[opendtv] Re: Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media Center Play By?

First, the broadcast flag has nothing to do with what happened.

If your argument is that in order to make nice with the studios (for
whatever reason), MS products need to take a maximal-copyright view on the
world, that may be true -- but it doesn't mean that they don't have a
choice.

As to politics-to-work ratio, I'd say this is just another application of
the 80/20 rule.  I suggest, however, that which end of the ratio is politics
depends on your level in the organization (but, I also suggest that both
aren't unique to MSFT)

-----Original Message-----
From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Kon Wilms
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2008 4:11 PM
To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [opendtv] Re: Microsoft's Masters: Whose Rules Does Your Media
Center Play By?

On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 7:49 AM, Adam Goldberg <adam_g@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Richard: "Technically respecting the "broadcast flag" is illegal."
> Kon: "They actually have no choice in the matter ..."
>
> WTF?

Don't get your panties in a twist.

MS has been badgered by the studios for quite a while now. MS-DRM
getting hacked a few times gave them a black eye that will take years
of politics to recover from (if ever). Their only choice going forward
is to appease the studios wherever possible (why do I feel like I am
repeating myself). If you believe they have choice in the matter with
anything concerning content decode from studios or providers on media
center then you are only fooling yourself.

I have friends that have left MS due to the fact that the development
environment is 90% politics and 10% 'work'. Furthermore, ask yourself
this, going on previous experience with MS ineptitude WRT broadcast
standards - is it easier for the developer to write a parser to check
for a flag, or just blindly assume the flag exists everywhere and kill
two birds with one stone and zero development effort.

If you think the customer is the first thing on the radar then you are
fooling yourself. And I say that having worked at content protection
corporations. The customer is an 'annoyance' at best.

And to anyone saying 'I will never buy a PC with Vista preinstalled'..
well cry me a river and get in line behind the Win95, XP, and 2k
supporters who fell by the wayside. Resistance is futile.

Cheers
Kon
 
 
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