else; there is almost no ambition or creativity in the production of those games and I actually feel like buying it is the wrong thing to do since it's games like that which are destroying the gaming market.

 

What am I talking about? I'm talking (like an adult) about the fact that Microsoft take a much more proactive stance on piracy these days.

I won't get into a debate that's already been done to death on these and other forums, but generally my motto is that if you want to use something that someone else has made, you pay them for it. No discussion.

Whatever your misguided sense of entitlement may tell you otherwise, I promise that you won't win any friends on here by boasting about how you pirate Windows 7 because you think it's **** but it's also a necessary evil for playing games.

Or what Gareth said

 

I understand your point but that tends to be less relevant when you start comparing:
* The product's usefulness or need of the product
* Something you have that needs the product
* Price proportions

If the difference is $5, who honestly cares? For argument's sake, lets say that linux is worth $40. Why would I pay more than double that for something that is worse in terms of price- performance-features?

Also, stealing physical items is VERY different from stealing something digital. If I just demanded a free burger, that's 1 less burger they have and need to pay for. If I'm copying Windows from a torrent, you can argue that the developers are getting 1 less sale, but its 1 sale they probably wouldn't have got in the first place - at least they didn't specifically lose anything. I think I remember reading a study showing that most pirates wouldn't pay for the product they steal in the first place.


@shirty
MS takes a more proactive stance on piracy these days? What a joke. They had that same stance when it came to Windows 7 and they were all proud of their horrible, proven-ineffective method of antipiracy when the OS was successfully cracked BEFORE IT WAS ON THE SHELVES.

If a company sincerely cares about making something un-pirateable, they ought to actually do something about it.

Based on your motto, I'm sure you're one of those people who are completely blinded by thoughts like "you get what you pay for", which in the software world is obscenely false on so many levels. If you don't feel that way, well, then you'd understand my motive for pirating windows when I'm not a piracy activist. Also, if this has been debated before on these forums, then your idea of "winning friends" is wrong - the only difference is I don't pirate stuff just because I want it for free, I actually put thought into my decision. If I can't afford something, I don't buy it. If a shitty game like COD comes out that I don't think deserves my money, I don't even waste my time pirating it. Windows is pretty much the 1 and only thing I pirate, and I don't pirate it to use it. Whenever I'm in windows I might only be spending 2 minutes in the actual OS, otherwise I'm in a game. I'm not paying $100+ for a slow GUI to get into another one.

 

Right but the difference is you don't have a compelling reason to ever use it aside from showing off. And again, the perspective changes when it comes to real physical objects.

No, because the more expensive product offers NO benefit of any kind that you would actually use or care about. You could argue the seats in the Veyron are better, but with the money you save of not getting that car, you could just buy better ones for the Astra. If you do find it to be more useful and worth its value, great, I'm not saying everyone should follow my opinion. I'm not saying Windows should be given out for free either. Even if I were more successful than all of MS, I wouldn't go up to them and say "you should really make windows free".

Generally speaking, no. But it'd be pretty ignorant of me to not give them credit for some of their work. HOWEVER, such things that I think they did a good job on, are also well-done on pretty much any other modern OS including Mac. The only difference is MS will make it proprietary.

I didn't say it wasn't stealing, that's why its called piracy.... I also didn't say I was proud of this, but it isn't shameful either. Do you consider it a proud thing when you buy something that doesn't do a good job at anything it is supposed to do? No, many people would actually return the product.

At a price value that low, I'd probably pay for it. But, I have yet to see that situation come up.

Well, lets say that we're comparing CD burning programs since those seem to fall under this category a lot. If I made a CD burning program that offered 1 nice feature the others didn't have, I'm still being an ass of a developer for asking money for something that has been done a bajillion times. It'd be a lot better if I were to be employed by a company that already made a CD burning program and I made my contribution. I understand people need to make money, but you don't DESERVE money for doing crappy/unoriginal work.

Putting a fee to a new product that is just like another one is, IMO, just as bad as pirating.

 

@schmidtbag, saying that you are using an illegal software, let a lone Microsoft software, in a public forum, where everyone can see, including search engine isn't wise at all.

Also, I, and I hope and encourage everyone here to do the same, to not help in any way people using pirated copy. It waste everyone times as most issues they have are due to hacks and cracks they or the hacker put, let alone possibly rootkits, and can't be solved. And a thief should not get any help. You don't help a thief moving your own goods in your home out to his truck, nor your neighbors, and and sure ain't going to answer his phone calls asking you to help to hook up the stolen stuff.

schmidtbag you made it into my black list.

Microsoft software are sure expensive, but engineers costs a lot of money.. and I mean A LOT of money. Why? Because they are few, and among those few, only few of these are actually really good, getting a degree in the field is very difficult (if you go to University in these programs, you can really see the funnel effect, where at first you are in huge classes, and at the end of your 3-4 year program, you are less than the number of student that what you were in high school).

