Software unlocks of hardware are nothing new in this industry.
IBM has done it with their mainframe processors for years.
Qlogic does it with their fibre channel switches - you can buy one with 8 ports active, 16-20 physical ports, and have to buy up to use all the ports.
Cisco, SonicWall and others artificially limit their routers in the number of DHCP or IP addresses that can be used on the network, and a variety of other features.
Is this an annoying PITA that I wish would go away? Yes, absolutely. But it's not some affront to humanity, any more so than other licensing restrictions (and thus, why the FSF is against it).
IBM has done it with their mainframe processors for years.
Qlogic does it with their fibre channel switches - you can buy one with 8 ports active, 16-20 physical ports, and have to buy up to use all the ports.
Cisco, SonicWall and others artificially limit their routers in the number of DHCP or IP addresses that can be used on the network, and a variety of other features.
Is this an annoying PITA that I wish would go away? Yes, absolutely. But it's not some affront to humanity, any more so than other licensing restrictions (and thus, why the FSF is against it).