Next thing we know your lawyers and lobbyists are going to come up with some legislative wheeze and you will be running the biggest botnet in the world. You created the problem so fix it yourself.
Well, uh, then why does Microsoft need to do anything, if it's still as good as they day it was first sold?
It is, it's just that it was broken the day it was first sold.
To throw the towel in on an OS which has the same subset API as a recent one yet has many minor incompatibilities through shoddy API design (win32) is a shitty business model which people shouldn't have to shovel cash at over and over again.
To hell with them.
As far as they are concerned if it is capable of doing what they bought it for, why should they upgrade? Software doesn't wear out or breakdown like a physical good and a lot of the hardware is still fine. Those systems are going to be around forever until the hardware breaks down.
They are also committed to providing upgrades for their bigger customers, so why can't they extend to everyone else, as though it will cost them extra? The only caveat for the non corporate customers should be that if they are not under a support contract and the upgrades break their systems they are out of luck.
If something like that is to be done it should be done by a state body, not a private corporation. What gives them the right to spy on innocent peoples traffic?
Did the judges even understand the nature of the power they were granting Microsoft? Couldn't it have been handled differently?
IT IS smug, self preening, self congratulatory tripe.
I suggest you read it if you haven't.
Whether you like it or not for better or worse a botnet is an economic resource whose value is not lost on Microsoft and sooner or later they are going to come up with a wheeze to exploit them.
And, just in case YOU can't figure it out, the blaming statements you are making are due to the use of 'you' in your comment.
That blog entry is not targeted at computer users, it is targeted at the government.
- signed, owner of an iMac, two rMBPs, two iPhone 5Ss, two iPad Airs and an Apple TV (no Microsoft brown-nose here).