Yesterday at the Internet Days in Stockholm a nice man from Microsoft who was apparantly no more than three steps away from the head developor at Redmond (nice, if you like games like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon)Â stopped by the FSFE table to discuss DRM. We were on opposite sides of this issue and we had a very interesting discussion which concluded (predictably) that we were still in disagreement.
Basically his argument was that DRM can be useful and that opponents to DRM were too emotional (and a bit paranoid). My arguments were that DRM limits users rights, regulates in a way that limits legal rights and requires trust in a corporate body (whose goals are, and must be, profit – not user’s rights).
After a move into arguments that nobody is forced to use DRM:ed software we then moved into the realm of philosophy with arguments whether the user can “choose” without facts, or whether the user is aware that choices need to be made, and finally, whether or not the user cares about his/her rights.
We both had an agreeable time.
We also exchanged products. I gave him a copy of my PhD and he gave me a copy of Windows Vista Customer Preview program (Release Candidate 1). This version has ten licenses, which means that it can be installed on ten computers (or ten times on the same computer).
So â?? does anyone want to try Vista?