Oculus does not serve you

On 7th March 2018 all Oculus Virtual Reality headsets were rendered effectively useless.

The reason for this was because of “an issue with our software certification…”. Essentially to get programs certified on Windows you can to be given permission by Microsoft to allow you to run the program on their operating system. Because of issues like this, it is possible for permission to use programs to be removed at any time by Microsoft for whatever reason they see fit or for the certification to expire because the developer did not update it or Microsoft will not or cannot issue a new one.

In this case it is because the certificates that allows to program to run has expired. This is due to an oversight on the developers part on how the time stamps are formed. As much as it is considered an easy fix for the developers, it is a near impossible local fix for the users. It is an excellent example of how you the user are not in control of your software. As much as certification has the sole purpose of controlling the users. If you run a whole free software system this is not possible as you have the final control over your machines, the software they run and the hardware that relies on it. If a certificate program is created in free software, you are free to remove it.

When it comes to hardware like the Oculus, you should not buy it. Doing so supports this system of oppression and only encourages other companies to do the same. Unless you can study, share, modify and redistribute the software freely, it is not working for you but someone else.

You can read more over at Tech Crunch - https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/07/all-of-oculuss-rift-headsets-have-stopped-working-due-to-an-expired-certificate

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