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The Windows 7 Sins campaign is over, but our work isn't finished. Tell Microsoft
to #UpcycleWindows7 and set it free.


Translations of this page


WINDOWS 7 SINS

With Windows 7, Microsoft is asserting legal control over your computer and is
using this power to abuse computer users.


WINDOWS 7 SINS: THE CASE AGAINST MICROSOFT AND PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE

The new version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, Windows 7, has the same
problem that Vista, XP, and all previous versions have had -- it's proprietary
software. Users are not permitted to share or modify the Windows software, or
examine how it works inside.

The fact that Windows 7 is proprietary means that Microsoft asserts legal
control over its users through a combination of copyrights, contracts, and
patents. Microsoft uses this power to abuse computer users. At windows7sins.org,
the Free Software Foundation lists seven examples of abuse committed by
Microsoft.

 * Education
 * DRM
 * Security
 * Monopoly
 * Standards
 * Lock In
 * Privacy


EDUCATION

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you
feed him for a lifetime."

Increasingly, computers are expected to be useful tools in our children's
education. But today, most children whose education involves computers are being
taught to use one company's product: Microsoft's — Microsoft spends large sums
of money on lobbyists and marketing to procure the support of educational
departments.


HOW PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE ATTACKS EDUCATION

Link to the 'Education' sin

The education of children represents a major revenue stream for Microsoft, and a
strategic opportunity to embed their products into the lives of future adults.
By enticing schools to teach their students using Windows and associated
software, Microsoft can also make parents feel obliged to provide the same
software at home. Where else do we see one corporation able to put their
marketing and corporate branded materials in front of children as requirements
in this way?

Many US states even boast about how they are cooperating with Microsoft, either
ignoring or not understanding the corrupting influence that accepting freebies
from this huge corporation has on their government. Because Microsoft's software
is proprietary, it is incompatible with education — users are simply passive
consumers in their interactions with Windows, they are legally forbidden from
adapting the software to solve a particular problem, or from satisfying an
intellectual curiosity by examining its source code. An education using the
power of computers should be a means to freedom and empowerment, not an avenue
for one corporation to instill its monopoly through indoctrination.

Free software, on the other hand, gives children a route to empowerment, by
encouraging them to explore and learn. Nowhere was the promise of an educational
platform using free software more significant than the One Laptop Per Child
(OLPC) project. Launched by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte in 2003, OLPC was
designed to lead children around the world to an advanced education using the
combination of information technology and freedom. The project aimed to produce
low-cost devices (starting with one called the XO) so that millions of children
could have access to them, and free software, so they would have the critical
freedoms to explore and share their software.

Then under pressure from Microsoft, Negroponte backed the project away from its
commitment to freedom and announced that the machine would also be a platform
for running the nonfree Windows XP operating system.

Microsoft is not the only threat to education — Adobe and Apple are both firmly
placed in education, even on Windows. Adobe's proprietary Flash and Shockwave
players and Apple's QuickTime and iTunes are widely used by educational
software.

Microsoft is now targeting governments who are purchasing XOs, in an attempt to
get them to replace the free software with Windows. It remains to be seen to
what degree Microsoft will succeed. But with all of this pressure, Microsoft has
harmed a project that has distributed more than 1 million laptops running free
software, and has taken aim at the low-cost platform as a way to make poor
children around the world dependent on its products. The OLPC threatens to
become another example of the way Microsoft convinces governments around the
world that an education involving computers must be synonymous with an education
using Windows. In order to prevent this, it is vital that we work to raise
global awareness of the harm Microsoft's involvement does to our children's
education. A great way to do this is by downloading Sugar and helping a child in
your local area experience free software.

How does free software stand up to this? Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the
program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.

Further reading: Why schools should exclusively use free software


MICROSOFT LOVES DRM.

Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) are technology measures that restrict what
people can do with their computers. DRM is built into the heart of Windows 7,
and many Microsoft services push DRM on users. In some cases, Microsoft has
added these restrictions at the behest of TV companies, Hollywood and the music
industry. In other cases, Microsoft DRM goes way beyond these companies'
demands, suggesting that Microsoft is using DRM simply to create lock-in.
Whether Microsoft is merely a co-conspirator with big media companies or an
advocate for DRM in their own right, the result for software users is the
same...


USING WINDOWS 7, YOU GIVE CONTROL OF YOUR COMPUTER TO THE MEDIA.

