Vista RTM already on filesharing networks

[greylica]

license key :
GLAD2-SEEUH-AVEAS-ENSEO-FHUMR

WOW ! This unlocks the full AERO !!! Thanks.

 

[QueBert]

would help very little, there is an MSDN key out, and unless it was a fake I heard there was a Corp one too. Vista has been fully cracked, fully as in, you don't need a beta key to activate and everything will function. MS will no doubt come out with a speedy patch to stop the piracy. Too bad the pirates will come back with an even speedier patch to once again crack MS's efforts.

MS can't stop piracy, while I applaud them for trying, it will only keep a small % of people from doing it. As torrents make it so simple to get patches and stuff a total pc idiot could do it. They should focus their energy into fixing bugs and adding features. Vista will be the most pirated OS in the history of computers. And according to MS it has damn near bullet proof protection, oh the irony...

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
well, I just noticed that yesterday a 4.49GB AIO (All In One 8 pk. 32bit/64 bit) Vista torrent appeared.

****sigh****

and I would bet that MS will nuke the beta keys on Jan 30 - not Jun 07

Putting aside morality and legality issues, one could argue.....

Despite all the piracy, Bill Gates is still the richest man in the world, and has been for a very long time

Despite all the piracy, MS stockholders of substance have all become wealthy

MS got to be the #1 defacto O/S by GIVING AWAY the software to vendors, in effect elbowing out any competition.

MS has over time used the most vicious monopoly capitalism maneuvers to advance its place in the market

MS fought to the bitter end (and still) to stop its embedded features (browser/playermessenger etc.) from becoming modular and optional.

Windows is now a world resource for productivity and computer use, so that its role as a business model has been superceeded by its actual need by the human civilization at large.

MS should quietly ignore when pirated by people in poor countries - $400 vista is a whole years salary in some places. Not being avail to third world masses relegates them to permanent second class.

 

[stars]

I noticed working serials in the wild earlier today (most likely out days ago). Great protection against piracy. Go Bill! Really, though I dont see why people are so drawn to Vista. To me, in its current state, its a disappointing operating system.

 

[Seeruk]

I thought there was no such thing as a corp key now? Thought the nearest thing was running your own activation server.... which tbh seems the obvious target for a cracker

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Again, this is more than a little self-serving. It's always been illegal to copy books, for example, and hand them out. They are tangible products, but the words and thoughts can be copied and distributed just as easily as software. Software isn't "thoughts and ideas." Algorithms are ideas, stemming from thoughts, but implemented software is a product of someone's effort. It is no more naturally free and subject to unrestrained distribution than any other product.

No, books cannot be copied and distributed just as easily as software. I can make a fully functional copy of a piece of software (assuming it is not artificially restricted) and deliver it to my cousin in Elbonia cheaper than I can make a ****** copy of a textbook to give to my housemate. If you're talking about larger scale distribution then yeah, the cost difference disappears pretty quickly but becoming larger scale also makes you a much easier legal target.

Same thing happened when the average joe got a cd burner and again when napster showed up. There is a very good reason why digital piracy is more rampant than any past form of 'theft': limiting the distribution requires much more work against the natural methods of distribution.

I only vaguely remember said letter (links? I'll search too) but you're statement sounds pretty one sided There's a sizable development community that puts all its efforts into increasing the ability to copy software.

Not the people who are responsible for employing thousands of programmers and their managers, all of whom have to feed their families. Every person who works on FOSS has to put food on the table some other way, or perhaps sell add-on services related to FOSS. In that latter case, there's nothing really new about providing software cheap, or even free, and then selling the services needed to support it.

Ulitmately, as with every other time this debate comes up, you have people on one side who believe in some egalitarian and collectivist notion that the best software comes from people who are motivated by something more than dirty desires for profit, vs. people who believe software is a product like any other, and that the people who create it have a right to protect it and profit from it. Count me in the latter camp.

