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Adobe adopts product activation | |
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| Time: 16:01 EST/21:01 GMT | News Source: Globe News | Posted By: Brian Kvalheim | ||
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Adobe Systems Inc. has completed tests on product activation, and plans to roll out the technology soon. Microsoft quietly introduced product activation — a method of registering software so that it cannot be installed on more than one machine — in 2001, with the second service pack for Microsoft Office 2000. It has since been included in Office XP as well as Windows XP. | ||
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| #1 By 2332 (216.41.45.78) at 8/8/2003 4:19:36 PM |
| Let me preempt the people who are going to bitch and whine about this. If you hate activation so much, it's probably because you pirate the software. In which case, keep your mouth shut. |
| #2 By 37 (66.82.20.150) at 8/8/2003 4:24:53 PM |
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Well said RMD!
I always have said, don't like it? Don't use it! |
| #3 By 16797 (65.48.179.35) at 8/8/2003 4:28:54 PM |
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"Microsoft quietly introduced product activation" ???
Quietly? It was all over the Net for months. You want something for free? Well use Linux, FreeBSD, etc. |
| #4 By 37 (66.82.20.150) at 8/8/2003 4:55:48 PM |
| Sounds like biobob just fell off the turnip truck ;-) |
| #5 By 6859 (206.156.242.36) at 8/8/2003 5:01:49 PM |
| He's a clueless Canadian, that's his problem. |
| #6 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 8/8/2003 5:25:56 PM |
| Well, as long as they don't resort to the dreaded dongle, I'm satisfied. And as long as they offer an activation-free method for those of us that have lots of machines on which to install their software... like with the volume license Microsoft software. Installation over a network couldn't be much easier than with Office XP (using custom transforms) and Windows XP... and the maintenance thereafter, either. |
| #7 By 2459 (69.22.78.116) at 8/8/2003 5:31:52 PM |
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#6 Activation helps stop piracy among those that don't care to search the net for cracks or have the bandwidth to bother downloading illegal versions of software.
MS never targeted activation at stopping hardcore pirates. It was implemented to curb casual copying/distribution largely among consumers that didn't know they were wrong to install single-licensed software on multiple computers or share it with friends/family members. Many of these people would rather stay legal given the choice. In any case, activation simply enforces the license issued with the product. If it's considered a hassle (which is a stretch in MS' case), you have the pirates to thank for the added technology. If they'd cease their illegal behavior, activation may not go away in all cases, but the technology may not evolve much further beyond that as far as the general consumer market. As long as they continue to steal, companies will continue to evolve the technology to stem the flow of financial losses and stay in business. |
| #8 By 2459 (69.22.78.116) at 8/8/2003 6:37:27 PM |
| #13 Depending on how often you reconfigure the machine, you may not have to activate at all. You have 30-days before you must activate. |
| #9 By 2459 (69.22.78.116) at 8/8/2003 6:53:28 PM |
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#16
m00zilla said, "I reconfigure my vmware setup all the time to do testing..." The words, "all the time", suggest frequent reconfiguration. If his reconfiguration is frequent enough that it falls within the grace period, he won't have to activate at all. This is not a normal user scenario and I didn't suggest it was one. Please think of the many ways people use systems before posting "witty" retorts. RE: People that reinstall every 29 days Ever hear of beta testing? This post was edited by n4cer on Friday, August 08, 2003 at 18:55. |
| #10 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 8/8/2003 6:57:32 PM |
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biobob, there's also some that think those folks are wasting their lives by getting off on cracking XBox, etc. to massage their fragile ego or mental inferiority complex. If they only had put that energy towards something useful.... At the end of their days I'm sure they'll be so glad they had spent countless hours of their lives cracking copy-protection methods of now-ancient software. The corporations don't care... they're not targetting them in the first place.
By your vocal rebuttal, I guess #1 was all too accurate. Why you're defending pirating, I don't know. |
| #11 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 8/8/2003 6:57:36 PM |
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biobob - Odd, I had a cracked version of XP three weeks prior to release. Why were you so far behind the times?
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| #12 By 2332 (65.221.182.2) at 8/9/2003 3:48:19 AM |
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Windows product activation, to the best of my knowledge, has never been cracked.
The "0 day" warez releases were not cracked copies of XP, but instead simply the corporate editions that didn't have activation to begin with. There were many cracks released to the net, but none of them worked, any many of them were actually trojan horses. At any rate, Microsoft did not target crackers/warez channel addicts with activation. They targeted your buddy next door who is happy to lend you his XP cd. The vast majority of piracy takes place through physical hand offs of the media. Don't copy that floppy! :-) |
| #13 By 931 (66.180.122.62) at 8/9/2003 4:38:49 AM |
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Personally I think #24 raised valid issues.
