QuoteThe hardware is fully operational and the means to use it fully documented. You could install another operating system than Windows free of charge if you wish.False in many cases: see UEFI.
Selling someone a piece of hardware but only allowing them to use half of the memory/bandwidth is stealing.
Selling someone a piece of hardware but only allowing them to use half of the memory/bandwidth is stealing.
So - the next time you take a flight somewhere, you buy your economy ticket and when you get on the plane decide you want to occupy a business class seat - or maybe first class ... and your argument is 'I bought a seat on this plane - and I want that one!'
False, in most cases. Most people buy a software+hardware bundle.
False in many cases: see UEFI.
Selling someone a piece of hardware but only allowing them to use half of the memory/bandwidth is stealing.
How can denying access to something that they never had be stealing? How can selling someone exactly what was on the spec. sheet for the stated price a problem?
So - the next time you take a flight somewhere, you buy your economy ticket and when you get on the plane decide you want to occupy a business class seat - or maybe first class ... and your argument is 'I bought a seat on this plane - and I want that one!'
No different to advanced software features.
You didn't pay for the feature, so you aren't entitled to make use of it.
Selling someone some hardware with half of it disabled, is not stealing but it's still wrong
So all this "they put the entire software on the device, because they're lazy and it deserves to be hacked" is nonsense. The software/firmware is the majority of the dev cost on these new DSO's and a very valuable part of the IP, and sending it out to thousands of people, encrypted or not, would be lunacy.
That is hard to agree with. PC hardware is completely useless without software. It needs the software to accomplish anything useful. If you buy bare PC hardware, you can design and code your own operating system to make it do whatever you want, however you want. If, however, you want an operating system that is already done and ready to go, you may have to pay for that (Windows for example).
By that reasoning, and I use the term loosely, once you have bought the PC hardware all software on it should be free. Or maybe you think it is immoral for Microsoft to charge more for Win*Pro than Win*Home?
We could, as an alternative, offer 4 or 5 different hardware variants each with it's own fixed features and pricing. When you buy it you are stuck with it forever.
As for 24MB vs 12MB.... that is going to make what difference, exactly, in practice?
You Americans keep forgetting that not everyone lives in a place with all the BS and get along quite fine. This kind of rubbish is holding the economy back, rather than advancing it.
And the result is not people being rewarded for their development costs but patent trolls who make it difficult for everyone else to innovate.
False in many cases: see UEFI.
It allows me to capture the customers looking for a lower cost of entry and also be interesting to the higher-end with only a single manufacturing configuration - everyone wins.
Another silly and completely invalid analogy.
By taking the business class seat, you're occupying a space, which could go to a passenger who would pay for it. That seat is no longer available to someone else, who may pay for the upgrade. Even that seat is free anyway, it still needs to be cleaned and there will be consumables used such as food and drink. The extra cost to the airline is real.
This is not the case with using software without the license or firmware hacking. There could be a 1000s of extra unlicensed users of the product, who'll never ever pay to use it. Those 1000s of extra unlicensed users incur no extra cost to the developer. If anything those extra users could be: finding bugs, providing free technical support, by helping people on bulletin boards on the Internet and increasing awareness of the software, so will benefit the developer anyway, even if they've not paid them any money.
Another silly and completely invalid analogy.
By taking the business class seat, you're occupying a space, which could go to a passenger who would pay for it. That seat is no longer available to someone else, who may pay for the upgrade. Even that seat is free anyway, it still needs to be cleaned and there will be consumables used such as food and drink. The extra cost to the airline is real.
I have never seen any PC supplied with software that would limit you to using half the RAM you have installed.
By that reasoning, and I use the term loosely, once you have bought the PC hardware all software on it should be free. Or maybe you think it is immoral for Microsoft to charge more for Win*Pro than Win*Home?
Not at all. But I have never seen any PC supplied with software that would limit you to using half the RAM you have installed. That's the entire difference. 100% of the hardware you bought is available to whatever software you want to run on it, and the supplied software platform is there to enable it, not restrict it. Again there is a big distinction between software functionality like protocol decoding, and limiting your access to the hardware you are in possession of to be able to provide unlocks later.
Sensible options are OK, but many of those currently offered by manufacturers aren't. Choose the right ones and you won't have issues.
Just because they haven't done it with RAM yet doesn't mean it would be wrong to do so.
What about CPUs? I bet you've owned a CPU that could easily go faster if they took off the limiter. That happens all the time.
Wrong again. Microsoft limited my WinXP Home to only use half my hardware: one processor core out of two.
And I suppose you think you are the authority on what it sensible or not?
Just because they haven't done it with RAM yet doesn't mean it would be wrong to do so.They of course could do it, but there likely would be a massive uproar. It's much smaller with scopes from the few-but-yet-half of those voicing their opinion on this thread and so far scope manufacturers have been able to get away with it, but it's the same thing.What about CPUs? I bet you've owned a CPU that could easily go faster if they took off the limiter. That happens all the time.Can't find an analogy that is more wrong - It isn't illegal to overclock my CPU, and once it's in my hands I can very well and totally legally get the performance of a part that would have cost double (and incidentally I do, but I tend to rather get the expensive part and push it to the level of one that doesn't exist). If you want to put that as an analogy then we can turn it over and all software limitations can be legally broken without issue.Wrong again. Microsoft limited my WinXP Home to only use half my hardware: one processor core out of two.Unless you have a machine with 2 sockets you're not limited at all. And I wouldn't believe any machine with 2 sockets would ever have been sold with XP Home. Or if it had then a compaint with the seller (or a switch to another one as he'd be highly stupid) would have been in order.
