OfB is reporting that, contrary to widely-published and discussed rumors, Apple is not including the controversial Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip in its Intel-based Macs. An anonymous registered Apple developer claims that the Apple x86 test boxes do not have DRM or TCPA components. Developers are forbidden from discussing the units by the nondisclosure agreements they've signed with Apple. so they've been unable to counter the rumors.
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Member since:Those scenerios sound scary and all, but guess what:
If vendors are controlling computers like that, people won't buy them.
The question is, why would you allow your vendor to build that technology into their computers - and full support for it in their operating systems - in the first place? Why hand them a loaded gun? Especially when other technologies exist which meet their needs equally well, without the potential danger.
If they try it, the free market will kick and, and some bright entrepenuer will sell a computer free of such control.
Several problems with this. First, the free market is great, and the best system we have, but it is far from perfect. Look at Microsoft - government bodies have ruled on multiple continents that they not only have monopoly power but have abused it, twisting the free market. Yet those same government bodies have, ultimately, been powerless to do anything to change that. I don't want to turn this into a big Microsoft debate here, but those are facts.
Second, for that to work you have to believe that the market is rational - that when the frog's water finally boils, people will understand and react appropriately. I'm not sure they will. Apple is building this technology into their future machines, with only our faith in the company to lead us to believe they (or associated vendors) won't fire that loaded gun. And nobody seems to care. Reactions in these threads range from "good idea" to "only criminals should care." Where do you think the bright red line is, if it's not to be drawn at building the capability for and possibility of abuse right into the hardware and operating system? In 1999, when Intel tried to introduce the PID, it was front page news on CNN.com. Where have you heard a peep about this aside from insular websites like OSNews or Slashdot? If the respect for civil liberties and privacy and worry about the potential for abuse has sunk SO low even among techies who should know better, what makes you think the mainstream is going to give a damn?
Please take the spooky stories and conspiracy theories back to the alien sightings forums.
The only conspiracy theory here is yours - the idea that somehow computer companies are going to build this technology into their hardware and operating systems, with public interfaces... and then somehow, magically, nobody is ever going to use it.
Apple doesn't need this technology for either DRM or locking Mac OS X to their hardware. The technology they have chosen can be used for good or evil, but is rife for abuse on a level never before seen in the personal computing industry. So why should we accept having it designed into our Macs? The onus is on Apple, and apologists like yourself, to explain that.
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Member since:2005-06-29
"If vendors are controlling computers like that, people won't buy them. If they try it, the free market will kick and, and some bright entrepenuer will sell a computer free of such control."
What if people don't know any better; Be inc. presented a very good OS, one that was far more advanced than Windows was at the time but becasue it had a monopoly there weren't enough people who knew this to make a difference.
You example sounds like common sense, but the truth is you're putting far too much faith in the average Joe Sixpack who makes up a very large percentage of the computer market. Those of us who know better just don't make up a large enough percentage of computer consumers to really affect the markets imo. I think the only way we are going to get DRM free computers later on is with custom built machines, and that's if DRM doesn't become a legal requirement thanks to twisted politics in several countries, not just the US.
Member since:2005-07-06
Be was never a mainstream OS. It was a half-finished developer OS that never even put in the effort to build a strong ISV community. And no OS without ISVs is going to be a successful mainstream OS.
While Microsoft certainly is the OS monopoly, it does not change the truth that Be was just a well-funded research lab. The company produced an interesting operating system with some innovative ideas and technologies but never got to the point of producing a strong mainstream OS offering.
Even if Microsoft had allowed OEMs to bundle BeOS, there would be basically little to no software for the end-user to run on BeOS. The whole thing was dead before it began.
And it certainly didn't help that Gassee drank from the PowerPC koolaid and pissed away years of development time. If BeOS had been focused on the mainstream OS market, they would have never done all that work with BeBox and PowerPC. That stuff was always a dead end.
I've still got a bunch of BeOS stuff and it was a good development OS. Certainly a lot better than Linux. Sadly the company suffering from bad strategy and bad timing. Otherwise it might have made a difference and its fate been something a bit more glorious.
Member since:
Those scenerios sound scary and all, but guess what:
If vendors are controlling computers like that, people won't buy them. If they try it, the free market will kick and, and some bright entrepenuer will sell a computer free of such control. Furthermore, US government collaboration as described above would *never* fly. Please take the spooky stories and conspiracy theories back to the alien sightings forums.