Link to the 'DRM' sin

The monomaniacal fear of big media companies is that people will share digital
media with their friends, building a free public library of cultural works.
Public libraries are wonderful institutions, and in a digital age they become
almost miraculous: we can now provide universal access to human knowledge and
culture—or at least anything that's been published—at little or no cost. The
amazing thing is that it's almost automatic: once people can share freely with
their friends over a global network, you get a digital public library. P2P
networks are one example of a digital library, and the web is another. The value
of these libraries to the public is historic and immeasurable. But media
companies serve shareholders, not the public, and are therefore very ready to
destroy in its infancy any public resource that might interfere with their
profits. The personal computer is built from the ground up to make sharing
information fast and easy, so for media companies to restrict sharing they need
the full cooperation of software makers at the deepest level. Enter Microsoft.

In order to completely prevent sharing, media companies needed Microsoft to do
two things:

 * First, they had to make sure that any outgoing digital signal is just as
   locked down as the DRM'ed music or movie file. Otherwise you could simply
   play a video on your computer out to another device (like your digital
   camera) and press record. So Windows, when playing a file with DRM, needs to
   constantly check to make sure any connected device is cooperating with the
   DRM scheme. This anti-feature is called Protected Media Path. Microsoft
   introduced it with Vista, and it continues in Windows 7.

 * Second, media companies needed Microsoft to keep other programs from
   observing the playback process and intercepting the audio and video in
   unencrypted form. After all, it is still your computer, and (as much as media
   companies hate this) you can install and run whatever applications you want.
   Vista and Windows 7 close this "loophole" by monitoring all the applications
   currently running whenever a media file with DRM is playing. If Vista or
   Windows 7 detects an unapproved application running in the background, your
   song or video will simply stop playing. In practice, the encryption on most
   popular DRM schemes (including DVD and Blu ray) has been cracked, and
   DRM-free copies of almost any piece of film or music are available on the
   internet. But users of Windows 7 and Vista still have code running on their
   computer—at all times—that is trying to limit their basic right to share
   media with each other and their power to build libraries.

These restrictions have gone beyond what many would expect. For example, at the
request of NBC, Microsoft prevented Windows Media Center users from recording
television shows that NBC would rather you didn't, even though this kind of
recording is an included feature of Windows Media Center. They claimed that they
were just following FCC regulations, though the Second Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled that the FCC has no authority to make such regulations.

Microsoft even adds DRM in contexts where media companies have largely given up
on it. This year, after every major online music store went DRM-free, Microsoft
launched a DRM-encumbered music store for mobile phones — this music service has
one particularly charming limitation: many people switch cellphones every 6
months to a year, but there is no way to transfer songs from one phone to the
next. If you switch phones every 6 months, then you lose your music every six
months. But more importantly, this is a level of DRM that music companies are no
longer demanding, indicating that Microsoft has its own aim in promoting DRM:
lock-in. Because DRM creates artificial incompatibility, it is the perfect tool
for tying users of a service to a particular product. When people buy music from
a Microsoft service, they cannot use any other music players (like the iPod, for
example). Even when Microsoft launched its own "Zune" music player, the Zune did
not play tracks with Microsoft "Plays for Sure" DRM sold by other music services
(including the MTV URGE Music Service built in to Windows Media Player 11).
Pressure from big media companies is not the only reason Microsoft pushes DRM;
lock-in is central to Microsoft's business strategy and DRM is a great way to
pursue it.

Microsoft is not the only company guilty of this. Apple, via its iTunes
software, and its Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and Apple TV devices also imposes DRM
on users. Adobe and Sony also impose DRM on users. But Microsoft is a
particularly aggressive user of DRM, and the integration of DRM at the deepest
levels of Windows 7 is a key reason not to buy it.

Free software, by its very nature, does not support DRM — if DRM were added to
free software, the users and developers would work around it and remove it.

Further reading: Opposing Digital Rights Management


SECURITY

> "The security of your computer and network depends on two things: what you do
> to secure your computer and network, and what everyone else does to secure
> their computers and networks. It's not enough for you to maintain a secure
> network. If other people don't maintain their security, we're all more
> vulnerable to attack. When many unsecure computers are connected to the
> Internet, worms spread faster and more extensively, distributed
> denial-of-service attacks are easier to launch, and spammers have more
> platforms from which to send e-mail. The more unsecure the average computer on
> the Internet is, the more unsecure your computer is."
> 
> -- Bruce Schneier


PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE IS INHERENTLY LESS-SECURE THAN FREE SOFTWARE

Link to the 'Security' sin

But how do you know your computer is secure? If you're using proprietary
software, you don't! With free software, even if you don't have the skills to
evaluate the software, you can be certain that someone else can.

