[plug] M$ again - Digital rights in Office

[Chris Caston]

This is very fitting.

I just had a long conversation with my ex about rebuilding her w2k
machine and telling her that I couldn't give her MS Office for obvious
reasons unless she was willing to buy a copy. Apparently she doesn't
want to "learn how to use OO.o" though it's been on her machine
previously for the best part of a year and I've taught her how to use
it.

She's actually from the Maldives and I ended up explaining the whole
free software and third world liberation thing and asked her if she
thought most of the people in her country should fork out for Office or
use Office for "free" now then fork out the dough when DRM comes
through. 

Sometimes I get tired of explaining free software to the unwashed.

On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 12:31, Richard Meyer wrote:
> 
> 
> Just in case you were getting complacent about M$
> 
> RichardM
> 
> ===============
> 
> http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5069246.html
> 
>                                                                                                 
>  Office 2003, the upcoming update of the company's market-dominating productivity package, for  
>  the first time will include tools for restricting access to documents created with the         
>  software. Office workers can specify who can read or alter a spreadsheet, block it from        
>  copying or printing, and set an expiration date.                                               
>                                                                                                 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>                                                                                                 
>  The new rights management tools splinter to some extent the long-standing interoperability of  
>  Office formats. Until now, PC users have been able to count on opening and manipulating any    
>  document saved in Microsoft Word's ".doc" format or Excel's ".xls" in any compatible program,  
>  including older versions of Office and competing packages such as Sun Microsystems' StarOffice 
>  and the open-source OpenOffice. But rights-protected documents created in Office 2003 can be   
>  manipulated only in Office 2003.                                                               
>                                                                                                 
> 
> 
-- 
Chris Caston

Director
Aptitude Technology
http://www.aptitudetech.com.au
ABN: 51614966828

ph: (08) 9443 9418
mobile: 0422 978315

chris at debian:~$ host security.microsoft.com
security.microsoft.com does not exist (Authoritative answer)