Even when I'm a supporter of Free Software, and I develop myself, and I also support Free Culture and Net Neutrality, I think the new FSF campaign is almost borderline ridiculous. There are only three points that are "allright", all the others are essentially RMS's version of FUD.
Education: one of the good points, but twhat RMS has to understand is that
this is not M$'s fault! They provide their products for education in the same way everyone else does, only, have to say, with some backhand paycheck maneuvers like what happened in Nigeria and Guatemala. But it's not their problem if the average person in this planet is
so stupid that because they have been working with "Office", they are completely incapable of using another application, and when presented with a choice they cower in fear and start complaining about everything. They're
humans. I concur, however, that if M$ is going to try and blatantly drive people to their products at such young age as 8,
governments should take adequate measure. People should be taught "Ofimatic Systems", not "Microsoft Office", in the same way they should be taught "Graphic Design", not "Photoshop". Most people "know what Windows is" because they are taught
from childhood henceforth generating social dependance upon the company's products.
DRM: There is a (really big) ethical difference between wanting to "tamper" with a product and wanting to "make use" of a product. See: the Kindle erasure controversy, Google Books controversy. Although I do think the focus is pretty misguided here: When compared to other companies, Microsoft's DRM is soft, easily crackeable and not exactly counterproductive, so the ones to be called out on this should be companies like Sony, Amazon and Apple. The issue is, you buy a computer device (be it a PC or a Kindle) to
make use of data (a spreadsheet or book), so once you have acquired the data, you shouldn't be prevented from using the device to do
what it is intended to do by principle. Even more when you have acquired the content legally, yet you are forcefully restricted.
See also:
"Steal This Comic" (or "how to acquire a listenable music collection").
Security: This one should be more a talk about corporate interest that it is about security. Granted other OSes are more secure by design, but they're still vulnerable to the same
procedure of attack. The issue is far from under M$'s control (or fault). I agree with previous posters here. It would be interesting to see an actual attack battery against the three new version of the OSes (Win7, Linux 2.6.30, OSX "Snow Leopard").
Monopoly: Again, this is simply talking about corporate interest. Nothing new here. IMHO this point was completely wasted. 非常に高いレベル, the HW requirements are only the easiest vendor lock-in to apply, but there are other hidden strategies (that, again, were misguidedly pondered here). See also: Chilean Citizen Records Granted to Microsoft controversy.
Standards: Another very correct point, but, just like DRM, essentially misguided. It is true that M$ has an history of bribing their way to victory, but that can be expected of any big company, even Google, and when compared to other "standard pushes", MSOXML hasn't been much of a problem. The real problem lies in closed standards that have been pushed in the same way as Flash was, that is: limiting the means to generate content.
Lock-in:
(quote by 非常に高いレベル)Explain. Please. Proof. Please.
(End quote) Let's talk about M$'s so called "***X" formats (docx, pptx, etcx) which force update or piracy on the users who are made to unwillingly receive such new documents. Not only they were pushed to be incompatible with other, XML-valid document formats (see Standards) but were also made incompatible with its natural predecessor by design.
Extend: Let's offer a new format for document storage, comparing its abilities to a preexistent similar model to show ours as "compatible", so that everyone will want.
Embrace: let's push this standard as a defacto utility for content generation, but hide key points in usability and data access to our own delight.
Extinguish: make use of design backdoors to deny usability to anyone else who tries to implement the standard and preemptively enforce our control over the standard. See also: .NET Framework dependance, Mono patents controversy, Internet Explorer and "quirks mode" engine, ActiveX. You seriously need to learn look for sources.
Privacy: The other Good Point. Don't cmistake "want to tamper" with "want to report". You say users "don't have to" install WGA, failing to reconsider what has been stated in the "Lock In" section. Users
won't know. A system that will take commands from a central agency about how to obey the user eminently threatens user privacy and security because it implies that both the central agency and the content distributor have to be implicitly trusted with whatever
process by which they want to extract the information. Under M$'s model, there is no guarantee that the encrypted e-mail you have stored in "your" machine has not been pre-processed by Microsoft or any of their partner agencies. See also: the history of DES and the FBI, Google Mail Security, the old (pre-2005) MSN/Hotmail EULA.
All in all, the idea is good, but requires far more work. And some anti-fanatic checks.