I think you're being as one-sided as anybody here. Nobody called you or the people you buy software from dirty and nobody said that software should never be a product (at least not for the purposes of this discussion). However you are seeming to assert that sharing is a fundamentally useless process. Take, for example, the model of the eclipse community. IBM had a very nice source base and could have horded it and forced all the other vendors to make their own crappy imitations. Instead, they opened it for everyone to contribute to. Now the product is much better, which is a huge benefit for IBM and pretty much ever major vendor (except Sun) uses eclipse as a foundation for their own products which is a far better position than they otherwise would have been in. I'm way better off because I can download a nearly enterprise class development environment to do my homework in and my employers are better off because I can step into many different environments and figure my way around immediately instead of spending a month ramping up on an arcane, proprietary system. I'm pretty sure you're not going to tell me to avoid that sort of collaboration and I see no reason not to extend those concepts as far as I can.

Localized greed will certainly produce better results than chaotic open source development, but well co-ordinated co-operation will go much, much farther than greed (not using greed in a derogatory manner at all here).

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
All of these compromises seem fairly distant from "thoughts and ideas must be free," or what we might term "the Stallman model."

Screw the "Stallman model." RMS and his free software were destined for the fringe and he just got real lucky that his license happened to fit with the share-alike people like Linus. If somebody else had wrote the equivalent of the GPLv2 way back when and Stallman had produced what is now going to be the GPLv3 back then as well, nobody would know who he is.

If that had been the case there would be two open source camps today: free as in share-alike (current gplv2 folk) and free as in not restricted (currently bsd, mit and the like). Nobody would be talking about free as in freedom.

Alright so my point (other than inviting flames)? Yes, open source software is an engine for feeding software companies. It's not an IP engine because nobody wants to hold the ideas as property. But at the end of the day as long as the people who give the software away are personally satisfied and the people who take that software and make a product out of it are using better software than they otherwise would have, then it's worth it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I pay for the OS I use, but I get my hardware for free.

 

[stash]

would help very little, there is an MSDN key out, and unless it was a fake I heard there was a Corp one too. Vista has been fully cracked, fully as in, you don't need a beta key to activate and everything will function. MS will no doubt come out with a speedy patch to stop the piracy. Too bad the pirates will come back with an even speedier patch to once again crack MS's efforts.

Volume license ("corp") keys have to be activated. There are no versions of Vista that don't require activation.

 

[WT]

Also, the newsgroup posts indicate that Vista will phone home at least once every 30 days to compare its key to your settings, so it will be easier to flag and knock off any 'pilfered' keys. It depends on what version of Vista you have, and MS has learned some lessons from XP, but the resoursefulness of the crackers is unrelenting. The phone home is essentially WGA, but its built into Vista so its not a download/install deal this time around.

Edited with NG post clarifying this:
The new Software Protection Platform ensures that you have to reactivate software every 60 days - retail, 180 days for Volume License versions.

 

[greylica]

May be they crack the time between a Vista WGA too, like they did once in XP Home.

Message:

You have 1230564955456575564e+15 days to activate your copy of Windows. Click on this button to know Anubis or Return to the creation of the Universe .

 

[Bozo Galora]

yes ALL Vista VLK does now have to be activated - 25 mach min on VLK 2.0

http://www.aeroxp.org/board/index.php?showtopic=5821

 

[stash]

The 25 minimum machine for VLK activation is only for a KMS implementations. A MAK implementation doesn't have this requirement. A MAK can be used on a set number of systems, and they will each need to activate over the Internet or phone.

I saw a comment about WGA checking every 30 days with the activation servers. I haven't heard about this, and I don't think that is the case. The only case where a machine will periodically check in with an activation server is a volume licence SKU using a KMS. If a machine doesn't talk to the KMS for 180 days it will go into reduced functionality mode. AFAIK, Retail and OEM activations will not do this after the initial activation, unless the hardware is changed significantly.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: stash
Volume license ("corp") keys have to be activated. There are no versions of Vista that don't require activation.

Stash, does that mean that brand-name (Dell, etc.) OEM versions will now require Activation, too? Or will there still be "BIOS-LOCKED" versions?

 

[Markbnj]

No, books cannot be copied and distributed just as easily as software. I can make a fully functional copy of a piece of software (assuming it is not artificially restricted) and deliver it to my cousin in Elbonia cheaper than I can make a ****** copy of a textbook to give to my housemate. If you're talking about larger scale distribution then yeah, the cost difference disappears pretty quickly but becoming larger scale also makes you a much easier legal target.

