Vista is here, and it is bringing with it a deep and presumably long-lasting entrenchment of DRM in all our computing devices. Peter Gutmann has written a very interesting business cost analysis of Vista's DRM support. My favorite quote from the Final Thoughts: "The only reason I can imagine why Microsoft would put its programmers, device vendors, third-party developers, and ultimately its customers, through this much pain is because once this copy protection is entrenched, Microsoft will completely own the distribution channel."There is a lot to hate about Vista's "content protection", such as Microsoft's ability to revoke a driver if they think it is leaking premium, protected content. So you and your 2007 Vista-compatible video card are humming merrily along, and in 2008 some clever high school student figures out a hack to record premium content with that card. Microsoft revokes the driver, and until the manufacturer updates it, you're looking at a blank screen (at least where premium content is concerned). And the manufacturer is sure going to have lots of incentive to revisit old drivers when instead they can make you buy new hardware...
I remember a time when Microsoft claimed their development was driven by the needs of the consumer.
(Image is from the previously recommended xkcd web comic.)
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