Gates retiring; Microsoft breaks Windows

So Bill Gates is retiring from Microsoft.

Well, some sort of change is needed there. Not satisfied with crushing all competition and making it nigh-on impossible to buy a PC that doesn't already come loaded with Windows, Microsoft inserted a bit of "anti-piracy" software on millions of computers this week. Apparently they need to stop the rampant copying of Windows onto machines that already come with Windows.

Here's the thing. Their antipiracy software is broken.

When I got up this morning and tired to log onto the kitchen computer, I got a series of popups telling me my copy of Windows isn't genuine. That I'm running pirated software. That I should buy a commercial copy of Windows XP.

Now, this is an emachines T2040 that came with XP preloaded and has a big Windows sticker on the front. And it's a computer on which I already had installed and successfully run Microsoft's "genuine advantage" validator several times in order to download software such as the Windows Antispyware beta.

I couldn't get anything to run this morning. I wound up pulling the plug out of the wall, cold-booting, clicking past another barrage of accusations of piracy, and eventually getting in.

Maybe this problem is going to go away. Maybe it won't. But what strikes me is the arrogance of a big company that dislikes and distrusts its customers. It's like the music publishers viewing everybody with an MP3 player as a thief.

And it's like the arrogant attitude that, until recently, was pretty much standard in newsrooms.

I've sensed a big change in attitude in the newspaper business in tne last 24 months. The collapse of Knight-Ridder helped inject some humility where it was desperately needed. We're not the rock of Gibraltar. We're not irreplaceable. We have to earn our way every day because there are other choices.

Microsoft had better get a dose of that humility, soon. Google just released Picasa and Google Earth for Linux. What else do I use? Firefox, check. Gaim, check. Gimp, check. Thunderbird, check. OpenOffice, check. Maybe I can route around this problem.