[ Thanks to David for this link.
]
“Microsoft’s Product Activation technology has triggered a
row in the company’s official Whistler beta newsgroups, with
testers threatening defection to Linux or piracy over the
matter. The irate testers – who, as far as we know, haven’t
actually been hit by a real live Product Activation Whistler build
yet – seem to have been sent further up the wall by the
intervention of a Microserf, who referred them to a couple of FAQs
on the site.”
“Laptop and/or multiple computer use is quite probably going to
be one of the really big irritants of Product Activation. Whatever
the EULA actually says (does anyone, apart from poor, dumb
journalists and lawyers, read it?) most people think it’s perfectly
reasonable and morally just for them to be able to install the
software on as many computers as they like provided they only use
one of them at a time. The desktop-laptop combo is the absolute
minimum here, and if/when this is physically blocked by Product
Activation, people really will start shouting Linux and pirate
copies.”
“Curiously, the final FAQ in one of the Microsoft documents
isn’t a Q that you’d think was being that F Aed right now: Has
Product Activation got anything to do with Microsoft.NET? Here’s
the answer, which we think boils down to Yes…”