No, the value in a case like this is determined from the retail price from the item in question, the item in question was a Dell recovery disk, with a retail value of $25. The ISO download provided directly for free by Microsoft is not the same thing that was being counterfeited here.
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Seems like it. There’s an interesting if slightly dated discussion here (not sure if the same applies to Windows 10):
Oh, of course it is complicated.
I wonder how soon it will be before Windows offers a subscription license? Of course that isn’t going to solve any problems for a lot of users that never had to deal with the license issues.
Anyway, package dependencies from the distributor usually handle that.
It’s not necessarily just libraries, but yes the distributor handles that. Often poorly. Same story with Windows, although with .Net they finally have a model which is hard to abuse too much. (Some still manage)
For example, I recall a time where I wanted some software. Downloaded the tarball, make install, and huh! Some obscure error message. Missing dependency. To get that dependency I have to track down some other dependency, which I have to compile which doesn’t work because something else, eventually needing a kernel module OH OK, SURE WHY NOT.
Every single time, it’s just a matter of time until I end up in some sort of clusterfuck like this. Goes great for a while!
With Windows at least, there’s billions of people who have run into just about every situation ever and started a forum thread on it. Also (and maybe this is true of linux distros and I’m just not aware), Windows logs everything. If you can’t get to the bottom of some obscure error message, chances are there’s another logfile you can track down to shed light on it.
I see you’re not contesting this point 
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I see you’re not contesting this point
Hah, well, I didn’t think it was worth saying much about it, because documentation varies so widely and I don’t have much experience with it. Apache’s documentation is pretty good?
Legal issues aside, this was a terrible idea. Windows XP machines are insecure out of the box and unpatchable. The dude would just have been handing out pre-compromised boxes.
Whenever I do work on older hardware, I’ll put something like Lubuntu on it. I know it doesn’t have the compatibility or polish of Windows, but it’s the only responsible way to repurpose the hardware.
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Man, I wrestle with Windows logs all the time, having centralized them in a Logstash install. Somehow it manages to log everything and nothing at the same time. Everything drowns in irrelevancy and it’s sometimes impossible to tell what’s going on in the flood. I find Linux logs generally easier to deal with.
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Different strokes I guess. I quite like the verbosity of the windows logs; makes it less likely they are going to be missing that little tidbit which illuminates an issue.
Yeah. I think being a volunteer created ecosystem leads to a lot of software which is knocked together by a dev or two, and often not well documented. (Because code documents itself, right?) Windows has this problem too, but having so much more of the ecosystem written by a company making a paid product, it just seems like it’s better. Windows API is meticulously documented, for example. (Azure cloud API… could use a lot of work)
We used to say “all interfaces are learned, except the nipple”. But then I had kids, and now I know that “all interfaces are learned”.
If it’s not someone’s job to learn interfaces, they should use the one they already know how to create value with. I don’t expect a carpenter to understand which hammer is objectively best, I expect him to use the hammer in his hand to deliver excellent carpentry.
That being said, if you want to be a computer expert, you’re going to need to be able to harness the power of FOSS POSIX systems. Nothing else can deliver the bang for the buck that a custom compiled linux kernel can, and no closed source system can deliver security like an auditable system can.
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Completely agree. Hence why I mostly only touch Linux for work related projects, and if for some reason I need to do some security stuff. (Like borrow my neighbor’s internet…)
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Yeah. And that would make it a trademark case, not a copyright case.
XP should be abandonware by now.
I’m surprised old computers can be econonically refurbished as hard drives fail (and you can’t use newer ones cause they’re too big for the BIOS) also electrolytic capacitors will be well past their lifetime. I used to get updates on XP (util my hard drive failed) by changing registry entries to make it seem like my computer was an ATM.
Only 15 months! Not 15 years.
I agree with you in most particulars: If MS makes these images available for free download directly to users, that’s their prerogative: still their bits under copyright, they can offer the bits directly to end-users if they want.
That doesn’t mean that I can turn around and distribute copies those bits as I see fit. If I have a physical copy of the bits (on CD, in printouts, in microfiche, whatever), that I bought from a legit seller, I have right of first sale to pass along my one copy, but that’s as far as that goes. I don’t have the right to redistribute arbitrary copies of those bits at any price – $3000, $25, or $0 – except under explicit license from the copyright holder. Whether or not my plan is part of a larger business venture, in fact! (On this point we disagree; I feel like the commercial nature of his distribution doesn’t matter to the original copyright issue. It only might matter in determining if the copying somehow falls under a fair-use exception – unlikely – or perhaps in the damages phase of a civil trial.)
It’s bad that MS is sending people to jail over this, of course. 
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This is the interesting thing about the GNU GPL – receiving a copy of source code inherently gives you the right to redistribute the source. Or receiving bits derived from the source code inherently gives you the right to access the original source and to redistribute it. Last I heard, though, Windows is not GPL software.
No kidding. It’s a veritable preassembled botnet kit, just add bots.
Like all greedy monopolists, Microsoft wants reality to be whatever they say it is.
Something like 99% of all windows licenses are OEM licenses, which MS treats as wedded to the hardware - each OEM activation key can only be used once, and if you change the motherboard the activation is lost and you have to jump through hoops on their phone line to get your activation back. However, if that OEM hardware is ever refurbished, they want to force the refurbisher to buy another activation key. Because nothing spells unconscionable profits like forcing your customers to buy the same thing from you multiple times over for no valid reason.
So is the OEM licence linked to the owner or to the machine? Both. Neither. Whatever answer makes Microsoft more money at that moment in time.
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Totally agreed: this part is way shady
Sigh. Read the article. What MS was claiming was worth $25 was a disk with a key. The travesty of justice is that Lundgren is going to jail for selling disks without keys because an evil monopolistic multinational corporation pulled a fast one and convinced the judge that a disk with a key is the same as a disk without a key.
The key is valuable. The disk by itself, is worth nothing.
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In which case the new owner will be disgruntled when they discover that the OS on the machine will not run the software they own and want to use.
My solution: I buy a “scrap PC” key from ebay sellers in the EU for $5-10. These are keys for Windows 7, 8, sometimes 10, harvested from stickers on recycled computers. The computers were owned by corporations that never used the key on the sticker (because they had a site license), so the key on the sticker is still valid and activates with no trouble.
A $40 SSD solves the hard drive problem, and makes an older system feel new-ish. Bad capacitors were only an issue for some brands (including Apple, sadly) for a few years, then the manufacturers got wise and stopped buying cheap knockoff capacitors (and apple went all in on solid state capacitors which do not go bad). Some brands never cheaped out on capacitors in the first place and never had that problem.
Refurbing an old desktop is not a good money making proposition (the market is flooded with off lease corporate desktops), but it is a money saving proposition for friends or relatives who cannot afford a new PC.
Refurbing certain old laptops (examples that I know of: Apples, some Thinkpads) can be a good money making proposition. The difference between a laptop without a hard drive/battery/charger and one with can be a couple hundred dollars, more than enough to cover the cost of a new drive, charger, battery, and (if applicable) a Windows key.
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Hmm, makes me wonder what the other organs are.
My best guesses:
- Facebook = Lungs
- Google = Stomach
- Twitter = Skin
- Comcast = Tapeworm
(Honorable mention, but nowhere near as evil: Pornhub = Genitals)
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You’re missing my point. It’s not that there’s no legal/practical way to run Windows on older hardware, it’s that there’s no secure way to do it. A Windows XP computer on the modern Internet is a threat to its users and to others.
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