The average wage (varies depending on where you are of course) is about 60-70k per year. A non junior is about 100k per year. Doing something like a graphic card or Windows, cost a BILLIONS! I do know for fact that Nvidia easily has 1500 to 2000 engineers working on a new graphic card, depending if it s a new architecture and what the company can afford. Multiply that by 100k (let's say it's the average), multiply by 3 years, and you have a nice number. Now add administration, HR, testing, drivers development, software development (dev tools, and such), support team for dev and manufacturers, website, building maintenance, resource maintenance (powerful servers to run simulations and such which constantly needs upgrading), oh and lets' not forget marketing. No wonder an Nvidia graphic card while costs maybe 50-70$ to produce, cost 300-500$, and not make much of a profit at the end. Microsoft is A LOT bigger than Nvidia, and more people are working on Windows than Nvidia. And I think these people need food on a table.

Most people working on Linux, are working at these big software/hardware companies. They are doing this for fun, because their job is fun. It's you playing games. But instead of playing games, they work on open source software. Mostly as a big favor. If you don't buy Windows, or wtv software and start stealing hardware, then you have no more software developers/engineers. So you have no more Linux, and no more open source.


Plus Microsoft does SO MUCH, that no other company can even dream about doing in helping making Windows more affordable.
-> Upgrade edition (and now only 40$)
-> Upgrade edition works all the way back from XP.
-> Student special
-> Pre-order special
-> MSDNAA

And you are still too cheap to get it. You have 0 excuse! None!
You are a thief, plain and simple. While you don't steal a physical good, you do prevent people getting food on a table, and they are the people that make everything that uses electricity (in this case) to make anything (robots, machines, appliances, entertainment, etc.)

 

If the self deluding justification above was a revelation to you then frankly I'm shocked.

Folk like schmidtbag are not your customer and never will be, you'll never sell a product to them if it or anything broadly similar can be had free. There isn't much point in giving his ilk a second thought, inconveniencing real customers with cash money to spend is a sure-fire way to lose sales on the other hand. I'll buy (very few) DRM products with a grimace but I'll be much happier buying with out. Normal people (Muggles) will buy stuff however its packaged but if they fall foul of the DRM they'll tell every one they meet how appalling your product is.

Not just you obviously but publishers in general.

 

@forums
*sigh* It appears that many people here are as arrogant as they think I am. I'm not endoring piracy. I don't help others pirate. I don't suggest piracy. I don't really pirate anything but Windows. I'm not some random asshole who just pirates something because I can. You'll find that I have a lot less pirated content than probably half of you on these forums, whether that be software, music, or movies.

If you really feel like blacklisting me because you generalize me under the same category as other pirates, then fine, that becomes 1 less person for me to explain myself to.

@Gareth
It is unfortunate that many things like books, music, and movies are so easy to pirate. They are something that is unrealistically difficult to prevent, or even reduce. I think many DRMs like Steam do a very good job at stopping piracy and I support their efforts.

You seem to fall under the same problem as goodbytes - both of you hear what you want to hear and interpret what I say as automatically being bad just because there's 1 evil in it. Your comment about "There are other books available. It's more than I want to pay, but I still want it." is being nitpickity, generalized, and misses my point. However, there are actually a LOT of people out there who really do think that way and do steal something, just because they can, and I don't approve of those people. The way you're interpeting my decision is just as bad as Catholics who hate gays with a firey passion just because the gay lifestyle doesn't produce offspring. Again, I don't endorse piracy - I am against it, especially for independent creators. I just see nothing about Windows I find worth the value it is priced at.

 

Windows is actually remarkably excellent value when you consider the billions of man hours that have gone into the intricacies of the programming, evolved over decades. It is a remarkable product. Just take your hand out of your pocket and pay the damn £100 quid or so it costs. Assuming you upgrade every 4 years, you're paying £2 a month for the ability to do everything that Windows allows you to do.

I'm not holier than thou - I may well have had a few pirated copies of Windows 98 when I was a teenager because I couldn't afford to buy an OS at the time , but as an adult I consider copyright theft to be akin to taking food out of someone's mouth, fuel out of someone's car or beer money out of someone's pocket. It's just not cricket. If there was a 100% chance of a six moth jail sentence for every owner of a cracked copy of a Microsoft product, then I'd wager there'd be a lot of people in prison for a short time, and not a lot of pirated copies in circulation thereafter.

I don't particularly like bars of chocolate, but it's not really fair on the shopkeeper if I keep taking them off his shelf to try all the different flavours without paying for them. Caught once I might get away with a slap on the wrist, but repeated offences (every time you use your PC in your case) are just a step too far.

Oh, and Gareth - I still won't read the EULA