Microsofts SNAFU

This weekend, the blogosphere was aflame with reports of Microsofts Genuine Advantage Servers crashing. And on a Bank Holiday weekend, no less.

The Windows Genuine Advantage(WGA) servers are what your Windows XP or Vista installation 'phones home' to in order to verify that you are not using a pirated copy...if the servers think you are, there are various restrictions and warnings placed on your account. All most unpleasant, I'm told, although as a Mac/Linux user I am unbearably smug about such things.

BoingBoing threw petrol onto the fire initially, and when the WGA manager replied to say he couldn't give a time for a fix, why, it seemed to some people like this was the death knell for Microsoft. Treating paying customers like thieves? An outrage!

But of course, the eventual toll of computers affected was a measly 12,000, fiery death was averted for all Windows users and, really, the world kept turning. (The problem was fixed the day it arose in the end).

Now, I'm generally a great big freetard. So why do I seem so nonchalant about M$'s incompetence this weekend. Firstly, it's because I feel sorry for whichever lowly sysadmin was roused form his bed to deal with this (it most certainly wasn't the manager who was busy spinning everything). But mainly, it's because this doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to me, or any of the other alternative OS users out there, because we weren't affected. It doesn't matter to most M$ users; they are used to getting roundly sodomised by the company at every turn of the road, so what does it matter if they get accused of IP infringement as well.

And of course, it matters least of all to the actual pirates . Because they have never even bothered with WGA in the first place. Just like the pirated movies available on Bittorrent, a lot of pirated copies of Windows lack WGA features, have them disabled, or spoof the connection.

When will companies learn that the way to deal with piracy is not to overwhelm your paying customers with accusations, guilt and inconvenience, but to treat them with respect, honesty and listen to them. And stop gouging them for every single penny the honest market will support in order to subsidise losses through piracy: $400 dollars is not good value for your new operating system, Bill; Steve can sell his for $130 without any problems, and his company is a lot smaller than yours...And has a lot less problems with piracy.

In summation; I only infringe your IP because you treat me like dirt, overcharge me and continue to be suspicious. Get on the ClueTrain!