I followed the link below and was stunned to see waht M$ has up their sleeve. If they actually make such a thing it will be the end of any open source or freeware software. I'm pretty sure it will never fly and I hope M$ knows that. Well, just wanted to forward it so people can read it.http://forum.deviantart.com/593007Cheers,http://turnhead.com/dot/alex/banner-retro-cool.gif

ANY confirmation from RELIABLE sources, like Microsoft themselves (daddy, he dared say the M word!).Sounds like just more scaremongering and anti-Microsoft (mummy, he did it again!) sentiment building in a decidedly anti-Microsoft (oh no, not again!) group.

:-lol Haha, I like that M-word thing. :-lolI agree, any confiramation would in fact be good. Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.http://turnhead.com/dot/alex/banner-retro-cool.gif

Sure, although the report is a bit wobbly, they got a lot of the parts right. Building Digital Right Management right into the OS is something that will happen for sure. Just look at MediaPlayer, it has all that included, it is just not used very much. Just like RealPlayer has it included etc... Like I say, nothing new there.In hardware will be a bit more tricky but DVD players now have DRM chips installed, nothing new there as well.And you know, you'll want it as well because it is the only way to get good and legal content out to customers. And that is what you and I and the rest of the civilized world want. I'm not blaming anybody for trying to make the use of illegal files difficult. And it is not MS in this case alone, it's the complete industry except for the Linux folks who still believe that we should depend on the goodnes of people. I always wonder if they ever lock their doors at home.Mathijs

There is nothing to steal from penguins.. :-lol :-lol :-outta Francois :-wave

Too true.DRM is the way forward. Expect ever more products to be available only on a lease basis. X uses and it locks until you pay again (or at least verify your identity with data stored somewhere).In the end, it may turn out to be cheaper for people who have a lot of applications they use only rarely. They'll be able to purchase a small number of uses for a price less than what the application costs on full purchase now, whereas people who use them a lot pay the full price (or maybe a bit less because the losses due to piracy decrease) but have to face a minor inconvenience of having to identify themselves as legal users maybe once a month.The strange thing about Linux users is that they're extremely paranoid. They often as not will have multiple locks on everything, they're the ones using encrypted email to arrange a weekend outing with the family because they don't want "the government" to listen in.They don't believe there is no piracy, but they believe that if only all money is eliminated from the software industry the world will be a happy hightech place (what all those software engineers, support people, tech writers, etc. will do to earn the money needed to live never seems to enter the equation).In a world where all software is available free of charge for everyone, there can be no piracy (who'd buy something he can get free, and who'd try to sell something noone would buy because it's free).

Was going to post a comment but on second thoughts I'll keep my mouth shut, don't want to start a flame war.

Software engineer is an oxymoron.