Same thing happened when the average joe got a cd burner and again when napster showed up. There is a very good reason why digital piracy is more rampant than any past form of 'theft': limiting the distribution requires much more work against the natural methods of distribution.

You and I will have to disagree on your notion of a "natural" means of distribution for software. What you're essentially saying is that since it always has been easily copyable and transferrable any technological attempt to change the status quo is somehow abhorent. And because the status quo has been that it is easily copyable, therefore scarcity is low, anyone can get it, and it has no value, or far less value that the people who create it might think it has. In your view, the customer gets to control the value of the software by taking it whenever they want to. If the company tries to prevent it, then they are fighting the natural laws of software distribution. If that's not self-serving, then I guess I misunderstand the phrase. If I create a piece of software is it not, in your view, my property?

However you are seeming to assert that sharing is a fundamentally useless process.

Not at all. I've been sharing software, both giving it away and selling it as shareware, for twenty years. I reacted to a specific point in an earlier post, which was that software has less intrinsic value because scarcity is low. That's true from an economic perspective, but the poster went on to talk about software OEMs "artificially" lowering the scarcity by protecting the software, which is ridiculous. The fact that software can be easily copied does lower its value, but it's silly to talk as if that is somehow the natural state of affairs.

Alright so my point (other than inviting flames)? Yes, open source software is an engine for feeding software companies. It's not an IP engine because nobody wants to hold the ideas as property. But at the end of the day as long as the people who give the software away are personally satisfied and the people who take that software and make a product out of it are using better software than they otherwise would have, then it's worth it.

It doesn't have to be worth it. If someone wants to create software and give it away more power to them. Nobody else has a right to question whether it's "worth it." If, on the other hand, they want to charge for it, and distribute binaries, and not make the source available to Finnish teenagers, then that's also something I can understand perfectly well. I like capitalism, and I like it when people make stuff, sell it, and make a profit. I think that's very good. I also don't like it when people steal stuff that other people have made. That's bad. If someone wants to argue that those rules can't apply to intangible goods then they have an uphill battle, anywhere other than here I suppose .

 

[Kinslayer777]

Originally posted by: greylica
Hey Stash -> I hate piracy and I am helping to stop it. I am helping people to switch to Linux.

Second, the segmentation only turns what can be powerfull in an limited piece of software, XP was better explained in his limits. Even the Retail

Linux -> You can mount as you want. Workstation or Server.

You can tell me there is no product comparison between Windows and Linux.
I can tell you yes, There is no product comparison, and outside of U.S. Linux continue scaling it's marketshare faster like a rocket. And I am praying to Microsoft for SUE more and more people for piracy. They all will be so scared that they will nevermore turn back to Microsoft, it will definetly help Linux too. Tecnicians in other coutries will no longer have to fear after the switch.

Microsoft can help to stop piracy charging people or sueing them,

Linux can help to stop piracy liberting people.
Help Microsoft stop piracy, Do not download Pirated Vista !!!
Download any Linux instead !!!

Lol I like it!

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

As for there being an artificial lack of scarcity, I have no clue what you're talking about. I may hate the way it is implemented, but I don't disagree with the utility of copyright (if done correctly); I think there's too much scarcity created by our implementation of copyright (primarily on the issue of length---but that is another thread entirely).

I find it hard to believe that you have no idea what I meant . But I'll try again anyway: if you could not copy software, it would be a lot scarcer, don't you think? To regard something as less scarce, and thus less valuable, because it is easy to steal seems a little self-serving.

You either have forgotten or are ignorant of the concept of opportunity cost. I don't know about you, but I tend to think that having lower opportunity costs is more preferential, and that positive externalities should be as unhindered as is reasonable.

And yes, I realize that companies are trying to make the intangible behave like the tangible. I abhor this. The free exchange of ideas is vital to science, technology, and culture.

Again, this is more than a little self-serving. It's always been illegal to copy books, for example, and hand them out. They are tangible products, but the words and thoughts can be copied and distributed just as easily as software. Software isn't "thoughts and ideas." Algorithms are ideas, stemming from thoughts, but implemented software is a product of someone's effort. It is no more naturally free and subject to unrestrained distribution than any other product.

OK, bad choice of words with "idea". I should have said "information", which does change the argument.

