Windows 2 Apples

I know I had scheduled a review of the new iWork and iLife 08 suites but the recent debacle with the Microsoft Genuine Advantage or as most seem to prefer calling it Genuine Disadvantage gives me a chance to speculate on why Apple and Microsoft view and deal with piracy in radically different ways.

First let me state, I am not defending Microsoft or others with similar copy protection schemes but I would like to add my two cents (and with the fall of our currency this colloquialism should appropriately qualify my comments). As a hardware designer and software developer I have been on both sides of the fence and have some appreciation of the costs of piracy.

Would Apple continue to ship unprotected copies of their Operating System and applications if some enterprising entrepreneur developed a virtual machine product similar to bootcamp allowing OS X to be run inside existing Windows PCs?

I suspect it was Apples historic reliance on using proprietary hardware to copy protect their software that lead them to surprise and even anger some pundits and Apple fans when they released the locked iPhone. The controversy continues eat up hours of tech podcast time as the attempts of hackers to open the iPhone to cell service provider other than AT&T and to develop third party applications not sanctioned by Apple remain the focus of the geek tribes. The way Apple and AT&T react to the iPhone hacks may offer a glimpse of how Apple would treat customers if its OS were not locked down by the Apple hardware.

Both Apple and Linux distributions are in a unique position. With Apple, the hardware is the software “dongle” and with Linux most developers profess a non-commercial philanthropic intent.

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