Windows 7 Sins: The case against Microsoft and proprietary software

The new version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, Windows 7, has the same problem that Vista, XP, and all previous versions have had -- it's proprietary software. Users are not permitted to share or modify the Windows software, or examine how it works inside.

The fact that Windows 7 is proprietary means that Microsoft asserts legal control over its users through a combination of copyrights, contracts, and patents. Microsoft uses this power to abuse computer users. At windows7sins.org, the Free Software Foundation lists seven examples of abuse committed by Microsoft.

1. Poisoning education: Today, most children whose education involves computers are being taught to use one company's product: Microsoft's. Microsoft spends large sums on lobbyists and marketing to corrupt educational departments. An education using the power of computers should be a means to freedom and empowerment, not an avenue for one corporation to instill its monopoly.

2. Invading privacy: Microsoft uses software with backward names like Windows Genuine Advantage to inspect the contents of users' hard drives. The licensing agreement users are required to accept before using Windows warns that Microsoft claims the right to do this without warning.

3. Monopoly behavior: Nearly every computer purchased has Windows pre-installed -- but not by choice. Microsoft dictates requirements to hardware vendors, who will not offer PCs without Windows installed on them, despite many people asking for them. Even computers available with other operating systems like GNU/Linux pre-installed often had Windows on them first.

4. Lock-in: Microsoft regularly attempts to force updates on its users, by removing support for older versions of Windows and Office, and by inflating hardware requirements. For many people, this means having to throw away working computers just because they don't meet the unnecessary requirements for the new Windows versions.

5. Abusing standards: Microsoft has attempted to block free standardization of document formats, because standards like OpenDocument Format would threaten the control they have now over users via proprietary Word formats. They have engaged in underhanded behavior, including bribing officials, in an attempt to stop such efforts.

6. Enforcing Digital Restrictions Management (DRM): With Windows Media Player, Microsoft works in collusion with the big media companies to build restrictions on copying and playing media into their operating system. For example, at the request of NBC, Microsoft was able to prevent Windows users from recording television shows that they have the legal right to record.

7. Threatening user security: Windows has a long history of security vulnerabilities, enabling the spread of viruses and allowing remote users to take over people's computers for use in spam-sending botnets. Because the software is secret, all users are dependent on Microsoft to fix these problems -- but Microsoft has its own security interests at heart, not those of its users.

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毒害教育，微软通过游说和推销腐化了教育部门，因此儿童使用的计算机多为Windows系统，而真正的计算机教育应该是自由的和自主的；

侵犯隐私：微软使用Windows Genuine Advantage去检查用户硬盘里的内容；

垄断行为：几乎每个人购买的电脑里都预装了Windows，他们没有选择；

锁定：微软通过不支持旧操作系统和办公软件强迫用户更新；

滥用标准：微软试图封杀自由的文档格式如OpenDocument Format，因为这将威胁到它对用户的控制；

执行DRM：微软与大媒体公司合作，限制用户使用Windows Media Player播放器播放和拷贝媒体内容；

威胁用户安全：长期以来，Windows存在大量的安全漏洞，这让病毒蔓延，让攻击者把受害者的电脑变成发送垃圾邮件的僵尸网络的一部分。由于软件的隐秘性，用户只能依靠微软去解决安全问题，而微软有着自己的安全考量，并不以用户的需求为基准。