And I suppose you think you are the authority on what it sensible or not?Myself? No. But just see the others who have the same view, then extrapolate. I'm certainly not alone.
Wrong again. Microsoft limited my WinXP Home to only use half my hardware: one processor core out of two.
Dual-Core
Microsoft's licensing policy limits the number of processors Windows supports for its Home and Professional versions, as outlined below. It's important to understand, however, that this is on a per-processor basis, not a per-core basis. This means that, under the licensing policy, a dual- or even quad-core processor counts as a single processor---something that confused many people in the early days of dual-core technology.
at that time there were only opteron systems with two sockets. What do you suggest in that case?)
Ah. The old "proof by numbers of believers" argument. Always was unimpressive
Most likely you're confused:QuoteDual-Core
Microsoft's licensing policy limits the number of processors Windows supports for its Home and Professional versions, as outlined below. It's important to understand, however, that this is on a per-processor basis, not a per-core basis. This means that, under the licensing policy, a dual- or even quad-core processor counts as a single processor---something that confused many people in the early days of dual-core technology.
What about CPUs? I bet you've owned a CPU that could easily go faster if they took off the limiter. That happens all the time.It isn't illegal to overclock my CPU, and once it's in my hands I
Selling someone some hardware with half of it disabled, is not stealing but it's still wrong
Most likely you're confused:QuoteDual-Core
Microsoft's licensing policy limits the number of processors Windows supports for its Home and Professional versions, as outlined below. It's important to understand, however, that this is on a per-processor basis, not a per-core basis. This means that, under the licensing policy, a dual- or even quad-core processor counts as a single processor---something that confused many people in the early days of dual-core technology.
More nit-picking to try to avoid the real argument.
(Which is: Microsoft DID artificially limit the number of CPUs people were allowed to use via software )
It's only nitpicking if...
Windows 95/98/ME only supported one CPU with a single core.
Windows NT 3.x Workstation, Windows NT 4 Workstation1, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Business/Enterprise/Ultimate, Windows 7 Professional/Enterprise/Ultimate and Windows 8.x Pro all support two physical processors and an unlimited number of cores per CPU.
Windows XP Home, Windows Vista Home, Windows 7 Home and Windows 8.x (non-Pro) support one CPU with an unlimited number of cores.
If I remember right Windows XP MCE supported the same number of CPUs as XP Home.
Windows Server supports from 2 CPUs/unlimited cores to 128 CPUs/unlimited cores depending on version and edition. That will apparently change with Server 2016 where MS has now reverted to 'per core' licensing
Don't know Windows 10 (urgh!) but I assume the CPU/core limits are the same as for Windows 8. For a desktop OS it's unlikely to change, though.
1 Windows NT 4 Workstation on a SGI Visual Workstation 540 supports four physical processors
The question I actually asked in my original post (which you neatly trimmed) was:
"The majority of CPUs out there are artificially limited. Should we be starting a class action lawsuit because we're all being "wronged"?"
It's possible to own a machine where not all the CPUs are used because the Microsoft license doesn't let you, and that yaying more money to Microsoft will magically "unlock" those CPUs (without needing to alter the hardware).
If you take the CPU as reference there would be no issue hacking the scope.
The scope manufacturer sells me a scope with some memory disabled, I bring it home and can NOT unlock that memory for free as that would be illegal.
OK, there's no written law against overclocking at the moment, does that make it right?
What would you say if a such a law was passed tomorrow? Would you stop overclocking?
What would you say if a such a law was passed tomorrow? Would you stop overclocking?the rationale behind the "man made" law need to be considered. if its involving other's life, then he should. if not then its complicated. (actually i hate to type long text about this).
It's only nitpicking if...
No, it's nitpicking, period.
ie. It's possible to own a machine where not all the CPUs are used because the Microsoft license doesn't let you, and that yaying more money to Microsoft will magically "unlock" those CPUs (without needing to alter the hardware).
Yes, if you buy a dual processor workstation and try to use Windows 9x/ME or one of the Home (XP/Vista/W7) or non/Pro (Win8.x) editions on it, which would be plain stupid.
Buuuut nobody in their right mind would have shipped PC hardware with a version of Windows that limited usage of that hardware, as is with the scopes and is what people complain about. That's where the comparison ends, beyond that the 2 platforms are too different to compare.
Buuuut nobody in their right mind would have shipped PC hardware with a version of Windows that limited usage of that hardware, as is with the scopes and is what people complain about. That's where the comparison ends, beyond that the 2 platforms are too different to compare.
Stop trying to avoid the issue: MS did limit the proportion of my hardware that could be used. You may wriggle and squirm, but MS did it.
As an irrelevant aside, what makes you think a company did ship Windows with the hardware? It was principally a linux box, with Windows on it for occasional use.
Another silly and completely invalid analogy.
By taking the business class seat, you're occupying a space, which could go to a passenger who would pay for it. That seat is no longer available to someone else, who may pay for the upgrade. Even that seat is free anyway, it still needs to be cleaned and there will be consumables used such as food and drink. The extra cost to the airline is real.
Nitpicking the details to make the analogy invalid? Really?
What if they didn't include any of the first class perks? What if you only asked to sit there because it's a better chair? It doesn't cost them anything extra. Should they let you?
It's a "yes" or "no" answer.
Is Intel harmed by overclocking? Is Rigol harmed by hacking?