Windows has a long history of security vulnerabilities, enabling the spread of
viruses and allowing remote users to take over people's computers for use in
spam-sending botnets. Because the software is secret, all users are dependent on
Microsoft to fix these problems -- but Microsoft has its own security interests
at heart, not those of its users.

In 2005, a vulnerability was discovered that affects all versions of Windows
from Windows 3.0, released in 1990 until Windows Server 2003 R2 from December
2005, with XP and later versions most severely affected. The problem, which
affects the Windows Metafile image format, a format commonly used for clip-art
and other vector images. Files containing specially crafted 'Escape codes' allow
for arbitrary user-defined function code to be run when displaying the image
files.

Security researcher, Steve Gibson, believes the flaw may be intentional, too.

The situations where such files are viewed is wide:

 * Viewing a website in Internet Explorer.
 * Previewing an image on your desktop or using Windows Explorer.
 * Previewing an infected email in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.

Microsoft even introduced a new class of malware, the macro virus -- allowing
seemingly innocuous spreadsheets and word processing documents to contain
malicious programming code in Microsoft Office.

Part of the issue of Windows security comes from the fact that that by default,
administrator accounts are used and expected by many applications -- these
adminstrator accounts also allow malware to attack the operating system.

In free software this would be treated as both a technical issue and a social
problem -- if software needs to do things as an administrator, it needs a good
reason to do so, and if it prevents users from doing the job without risking
their privacy and security, it is anti-social.


MICROSOFT'S MONOPOLY

Microsoft has been found guilty of monopolistic behavior all over the world.
With Windows Vista, Microsoft worked with PC manufacturers to significantly
increase the hardware specifications for the standard user-experience, causing
people to require new computers to run the updated OS.


MICROSOFT'S MONOPOLY AFFECTS YOUR FREEDOM

Link to the 'Monopoly' sin

Early versions of Windows 3.1, relying on an underlying version of the DOS
operating system would throw an error if non-Microsoft DOS, such as Digital
Research's DR-DOS, were detected. At one point, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, in an
internal memo said "You never sent me a response on the question of what things
an app would do that would make it run with MS-DOS and not run with DR-DOS. Is
there [sic] feature they have that might get in our way?" with Microsoft Senior
Vice President Brad Silverberg later sent another memo, stating: "What the
[user] is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect
that the problem is DR-DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS."

Microsoft recently tried to sell a bunch of patents which would threaten
GNU/Linux to patent-trolls, but the patents were eventually purchased by the
Open Innovation Network, a group with patents to protect free software.

In recent months, we've seen Amazon.co.uk is starting to make Windows refunds
quick and easy for GNU/Linux users buying netbook computers. Whether this will
become a growing trend, who knows?

Worse, most PC manufacturers still do not offer you the opportunity to buy a
machine without Windows.



“I'm sorry, Mr. Christ. You're only licensed for five loaves of bread and two
fish.”

Traditionally, building your own machine was a way to get around the Windows
tax. Microsoft has managed to hurt this, too. Sites such as NewEgg have many of
their best deals tied to a purchase of an OEM copy of Windows, penalizing those
who actively seek to avoid Microsoft and other proprietary software companies in
the name of freedom.

The monopoly of Windows isn't just limited to the direct influence of
Microsoft's products: many computer manufacturers only ship machines with
Windows, because of bundling deals with other software companies, loading up the
machine with a variety of proprietary software, including trial offers for
Internet providers and other junkware.

Free software doesn't have this problem: There cannot be a monopoly on free
software, because everybody has the source code and everybody can change the
software and distribute modified versions. While some major PC manufacturers are
flirting with the idea of selling machines running GNU/Linux, all major PC
manufacturers are still heavily advocating the use of proprietary software, by
virtue of their relationship with Microsoft.

Further reading: The Microsoft Antitrust Trial and Free Software


MICROSOFT OPPOSES STANDARDS...

Standards are important. With standards, users of various computing platforms
can share information. It also removes users from the barrier of vendor lock-in.
This is most prevalent in the area of Office documents, where entire
governments, at both a state and national level, have made decisions based on
the future proofing of their information.


