Getting SEV to work with linux

[AstralWanderer]

Imperator Fyron said:
Current machine upgrades have never been a big source of profit for MS. Most of their OS sales come from licenses on brand new PCs.

While you are correct to point out that the majority of Windows sales come from new PCs (only 10% being retail according to this article), 10% of $13.2bn (Windows sales for 2006) can hardly be considered pocket change. Business users on volume licence programs are not included in that figure so the upgrade market could end up considerably larger.

Imperator Fyron said:Killing XP activation prematurely provides no financial benefit whatsoever to Microsoft. Nada, zilch.

Now this is hyperbole taken to an extreme. First of all, that 10% figure above is a significant benefit. Secondly, most families now already have a computer so even if they purchase a new one, they could still be affected by a forced upgrade for their older system.

Imperator Fyron said:Your quote from the FAQ even supports my point that MS wouldn't arbitrarily and prematurely stop activating new installations of XP... Again, the end of XP's lifecycle is at least 5 years after they stop selling licenses for it.

XP's lifecycle is whatever Microsoft chooses to make it, nothing more. That FAQ is worded in a way that allows them to drop XP activation tomorrow and that alone should be enough to cause concern. Product activation (and DRM generally) allows one side to set, change and enforce terms arbitrarily and while WPA isn't the most serious example, it is certainly capable of being used to consumers' disadvantage.