My biggest pet peive is simply that I sh*t happens and things go wrong.. and that last thing I want to have to deal with at 3am when I'm in the middle of some upgrade, build out, etc is dealing with some product activation snafu on some older product I might be re-installing. Yes VLK type situation get rid of most of this, however like someone did point out even if you use a vlk it's not impossible for something to go wrong and cause you a mini nightmare.. If I have the choice between software that requires activation and software that does not I'll purchase the non-activate type even it's it not quite as good, just to avoid the potential headaches. The companies are not evil for using activation I mean we all know that, my issue is that it's not always the painless proceedure it 'sold' to us as and like someone mentioned what happens 7 years from now when I want to re-activate my copy of windows2003 for some reason..will the activation servers still be online? will we even be using http at that point..lol? Yes it's unlikley.. But you know in the 70's nobody though some of the old mainframe software would still be running in the year 2000.. ahh.. what ever were all just babbling in circles anyway :) |
| #14 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 8/9/2003 12:38:14 PM |
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That's true about an issue in 2013 if you want to activate 2003 Server... but my guess is if you are installing 2003 already, you are probably not going to be installing 2003 in 2013.
However, who is to blame here? Is it the companies, or the pirates? Who caused this to happen? At whom should we be mad? Product Activation isn't perfect, but I'll take it over dongles or hash/decoder systems (anyone use Sibelius?). It may cause an inconvenience for a few, but as we all know, the predicted difficulties that were discussed ad nauseam before Windows or Office XP were released were greatly overhyped. The great majority of folks have had little issue with it. For those of you that have a better idea, why not send it to mswish? I don't think they're excited that people are considering other products because of Product Activation, but there are pirates (casual and otherwise) out there who have made it a necessity. I don't think they put it in there for fun. Also, KnightHawk--have you ever had a problem with a VLK? The situation mentioned earlier was just an idea that someone could potentially use the RPC bug to create a worm to force product activation on VLKs, not an actual exploit. I've never had an issue with VLKs myself, nor have I personally heard of anyone having issues.... |
| #15 By 61 (24.92.223.112) at 8/9/2003 2:01:32 PM |
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JWM: So just because there is little competition in the desktop OS market Microsoft is overcharging?
That's BS. You can't just say that they are overcharing, you have to have proof, which there is none of. Windows has been the same price since before Win95, before they had a 'grasp' on the market. |
| #16 By 5912 (217.121.189.8) at 8/9/2003 2:16:46 PM |
| You can argue about the use of product activation all you like, but one thing remains a fact: it's not practical for the consumer by any means! I prefer my software without PA and that's for instance why I have chosen OpenOffice over Office XP. Any future decisions on new software will follow the same path. |
| #17 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 8/9/2003 2:32:10 PM |
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I just bought a 3 Ghz P4. It's a great machine. I formatted the HD and installed Windows 3.0 on it. Then out of sheer delight, whipped out my seven 5.25 inch floppies and installed WordPerfect 5.1. Thank goodness there was no product activation!
How rediculous a scenario! In ten years, I highly doubt anyone will install the same apps they are installing today. If they need to install an app, so they can read some document, more than likely the grace period will be sufficient to open the docs and convert them to a more current format. With regard to applications and not OSes, I think the more difficult issue in ten years will be finding an operating system to run your decade old app. |
| #18 By 2539 (24.141.47.37) at 8/9/2003 6:42:34 PM |
| Once it's no longer a competitive advantage, I'd guess MS will include activation APIs in the OS and most apps will use it. And activation will probably be a far less intrusive process (like DRM), where it works if you're entitled and it doesn't if you're not. |
| #19 By 135 (208.186.90.91) at 8/10/2003 1:43:33 AM |
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511pf - "What if the IRS wants my tax return ten years from now, and I don't have a paper copy?"
If you don't have a paper copy, you are an idiot. This question is pure FUD. I'm not saying that I like product activation, but let's get real, shall we? |
| #20 By 3653 (209.149.57.116) at 8/10/2003 3:54:48 AM |
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rather than have product activation, perhaps you all had rather have all your apps HOSTED. No, you dont want that either do you? Because you are thiefs and thiefs like to steal. They also hate any system that works against that practice.
Do you realize that if the software industry can recover just 1% of the money lost each year to piracy... that alone makes it a banner year. I cant blame them for trying to protect their assets. I lock the front door of my house for the same reason. And when I come home, I wish I could just walk right in, but I can't. Instead, I have to unlock the door. What a pain. So inconvenient. You see, its the very same arguments that you all use against product activation. Practice what you preach... by not locking your frontdoor from now on. Until then... you are a hypocrite. This post was edited by mooresa56 on Sunday, August 10, 2003 at 03:55. |
| #21 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 8/10/2003 2:58:42 PM |
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Rogee, there is a difference between not constantly upgrading and not upgrading. There are many applications today that wouldn't even fit on the HD's of the computers of 10 years ago. I doubt there are too many desktops out there still running 16-bit Windows. The server, of course, is a slightly different issue, but even Adobe isn't making server products which require activation.
Here's an idea. Has Microsoft made any statements on what will happen when its products requiring activation become unsupported? Why don't we find out from the horse's mouth what will happen at that time, rather than take a "the sky will fall" approach? |
| #22 By 135 (208.186.90.91) at 8/10/2003 7:36:31 PM |
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-X- - "Rather nice discussion until I saw the 'you are an idiot' remark. I guess that's one way to show your point of view. "
You prefer FUD as a way of showing your point of view? Hmm, at least I'm being honest. |
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