MICROSOFT'S ATTACKS AGAINST OPENDOCUMENT

Link to the 'Standards' sin

Microsoft is attempting to block an established, free and open format by heavily
pushing one they have much more control over, and they're using all their
lobbying power to try and fast track it through the standards process,
destroying the reputations of the very standards bodies they seek approval from.
Microsoft challenges the existing OpenDocument standards for Office documents
with its own Office OpenXML format, which specifically implements Microsoft
Office, rather than a more general standard.

Unlike OpenDocument, which is well-supported and cross-platform, Microsoft's
format is only supported by proprietary software from one vendor, and because it
has been designed to implement every bug, glitch and historical feature from
Microsoft's Office software, the specification to implement OOXML is over 6000
pages long, making it much harder for other software to implement the format.

Office documents are not the only area where Microsoft has railed against
standards. Microsoft has abused its monopoly position on the internet, by making
its Internet Explorer browser support only a subset of the published web
standards, whilst submitting users to an inferior experience when an alternative
browser was used. In Europe, Microsoft has been forced to offer a 'ballot
screen' of alternative web browsers to the user upon installation of Windows 7
to force Microsoft's browser monopoly to end.

With free formats, it's important to ensure you are using free software as well.
Free formats cannot excuse the damage done by proprietary software.


MICROSOFT'S LOCK-IN STRATEGY

"Embrace, extend and extinguish" -- that's how Microsoft described its strategy
for locking its users into proprietary extensions to standards.


MICROSOFT BREEDS A DEPENDENCY ON THEIR SECRET SOFTWARE

Link to the 'Lock-in' sin

Microsoft regularly attempts to force upgrades on its customers, by removing
support for older versions of Windows and Office, whilst changing the file
formats used by its desktop applications, leaving many businesses in a position
where they are forced to upgrade to continue to use the software and document
formats they've invested time in.

By removing support from operating systems and other software, such as Microsoft
Office, Microsoft leaves companies with no choice but to upgrade to later
versions of its software. The later versions of the software have file formats
which differ from the previous versions, forcing companies who exchange these
documents to also upgrade. Additionally, some applications refuse to run on
older versions of Microsoft Windows, forcing complete system upgrades for what
is essentially a document exchange format.

This behavior is not limited to Microsoft, but also to proprietary software
companies producing products for Windows. Adobe regularly updates its software
to patch flaws used to bypass restrictive measures in its PDF readers, and Apple
used its Software Update application on Windows to coerce users of iTunes to
install the Safari web-browser.

How free software defeats this problem: Everybody who uses the software has
access to the source code, this creates three distinct options for providing
support for the software beyond any support that may be offered by the
developers of the software: Firstly, a subset of users of the software may
decide to continue supporting the product with updates and bug fixes themselves
-- a group called Fedora Legacy did this for Red Hat 7.3 and Red Hat 9, for
several years after official updates ceased. Secondly, a new project may decide
to continue the development of the software by itself, offering users an
alternative upgrade option in the form of a new release or distribution of the
software. Finally, the user can hire an independent software developer, or team
of developers to continue to improve and maintain the software.


PRIVACY AND MICROSOFT

Who should your computer take its orders from?

Most people think their computers should obey them, not obey someone else. Yet,
with a plan they call "trusted computing" and software they call Windows Genuine
Advantage, Microsoft and others are planning to make your next computer obey
them instead of you, and this has serious consequences for your privacy.


MICROSOFT'S GENUINE DISADVANTAGE

Link to the 'Privacy' sin

Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is Microsoft's system for remotely checking your
computer. WGA scans various parts of your hard drive to reassure Microsoft that
you are running an "approved" version of Windows. WGA is mandatory monitoring
system and if Microsoft decides you are not "approved" they can disable your
computer's functionality. Currently Microsoft confirms that WGA checks:

 * Computer make and model
 * BIOS
 * MAC address
 * A unique number assigned to your computer - Globally Unique Identifier or
   GUID
 * Hard drive serial number
 * Region and language settings of the operating system
 * Operating system version
 * PC BIOS information (make, version, date)
 * PC manufacturer
 * User locale setting
 * Validation and installation results.
 * Windows or Office product key
 * Windows XP product ID

WGA has caused a number privacy related problems, including deletion of
software. WGA gets automatically updated as part of Microsoft's critical update
procedures, giving users little choice but to accept changes to the systems
Microsoft can monitor. Many have claimed that WGA is spyware, and although
Microsoft have denied such intent, they retain the power to decide what counts
as an invasion of your privacy.

For Windows 7 they are changing the name of the product to Windows 7 Activation
Technologies (WAT), but the functionality remains the same.

