vendor lock-in

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They Forgot What Happened Last Time: Hacking the Windows 365 Link [video]
2 months ago
- Windows 365 Link is a thin client running a special edition of Windows 11, exclusively connecting to a Windows 365 Cloud PC, making it otherwise useless e-waste.
- Microsoft promotes its vendor lock-in as 'secure-by-design architecture', featuring no admin rights, no local data, locked EFI Secure Boot, and always-enabled BitLocker.
- The author recalls that the last time EFI Secure Boot was locked was on Windows RT devices, which they personally broke the bootloader chain of trust on multiple times.
- The author accepts the challenge of bypassing these restrictions.
Online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)
2 months ago
- Email was never designed to serve as a ubiquitous online identity, yet most businesses rely on it for that role.
- People are locked into their email service provider because switching requires updating countless accounts, risking loss of access, and many services do not allow changing registered email addresses.
- Email service providers have extensive control over users' online identity, personal data, and contact network, creating vendor lock-in that benefits tech giants.
- Proposed solutions like mandatory email forwarding services have technical drawbacks including delayed delivery, reduced spam protection, and increased complexity.
- Renting a custom domain for email offers more freedom to switch providers, but does not provide full ownership of identity.
- The only real long-term solution is to move away from email-based identity management toward self-sovereign identity alternatives, which are not yet widely available.
Locked-in
2 months ago
- Vendor lock-in occurs gradually through promises of convenience and seamless integration.
- Once critical workflows depend on a closed system, switching becomes too costly.
- Building in-house shifts control but brings its own burdens: delays, maintenance, and quality gaps.
- Closed-source vendors have a hidden cost: loss of control and reliance on their decisions.
- Open and fair source distribution models provide a self-hosting option as an escape hatch.
- Alternative models allow migration back to self-hosting without costly migrations or disruptions.
De Totale Keuze voor Microsoft - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The Dutch government is migrating nearly all its operations to Microsoft 365, violating its own cloud policy.
- This creates total dependency on a single US company, subjecting data to US surveillance laws and security risks.
- Microsoft's poor security has allowed unauthorized access (e.g., by China) and frequent outages are common.
- The move eliminates European IT alternatives, leading to vendor lock-in and inability to switch providers.
- Predictions include price hikes, data breaches, service outages, and loss of control over government communications.
Weaponized Open Source
2 months ago
- Startups use the AGPL license as a marketing tool to appear open source, but it actually functions as a veiled non-compete to eliminate competition.
- A Contributor License Agreement (CLA) allows the vendor to relicense the code, giving them exclusive rights to build proprietary features while preventing others from doing the same.
- The AGPL's ambiguity and 'infectious' copyleft clause create fear and uncertainty, causing businesses to avoid it and forcing them to use the vendor's cloud offering.
- This strategy is not about user freedom but about vendor lock-in, reducing open source to a marketing term.
- When such startups fail, their proprietary features disappear with no fallback, leaving customers with nothing.
Managed agents are the new Lambda
2 months ago
- Managed agents are cloud-hosted agent harnesses (e.g., Claude Code) that run 24/7, allow background operations, and provide security and sandboxing benefits.
- Vendor lock-in is a major risk with managed agents; switching between agent harnesses (e.g., Claude Code to Codex) is easy locally but becomes difficult once deeply integrated into a provider's cloud.
- Anthropic's recent pricing changes for non-interactive Claude Code usage (5-20x increase) highlight the danger of lock-in and give OpenAI an opening with Codex's more flexible allowances.
- Solutions to avoid lock-in include self-hosting managed infrastructure (e.g., running Docker with OpenCode) or using third-party platforms that support multiple model providers.
- The author recommends self-hosting for now to build organizational competence, but warns that frontier labs may introduce exclusive capabilities only available on their managed agent platforms.
The Email They Shouldn't Have Read
2 months ago
- The story is a horror narrative based on real events, modified to protect privacy and illustrate vendor lock-in in IT.
- A public institution (Agency A) successfully migrated from an old Exchange server to an open-source mail stack, reducing costs significantly.
- Agencies B and C planned similar migrations from a managed-service provider, but the provider discovered their plans through hidden contract clauses and possibly email snooping.
- The provider used aggressive tactics, including threats of legal action, contract amendments extending lock-in periods, and disabling access to data.
- Despite evidence of unethical behavior, Agency B and C's management chose to avoid confrontation, accepting cost increases rather than fighting.
- The story highlights how vendors can exploit contract fine print and IT ignorance to trap clients, undermining the principles of open-source software.
