This is pretty interesting. I'm not sure there can be a community response to this. If TCPA takes root, I think what will result is an even more pronounced split between Microsoft server apps and desktop apps and back-end systems like Apache and Zope and whatnot. Those who like and trust Microsoft will go the TCPA hardware way. Those who don't won't. There will be a healthy market for non-TCPA enabled computers for those who don't want to run MS software. I think TCPA is making a mistake. No small or midsized company wants to buy a computer that they can't run untrusted (read: pirated) software on, period. I think that pirated MS software is the major driving force behind MS' control over document and OS standards. They will give up that slice of their pie. Larger companies are much slower and more conservative and plodding and they will do whatever Microsoft tells them to do. But they probably don't make up enough of a market for Microsoft to cash out on. MS needs all the little companies: 50, 100 people. FWIW, a desire for total control is the same thing that caused IBM's PS/2 series to fail miserably. Lots of big corporate buyers bought PS/2 systems with MCA slots because they were stupid and trusted IBM. When it became apparent that ISA was still far more popular, they couldn't get cheap hardware, and they found out that smaller companies were paying much less and getting more, they started to buy Dell in droves. I think this pattern will repeat itself here and in five or ten years we will likely think about TCPA-restricted PCs in the same way that we think about IBM PS/2 systems. We will be feeling sorry for all the folks at huge pharmeceutical companies with a garages full of obsolete TCPA systems. - C On Sun, 2003-01-05 at 16:05, rra42 wrote:
Since April last year when IBM started shipping ThinkPads with TCPA ( http://www.eet.com/sys/news/OEG20020424S0013 ) it has no longer been credible for us to tell prospective Zope/python clients that it will never happen.
They are reading that TCPA will solve their virus/ confidentiality/ spam/ security problems and they want to know if investments they make in a Zope/Python solution today will continue to look like a smart decision two years from now when, with "software assurance" TCPA enabled XP Longhorn is the only upgrade option they have.
I just think it would be a good idea for the Zope community to have a community response to these questions.
Best wishes,
Rob
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