Microsoft's version of a "Trusted Computing" scheme is called "Palladium".
Proprietary programs have included malicious features before, but Palladium
would make it universal.

Hollywood and the record companies will use Palladium to ensure that downloaded
videos and music can be played only on one specified computer and the sharing of
'authorized' files will be entirely impossible.

Making sharing impossible is bad enough, but it gets worse. There are plans to
use the same facility for email and documents--resulting in email that
disappears in two weeks, or documents that can only be read on the computers in
one company.

Imagine if you get an email from your boss telling you to do something that you
think is risky; a month later, when it backfires, you can't use the email to
show that the decision was not yours. "Getting it in writing" doesn't protect
you when the order is written in disappearing ink.

Treacherous computing puts the existence of free operating systems and free
applications at risk, because you may not be able to run them at all.

Some versions of treacherous computing would require the operating system to be
specifically authorized by a particular company. Free operating systems could
not be installed. Some versions of treacherous computing would require every
program to be specifically authorized by the operating system developer.

You could not run free applications on such a system. If you did figure out how,
and told someone, that could be a crime.


THE ALTERNATIVE? WITH FREE SOFTWARE YOU HAVE FREEDOM!

To use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the
right to learn, and share what we learn with others. Free software has become
the foundation of a learning society where we share our knowledge in a way that
others can build upon and enjoy.

What if there were a worldwide group of talented ethical programmers voluntarily
committed to the idea of writing and sharing software with each other and with
anyone else who agreed to share alike? What if anyone could be a part of and
benefit from this community even without being a computer expert or knowing
anything about programming? We wouldn't have to worry about getting caught
copying a useful program for our friends—because we wouldn't be doing anything
wrong.

In fact, such a movement exists, and you can be part of it.

Learn more about the free software movement.


WINDOWS 7 SINS: THE CASE AGAINST MICROSOFT AND PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE

The new version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, Windows 7, has the same
problem that Vista, XP, and all previous versions have had -- it's proprietary
software. Users are not permitted to share or modify the Windows software, or
examine how it works inside.

The fact that Windows 7 is proprietary means that Microsoft asserts legal
control over its users through a combination of copyrights, contracts, and
patents. Microsoft uses this power to abuse computer users. At windows7sins.org,
the Free Software Foundation lists seven examples of abuse committed by
Microsoft.


WE'VE MAILED A LETTER TO 499 OF THE FORTUNE 500 COMPANIES (WE DIDN'T THINK
MICROSOFT WOULD LISTEN), BUT THAT'S JUST THE START...


WE'VE ALSO MAILED ANOTHER LETTER TO 500 NON-PROFIT GROUPS AROUND THE WORLD.

This letter writing campaign has ended. You can get involved in our current
campaign to upgrade people from Windows to GNU/Linux at www.fsf.org/windows.

Send us your suggestions for organizations who would benefit from our letter.

1. Poisoning education: Today, most children whose education involves computers
are being taught to use one company's product: Microsoft's. Microsoft spends
large sums on lobbyists and marketing to corrupt educational departments. An
education using the power of computers should be a means to freedom and
empowerment, not an avenue for one corporation to instill its monopoly.

2. Invading privacy: Microsoft uses software with backward names like Windows
Genuine Advantage to inspect the contents of users' hard drives. The licensing
agreement users are required to accept before using Windows warns that Microsoft
claims the right to do this without warning.

3. Monopoly behavior: Nearly every computer purchased has Windows pre-installed
-- but not by choice. Microsoft dictates requirements to hardware vendors, who
will not offer PCs without Windows installed on them, despite many people asking
for them. Even computers available with other operating systems like GNU/Linux
pre-installed often had Windows on them first.

4. Lock-in: Microsoft regularly attempts to force updates on its users, by
removing support for older versions of Windows and Office, and by inflating
hardware requirements. For many people, this means having to throw away working
computers just because they don't meet the unnecessary requirements for the new
Windows versions.

5. Abusing standards: Microsoft has attempted to block free standardization of
document formats, because standards like OpenDocument Format would threaten the
control they have now over users via proprietary Word formats. They have engaged
in underhanded behavior, including bribing officials, in an attempt to stop such
efforts.

6. Enforcing Digital Restrictions Management (DRM): With Windows Media Player,
Microsoft works in collusion with the big media companies to build restrictions
on copying and playing media into their operating system. For example, at the
request of NBC, Microsoft was able to prevent Windows users from recording
television shows that they have the legal right to record.

