August 2007

I was checking out the NBC online show player. Because I am located in Germany, I cannot access any of the shows put online. See for yourself:

Of course no other clip plays. At all.

Well, I have to admit that I couldn’t find a better example for ruining a perfectly good business opportunity than the very people who thought out the catastrophies region coding, restrictive viewing and broadcast flags that prohibit you from digitally recording some shows. Obviously there are ways to get around this. You could try a proxy server based in the US, you could patch the firmware on your DVD drive or the simplest of all: use BitTorrent and Google. You can pretty much download any even remotely popular show that’s been broadcast a couple of hours after it initially ran. There are even tools to automate the process. Unavailability is exactly what’s driving people into finding other ways of getting what they want.

That’s why I still don’t get the following: why even bother to try stopping this by punishing people. Compete with it. WORLDWIDE!

This got to be the most unlikely web site address on the web today: www.microsoft.com/opensource

I. Don’t. Believe. A. Word.

Plus, when looking at the FAQ about Microsofts views on Open Source, the universe realigns again:

Open source is neither an industry fad, nor a magic bullet. Rather, the development methods commonly encompassed by the term open source have provided customers and developers with additional options among many in the technology ecosystem.

The marketing department simply couldn’t have written anything more neutral I guess.