Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 4th May 2012 18:16 UTC
While it's technically a regression, and while it will surely make those of us who remember having to install DVD support on Linux from third-party repositories smile, it's still a major change and a sign of things to come: Windows 8 will ship without support for DVD and Blu-ray playback.
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Member since:2011-05-19
Indeed, in these cases, the OEM was paying the DVD licenses *twice*. First through Microsoft, and then through the third-party DVD playback software.
Reading between the lines of the Microsoft blog post, it looks like they proposed several alternative licensing models to the DVD patent pool -- and gotten turned down. They can't pay the license only when Windows is installed on machines with a DVD drive. They can't pay the license only when a DVD is played back for the first time. They can't pay the license only when other DVD playback software isn't installed.
The only way to avoid paying the license is to strip out the functionality entirely. Which they did.
Member since:
2005-07-12
Oddly enough, a large number of new Windows 7 PCs come with third-party DVD software, so I think the majority of users won't even notice.