7. Threatening user security: Windows has a long history of security
vulnerabilities, enabling the spread of viruses and allowing remote users to
take over people's computers for use in spam-sending botnets. Because the
software is secret, all users are dependent on Microsoft to fix these problems
-- but Microsoft has its own security interests at heart, not those of its
users.


YOU CAN HELP!

Free software operating systems like GNU/Linux can do the same jobs as Windows,
but they encourage users to share, modify, and study the software as much as
they want. This makes using a free software operating system the best way for
users to escape Microsoft and avoid becoming victims of these seven sins.
Software and computers will always have problems, but by using free software,
users and their communities are empowered to fix problems for themselves and
each other.

You can get more information about each of the sins and how to escape them at
fsf.org/campaigns/windows. Please sign up there for campaign news and action
alerts to help raise awareness about Microsoft's abuses, the problems with
Windows, and the importance of free software!


HOW WE GOT HERE

Two years ago, Microsoft released Windows Vista, to little fanfare and much
disappointment, both from users, facing a battle of broken software, drivers and
heavy restrictions, and from developers, scrambling to bring software up-to-date
to work with the new system.

 

Two years later, Microsoft itself admits Vista failed. Users were not ready to
accept the huge downgrade that Vista offered, and Microsoft has attempted to
rectify this with the announcement of Windows 7. Windows 7, like Windows XP in
2001, has a more modest requirement footprint, making it ideal for low-powered
netbook computers. However, unlike Windows XP, Microsoft have deliberately
crippled Windows 7, leaving netbook users at the mercy of Microsoft to control
which applications they can use, as well as the number of applications that can
be run simultaneously.

Microsoft is up to their usual tricks again -- only this time, they're also
inserting artificial restrictions into the operating system itself. While not
the first time they've done this, this is the first release of Windows that can
magically remove limitations instantly upon purchasing a more expensive version
from Microsoft.

This is not new, however. In 1996, a furor erupted over Microsoft Windows NT. At
the time, Microsoft was selling two versions of its operating system: Windows NT
Workstation and Windows NT Server. The server version cost roughly $800 more
than the workstation edition of the operating system.

 

While Windows NT Server included a series of server applications not bundled
with NT Workstation, Microsoft maintained that the operating systems themselves
were, "two very different products intended for two very different functions."
NT Server, Microsoft claimed, was suited and tailored for use as an Internet
server while NT Workstation was grossly inadequate. Aiming to enforce this
difference, both the NT Workstation code and the license agreement restricted
users to no more than ten concurrent TCP/IP (i.e., Internet) connections; while
NT Server remained unlimited.

Many users noticed that both versions of Windows NT were very similar. Digging
further, an analysis published by O'Reilly and Associates revealed that the
kernel, and in fact every binary file included in NT Workstation, was identical
to those shipped in NT Server. The sole difference between the two products'
cores lay in the operating systems' installation information -- the server
version contained several options or flags that marked it as either
'Workstation' or 'Server'. If the machine was flagged as 'Workstation', it would
disable certain functionality and limit the number of network connections.

We call such limitations, antifeatures. An antifeature is functionality that a
technology developer will charge users to not include -- it is more difficult
for Microsoft to limit Internet connections than it is to leave them
unconstrained -- and the limit is not something that any user would request.

Unfortunately, for the companies and individuals trying to push antifeatures,
users increasingly often have alternatives in free software. Software freedom,
it turns out, makes antifeatures impossible in most situations. Microsoft's
predatory NT pricing is impossible for GNU/Linux, where users can program around
it.

A version of Firefox funded by advertisements would be too--users would simply
build and share a version of the software without the antifeatures in question.

Ultimately, the absence of similar antifeatures form some of the easiest
victories for free software. It does not cost free software developers anything
to avoid antifeatures. In many cases, doing nothing is exactly what users want
and what proprietary software will not give them.


RESOURCES

 * 
 * 

We'll be adding more soon. If you have a flyer to contribute, please send it to
campaigns@fsf.org.

© 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc

Bill Gates/Jesus cartoon by Phil Garcia and Don Berry. Verbatim copying and
distribution of the cartoon are premitted without royalty in any medium provided
this notice and the copyright notice are preserved.

This page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works
3.0 License.

To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative
Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

FSF launches campaign against Windows 7 and proprietary software

 * Education
 * DRM
 * Security
 * Monopoly
 * Standards
 * Lock In
 * Privacy

Translations of this page