De cloud in soorten en maten - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The text outlines six levels of cloud adoption, from no cloud (own datacenter) to full Software as a Service (SaaS), each with varying degrees of control and vendor lock-in.
- Level 1: No cloud (own servers) offers maximum control but slow provisioning; Level 2: Renting servers reduces datacenter management; Level 3: Renting capacity (containers, IaaS) provides flexibility and scalability.
- Level 4: Cloud-native with limited managed services (e.g., databases) reduces the need for specialized staff but introduces some lock-in; Level 5: Advanced cloud services (AI, global databases) create strong dependency on US providers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft).
- Level 6: SaaS (e.g., MS 365) offers total convenience but extreme vendor lock-in, with almost no possibility to switch providers.
- Key insight: Lower levels (1-3) are widely available in Europe and allow switching; higher levels (4-6) are dominated by US providers and involve significant lock-in, especially for critical data.
- The text emphasizes the trade-off between control and convenience, and advises choosing lower levels for sensitive or critical business operations to avoid dependency on a single provider.
The (European) cloud ladder: from virtual server to MS 365 - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The article explains a 'cloud ladder' with six levels: no cloud, renting servers, renting capacity, limited cloud-native, full cloud-native (advanced services), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) like MS 365.
- Higher levels (SaaS, advanced services) offer more convenience but create strong vendor lock-in, especially to Amazon, Google, or Microsoft.
- Lower levels (servers, capacity) are more standardized and have European providers, reducing dependency and allowing easier switching.
- The optimal balance for many organizations is around capacity level (3-4), where control and flexibility are preserved while offloading work.
- European governments and experts advocate for staying at lower levels to avoid lock-in, while providers push higher-level solutions for profit.
- MS 365 is the ultimate example of vendor lock-in: only Microsoft provides it, and leaving is nearly impossible.
'The cloud' is not just servers. 'Going to the cloud' could also mean locking into a forever sub-contractor - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The phrase 'going to the cloud' is ambiguous: it can mean renting servers (low lock-in) or integrating proprietary cloud services (high lock-in, becoming an eternal subcontractor).
- Using basic cloud services like servers and databases is relatively safe and interchangeable, but advanced proprietary services tie the operator's intellectual property to the cloud provider, making migration difficult or impossible.
- Benefits of deep cloud integration include faster development, access to specialized services, and reduced need for infrastructure skills, but downsides include loss of ownership, eternal dependency, and loss of migration skills.
- Geopolitical risks arise when cloud providers are based in unstable or adversarial countries, making data sovereignty and long-term reliability concerns.
- Organizations should apply governance to limit dependencies on non-replaceable cloud services, either by restricting the number of such services or ensuring alternatives exist, and senior management must be involved in these decisions.
- A practical approach is to use only widely available, fungible cloud services (e.g., servers, databases) and avoid proprietary services that deeply integrate into the solution.
Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps
3 months ago
- Anthropic's Claude subscription and API face issues including enshittification, vendor lock-in, consumer malpractice, and price gouging, while open-source models become more competitive.
- Claude's API is notoriously unreliable, and Claude subscriptions force users to rely on Anthropic's servers, with no compatibility with third-party harnesses without extra costs.
- Anthropic introduced 'extra usage' billing for third-party tools and split subscription billing into separate pools for first-party and third-party usage, significantly increasing costs for heavy agent users.
- The author criticizes 'vibecoding' and agent-driven development for causing skill degradation, advocating instead for agent-assisted development using AI as an autocomplete tool.
- Open-source models like Qwen, GLM, and Deepseek offer viable alternatives to proprietary models, with AI gateways enabling flexible, cost-effective, and private model usage.
- The article concludes by condemning Anthropic's unethical practices, such as locking customers into closed systems and changing terms without notice, and encourages moving to open-source alternatives.

vendor lock-in

They Forgot What Happened Last Time: Hacking the Windows 365 Link [video]

Online identity is owned by your email provider (2019)

Locked-in

De Totale Keuze voor Microsoft - Bert Hubert's writings

Weaponized Open Source

Managed agents are the new Lambda

The Email They Shouldn't Have Read

De cloud in soorten en maten - Bert Hubert's writings

The (European) cloud ladder: from virtual server to MS 365 - Bert Hubert's writings

'The cloud' is not just servers. 'Going to the cloud' could also mean locking into a forever sub-contractor - Bert Hubert's writings

Anthropic's Method to Losing Goodwill in a Few Easy Steps