A Microsoft patent application claiming pay-as-you-go computing has appeared. The claimed method will apparently allow you to pay for only the capacity and tools that you select. A commentary can be found on ars technica.
Imagine being a lab rat and watching the lab tech prepare a new type of surgical device for use on you. That’s about how I feel right now after hearing this news.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
Um, why would I trust them with my change dish, let alone my wallet? “PlaysForSure” doesn’t make me trust their willingness to play nicely with their users or coconspirators, and their S+M fantasies with DRM don’t make me trust what I might be able to do with their software online in the eternal now.
“Pay-as-you-go” circumvents those pesky copyright issues, though – if you never have the software separate from them, they don’t have to worry about losing it. Using this, they can manage the pay issues – but being at Microsoft’s mercy is not where most people want to be.
These business method patents are losing their authenticity. See all the hoopla surrounding Bilski. If the software does not influence a machine in some novel fashion it may be prone to attack. Of course who wants to attack microsoft? This is a classic example where Oracle could ensure their rights, while Joe blow might be sued.
http://www.ladas.com/BULLETINS/2008/Inre_Bilski.shtml
I have become accustomed to enjoying the full use of a piece of software without having to put a quarter in the slot every time I want to use it. While this new scheme arguably provides shelter against having to pay for excess capacity, the inconvenience of having to make periodic payments on yet one more thing overrules the benefit.
Appliance makers could come up with similar contrivances, charging for each use of the microwave or dishwasher rather than accepting an up front charge. I would write in opposition to that as well.
Of course, I don’t own/license the software for this blog. It is provided free of charge. I am still trying to figure out how they make any money on it…
Perhaps the patent is in conjunction with No Such Agency. Microcrap writes zero-security software. An obvious (but not to one skilled in the art!) improvement is for surveilled subjects to provide labor and financing – and to be isolable at will. If you think you own savings, wait until government attaches them.
My opinion is that what Microsoft’s users consider “full use” of a piece of software and what Microsoft considers “full use” are two different things. Copyright’s opinion is yet a third version, though ultimately less friendly to Microsoft than to its users – hence my belief that schemes like this are designed to avoid the need for copyright, and to allow software companies to keep their software functioning as money-making assets in perpetuity. Nothing will more effectively make people adhere to the “information wants to be free” credo (ack! spit!) than attempting to make software eternally propietary (and under terms abusive to their customersXXXXXXXXvictims.
Maybe there’s life in the Alien franchise yet. Can they get Ballmer and Gates for non-speaking roles? Can they find enough cannon fodder, or can they CGI them in?
It may be a concidence but… the great State of California has announced it will confiscate all 2008 state tax refunds. If you were productive you must pay as you went. If you are Officially Sad, your golden palanquin will never suffer emissions controls. Why should the Gifted be allowed to think for free?