What that paragraph you quoted was trying to say is that there must be a better way to sell information than to artificially quantify it by way of DRM. And having just done some reading, I think there's a theoretical basis for the kind of alternative system I propose: namely, the Coase theorem.

Transactions costs are low... check.
Property rights are well-defined... check, even though information-as-property still sickens me.
People act rationally... well, no, but since when has that stopped anyone from trying to apply economic theory?

So I think that the positive externalities of information can be brought under control without government intervention and without resorting to DRM.

Finally, I want to address this "self-serving" rubbish. To some degree, we all represent our self-interests. I have a bias towards Free Culture (what Larry Lessig spouts, and essentially what Creative Commons tries to bring about) and FOSS; I readily admit it. However, that does not mean that I consciously try to slant everything I say in favor of those ideals. I spend much more time introspecting than writing, trying to avoid being seen as some kind of shill or other such derogatory label. So if I sound too "self-serving", then let it be known that it is not my wish to be seen thus.

 

[Markbnj]

You either have forgotten or are ignorant of the concept of opportunity cost. I don't know about you, but I tend to think that having lower opportunity costs is more preferential, and that positive externalities should be as unhindered as is reasonable.

Calculating opportunity costs is more than a little bit of shamanism. I don't know how low, say, Microsoft's opportunity costs are with respect to a particular course of action. I'm pretty sure they don't know themselves. It follows that you likely do not . The positive externalities you're referring to are undefined, but I'm open to the idea. It sounds like the old notion that piracy was offset by some viral marketing benefit of providing wide access to your stuff. I doubt you'd find broad agreement on whether there is any benefit, or what its magnitude is.

Finally, I want to address this "self-serving" rubbish. To some degree, we all represent our self-interests. I have a bias towards Free Culture (what Larry Lessig spouts, and essentially what Creative Commons tries to bring about) and FOSS; I readily admit it. However, that does not mean that I consciously try to slant everything I say in favor of those ideals. I spend much more time introspecting than writing, trying to avoid being seen as some kind of shill or other such derogatory label. So if I sound too "self-serving", then let it be known that it is not my wish to be seen thus.

I meant "self-serving" only with respect to being in service of one side of the point in debate. Self-justifying definitions are always suspect. Thus, software and music become "information" rather than "products" because, of course, information wants to be free. Anyone who accepts this definition has to be willing to call into question the whole notion of whether anyone who ever creates an intangible value has property rights in it. You and I would probably agree that property rights have been strengthened too much in some cases (you allude to the lengthening of copyright). I don't think you can say that of software.

It's sensible to maintain that perhaps software is impossible to protect (i.e. make tangible) without making it unusable, and that creators of software should find a way to live within that model. It may be sensible to say the same thing about the music business. It's not, however, at least in my view, sensible to base that argument on the current fact that software is easily stolen, and from there reason that it has low inherent value due to lack of scarcity. Software has a high cost of development, a low cost of manufacture, and an even lower (and shrinking) cost of distribution. At the first stage of the pipeline good software is very scarce. A high percentage of projects fail, and a high percentage of those that see release find no sizeable market. Ask any venture capitalist. If, having invested heavily and been improbably successful in finishing and finding a market for software, a vendor's product is then to be considered "common" because it happens to consist of bits that can be easily copied, then why should they take the risk?

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: stash
Volume license ("corp") keys have to be activated. There are no versions of Vista that don't require activation.

Stash, does that mean that brand-name (Dell, etc.) OEM versions will now require Activation, too? Or will there still be "BIOS-LOCKED" versions?

Yes, sorry. AFAIK, there will still be SLP'ed OEM installations that don't require activation.

 

[JonnyBlaze]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

yeah, and lesson is to make it cheaper, software pricing is artificially controlled: DVD is worth $1, ignoring value of content. While in other goods, such as cars, clothes, food cost of manufacturing is near retail price.

Price doesn't matter, it could be $5 per license and most people that are going to pirate it would still pirate it.

not true. id buy it if it were under $100.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

Originally posted by: Nothinman

yeah, and lesson is to make it cheaper, software pricing is artificially controlled: DVD is worth $1, ignoring value of content. While in other goods, such as cars, clothes, food cost of manufacturing is near retail price.

