Home "computers" which only run signed software?

Home "computers" which only run signed software?

Posted Apr 24, 2003 19:15 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
In reply to: Home "computers" which only run signed software? by neoprene
Parent article: Linus on digital rights management

> Such devices are like the current "Tivo" or "Xbox", and cannot take
> the place of a flexible "PC"

But what happens when Micorsoft release "The Internet Box", a box that runs media-player, Internet Explorer, and MS Word. What if MS release the "tablet computer" and give it a "specially enhanced" processor? All these things are possible and one can't trust individual consumers to choose based on social implication. MS can offer a $150 discount on such "PC"s, once critical mass is achieved they can put the price back up to (and over) the original price since they would have an even tougher monopoly.

(If you don't believe MS will do it, just sub in IBM (or SCO, HP, whatever))

> Unless "the PC" will be banned I doubt anyone will buy a emasculated "PC"

Senator Fritz Hollings (chairman of the Senate for Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee) is trying to ban[1] "TV" (as we know it) in America. Why not the PC?

Ciaran O'Riordan

[1] http://www.digitalspeech.org/cbdtpa.shtml
(plenty of other interesting pages on www.digitalspeech.org too)

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