Fascinating: A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

[David Greaves <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Or
"How Microsoft destroyed the Mulitmedia PC"

Executive Executive Summary

The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the
longest suicide note in history

Executive Summary

Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order
to
provide content protection for so-called ?premium content?, typically HD
data
from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs
considerable
costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support
overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only
users of
Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection
measures
extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact
with
Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a
Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost
involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this
incurs throughout the computer industry.



It's quite a long piece and gets quite technical - I'm not in a position to
critique it but the references and arguments appear sound.


http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html



David