Price doesn't matter, it could be $5 per license and most people that are going to pirate it would still pirate it.

not true. id buy it if it were under $100.

Why do people continue to pirate music they can get for $0.99/song? The price isn't the issue for a lot of pirates.

 

[stash]

Why do people continue to pirate music they can get for $0.99/song? The price isn't the issue for a lot of pirates.

I don't know for sure, but one reason might be because the quality of music from online stores sucks. Why anyone would pay to download a low quality DRM'ed music file when you can get a much higher quality, usually non-DRM'ed CD is beyond me.

But I digress.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: stash
Why anyone would pay to download a low quality DRM'ed music file when you can get a much higher quality, usually non-DRM'ed CD is beyond me.

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: I feel like an old timer buying my music in the physical store, especially when the selection sucks so badly, but it still remains a far, far better deal than things like iTMS.

 

[htne]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

Originally posted by: Nothinman

yeah, and lesson is to make it cheaper, software pricing is artificially controlled: DVD is worth $1, ignoring value of content. While in other goods, such as cars, clothes, food cost of manufacturing is near retail price.

Price doesn't matter, it could be $5 per license and most people that are going to pirate it would still pirate it.

not true. id buy it if it were under $100.

With the cost of new computers being as low as it is today, $100 is too much for the OS. I would consider buying at the $50 level, but not at the $100 level.

 

[Nothinman]

With the cost of new computers being as low as it is today, $100 is too much for the OS. I would consider buying at the $50 level, but not at the $100 level.

When you buy a new computer the cost of the OS is factored in by the OEM, you shouldn't be buying any licenses on your own at that point.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
You and I will have to disagree on your notion of a "natural" means of distribution for software. What you're essentially saying is that since it always has been easily copyable and transferrable any technological attempt to change the status quo is somehow abhorent.

Not abhorant (that's not a direct opposite of natural), just very impractical.

And because the status quo has been that it is easily copyable, therefore scarcity is low, anyone can get it, and it has no value, or far less value that the people who create it might think it has. In your view, the customer gets to control the value of the software by taking it whenever they want to. If the company tries to prevent it, then they are fighting the natural laws of software distribution. If that's not self-serving, then I guess I misunderstand the phrase.

There's two ways to look at it.
1) In the short term, after the software has been written. In this view it is clearly counterproductive to limit the most practical methods of distribution. Supply is infinite, demand is not, therefore the price tends towards zero. Of course, I'm ignoring the concept of intellectual property and the fact that a monopoly can more or less tend to charge whatever they want. I tend to think that intellectual property is stupid when it gets in the way of the common good.

2) In the long term, taking into account that the developer needs money to make the next version of the software. This is clearly your perspective and obviously in this case it's appropriate to fix some sort of price for the software. I appreciate the fact that I have the quality of life I do today because our entire market system works like this. It's imperfect, to be sure, but the imperfections usually outweigh the pace of improvement. Sure, I'd like it if Intel would sell me a processor for no more than the manufacturing cost, but since it's utterly impractical to clone a processor (and through no added effort on Intel's part) I just buy a new one whenever I need an upgrade.

The same can't be said for the world of software. Software can be easily cloned and it has been demonstrated that it can be produced fairly well in an unrestricted manner. The only the only thing left to take care of, as far as I'm concerned, is to make sure some of the added wealth that I now have because of the software gets distributed back to the people who need it to keep on developing. That's why I try to buy openbsd cds. I've got no problem with you following the proprietary model and I certainly use proprietary software too, I just find it uninteresting.

If I create a piece of software is it not, in your view, my property?

Interesting question. My gut reaction is "no" but that's probably because I've been hanging around the open source community for long enough. Not that I care what you do with it, but if it was me, I'd feel bad for not sharing it (assuming anybody wanted it ).

I also don't like it when people steal stuff that other people have made. That's bad. If someone wants to argue that those rules can't apply to intangible goods then they have an uphill battle, anywhere other than here I suppose .

Again, I don't like stealing either. Imagine if all radios came with little meters that counted the time you listened to each station, phoned it home and you got a bill in the mail. It's dead simple to make your own, but that would be illegal. There's a good reason it doesn't work like this. Some stuff is practical to sell, some stuff isn't. (I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but I think we've reached the point where we're not really arguing about anything anymore...).