James A. Donald wrote: >According to Microsoft, the end user can turn the palladium >hardware off, and the computer will still boot. As long as that >is true, it is an end user option and no one can object.
Your point is taken. That said, even if you could turn off TCPA & Palladium and run some outdated version of Windows, whether users would object is not entirely obvious. For instance, suppose that, thanks to TCPA/Palladium, Microsoft could design Office 2005 so that it is impossible for StarOffice and other clones to read files created in Office 2005. Would some users object? I don't know. For many users, being unable to read documents created in a recent version of Office is simply not an option. However, in any case we should consider in advance the possible implications of this technology.
