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posted by Fnord666 on Friday January 24 2020, @12:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-were-told dept.

German authorities are waking up to a Windows 7 headache, with approximately €800,000 required in order to keep the elderly software supported a little longer.

Microsoft had long been warning users, both enterprises and individuals, that the end of support was nigh - 14 January - and made available various ways of keeping those updates flowing.

Alternatively there is always the option of a migration to Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) with three years of free-ish support (because, y'know, you still have to pay for those Azure resources).

Finally, customers that had ponied up the cash for an E5 subscription could also be entitled to an extra year of Windows 7 security updates, through to 2021 (assuming the subscription stays active).

Blighty's very own NHS is an example of just such an organisation, having splashed the cash for some E5 goodness.

The position in which the German government now finds itself might raise a wry smile somewhere in Seattle.


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @08:35PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 24 2020, @08:35PM (#948120)

    get off of systemd distros ... Try Void Linux and you instantly get rid of the "Red Hat" bloat

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @12:10AM (12 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @12:10AM (#948250) Journal
    That's a valid suggestion, but I'm tired of decades of dealing with software that doesn't improve with age and experience. Every distro follows the same cycle - from "rough around the edges " to "interesting " to "yep, this works for me" to "WTF were they thinking?" Same thing with individual pieces of software.

    Without the funds that come with for-profit software development, the money isn't there to pay for development, testing, and debugging. That leaves software-as-a-service, where the user isn't the customer, and isn't driving the process. Look at how most Android phones in use today are insecure because they stopped getting updates after 2 years. Compare that with the iPhone 6 from 2014, still works, still gets updates, so lower TCO and better for the environment because it's not trash e-waste after a couple of years.

    My Android from 2015 stopped getting updates less than 2 years later. Will I ever consider an Android again? No. It's nice having a phone with absolutely no google spyware - no google search, no YouTube, no google maps, no gmail ...

    Plus their material design interface was absolutely shit for people with low vision, but that's a problem common to most free software. Even distros supposedly developed for low vision/blind users are broken. That is easier to avoid if you're in business to make money by selling software to the end user. Money/profit makes developers and managers more responsive to user needs.

    People get tired of having features of their printers not working, sound not working, and every "improvement " taking away or hiding something. (They probably copied that last problem from Windows). I suspect that we're in for decades of "churn" but no real improvement in the situation. Blame the development model, which is slanted in favour of Google, Facebook, Amazon, RedHat/IBM. Because unless you're actually paying for it, you're the product, not the customer.

    That people are willing to pay to continue to use obsolete versions of Windows shows just how inadequate free software is. It's funny - I was always in the habit of paying for my software, both operating systems and compilers and tools. Never had the shitfest of problems i have had with free software. If Kylix had been native instead of just a stupid Wine-adapted version of Windows Delphi, I would have happily kicked them a grand for a license. But this was at the start of the "Don't pay because proprietary software is the EVIL " bullshit really taking hold.

    And now even the prophet of gnu/Linux has been exposed as a perennially homeless defender of Jeffrey Epstein after his clueless attack on one of Epsteins victims, kind of highlights the bankruptcy of the free software world, with developers being vilified if they say "screw this, I'm closing my source so I can eat."

    Information might want to be free (a lie - information doesn't "want " anything), but developers want to eat, have a roof over their head, and be able to participate in the rewards of the information revolution without betraying users by spying on them.

    Free software will continue its drift away from the end user because the end user has been trained not to pay directly for anything. The old economic model where people paid for software is a direct threat to the surveillance economy.

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    • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:17AM (8 children)

      by toddestan (4982) on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:17AM (#948285)

      Compare that with the iPhone 6 from 2014, still works, still gets updates

      You keep saying that, but it's not true. The iPhone 6 got cut off by Apple last year when they released iOS 13. The 6S is still supported, but that came after 2014.

      Maybe time for a new phone?

      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:36AM (6 children)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:36AM (#948298) Journal
        I got two updates in the last month on an iPhone 6, so you're SO full of shit.
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        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:22AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Saturday January 25 2020, @04:22AM (#948346) Homepage

          I got a security update for Win7 this morning, so apparently MSFT is also full of shit.

          I actually hadn't thought about phones but... yeah, what about those older Androids? I use a flipphone for everyday so really hadn't paid attention. If there were money in an updated OS for older phones... won't happen so long as otherwise-sane people are willing to drop a grand on a disposable phone. :(

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:00AM (4 children)

          by toddestan (4982) on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:00AM (#948361)

          The latest version of iOS is 13.3. If you have an iPhone 6, you're running iOS 12.4. Or if you're running iOS 13.3 then you don't have an iPhone 6 from 2014 (maybe a 6S?). Either way, you're the one full of shit.

          Apple is still releasing updates for some of their apps, maybe that's what you're thinking about. There was that one that hit the news recently with Facetime, maybe that's what you're thinking of. Then again, Google still pushes out app updates to the old Galaxy Tab A I got dating from 2015 even though Samsung hasn't updated the OS (Android 7.1) for some time.

          • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @03:03PM (3 children)

            by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @03:03PM (#948473) Journal
            So what? I'm still getting security updates, unlike 2-years-and-fuck-off Android. And the only "benefit " of 13 is for the new cameras, which I have no interest in and would not pay $10 extra for the extra resolution and features. At some point, enough pixels is enough pixels.
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            • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday January 25 2020, @03:17PM (2 children)

              by toddestan (4982) on Saturday January 25 2020, @03:17PM (#948476)

              Well, by your standards quite old Androids are getting security updates too if you count apps. Actually, in some ways the fragmentation in Android means that developers are forced to support crusty old versions of Androids as phone makers (I'm looking at you Samsung) won't update the OS after a year or two. Whereas on the Apple side, an iOS version quickly goes into not supported status once iOS version+1 is out.

              The reality of it is that both iOS and Android completely and utterly suck and the whole world of mobile is a train wreck. That's why I'd really like a few more players in the mobile world. Even Microsoft could do better than Apple and Google.

              Though I can't blame you for not being interested in iOS 13, as it's a buggy pile of dog shit. iOS 12 is much more stable and usable, probably the iPhone 5S with 12.4 was the best iPhone Apple has ever made (and probably will ever make), if you don't mind the walled garden of course.

              • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:58PM (1 child)

                by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @05:58PM (#948519) Journal

                Neither Android not Linux are getting updates on old android phones. Which is one reason for the proliferation of malware-infested Android apps - it's a known soft target.

                So no, according to any normal definition of "update", old Android phones are not getting updates.

                And yes, all smartphone operating systems suck the bag. That's because we're stuck with a development model that prioritizes the various walled gardens rather than the vendors concentrating on the central OS and letting the market decide for the rest.

                I don't want YouTube. I don't want Google. I don't want Gmail. And yet with Android I can't get rid of them. I don't want Facebook or Twitter, and yet some versions of Android come with them pre-installed and marked as "system" so you can't delete them. I don't want pre-installed 3rd party spyware that will "help me manage my email" while forcing everything through their servers (I was floored when I saw this on another woman's Android phone - she cannot bypass it and use her provider's mail servers).

                I don't want Pocket, so screw off, Firefox. I also don't want a Firefox account. I also don't want to be reminded about it at random intervals. What were you thinking, people? Don't you STILL not realize that people don't like being nagged? And let me disable images, javascript, and css on a per-site basis.

                I could go on, as most of us could. We're screwed.

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                SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
                • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:11PM

                  by Reziac (2489) on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:11PM (#948561) Homepage

                  There exists a KDE-based smartphone, but I don't know how good it is.

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                  And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:47AM

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @01:47AM (#948307) Journal
        Just checked again - it's still an iPhone 6, not a 6s. Still getting updates even though it was made in 2014. Beats the shit out of Android which is insecure two years after you buy it. TCO works out lower, and less e-waste because you don't have to upgrade to stay secure.

        My sister has been using Apple products since Win98 died, and she hasn't had any problems. At the time I had tried to switch her to Linux. But she's right - she just wants something that works. Her iPhone works. Her iPad works. Her iMac works. Can't argue with the facts.

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        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:54AM (2 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 25 2020, @10:54AM (#948437) Journal

      Every distro follows the same cycle - from "rough around the edges " to "interesting " to "yep, this works for me" to "WTF were they thinking?" Same thing with individual pieces of software.

      And that's different from Windows how?

      Actually that question does have an answer: It's different in that whenever a popular distro goes in a bad direction, you can bet on a new distro emerging that does things right. And will run the very same programs because it's still Linux, after all. While in Windows, you're stuck with whatever Microsoft offers you, unless you are willing to relearn about every software you've been using (except if you used cross-platform Open Source programs already on Windows).

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      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:56PM (1 child)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Saturday January 25 2020, @02:56PM (#948472) Journal

        There's no way to keep ahead by distro-hopping any more. Even if an individual distro gets it right for a time, the pool of available high quality programs is diminishing. There are several contributing factors. First is the reduction in quality coders - as more coders only know how to do browser or phone apps (and browsers are a shit platform with their own compromises), you don't see much in the way of innovation going on. This is a problem that isn't unique to open source, but when the only tools most coders have revolve around browsers and remote servers, it's the same as if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like it needs to be pounded on.

        Second is the lack of new tools. In the early pc days, you could buy more than half a dozen c compilers. There was real competition, and that competition was driven by the almighty buck. It worked to produce whole new categories of software. How many office suites can you get for Linux that are really fit for the name? How many different browsers (no, 10 variants of chrome is still a chromium monoculture). How many desktop publishing packages? How many complete DBMS packages that let you ship a complete system that doesn't depend on a browser for the front end? Where's the equivalent of PC-Tools if you want a one stop integrated package that does it all? Where's today's dBASE, Foxpro, Clipper, FileMaker Pro, PageMaker, CorelDraw, etc? Decades later, all we have is libreoffice/OpenOffice, the GIMP, gcc. None of these is really commercial grade software. The choice was between cheap and good - cheap won. People who even suggest that maybe we need to revive the closed source model so that there's money for developers and testers are vilified. It's a quasi religious stance, and the people who make the argument that open source is better refuse to look at the facts - bugs can sit for a decade unnoticed in critical packages, and the pool of people who worked on it originally is sometimes one person (as with the network time protocol software). Or heartbleed - a bug in OpenSSL that sat in the open for a couple of years.

        The third problem is the co-opting of the whole open source stack by the big companies, who are deciding what direction development money goes in, because there isn't any real paying customer base outside them that is buying products to help finance continued development. It's mostly the beggars bowl. So no real critical mass of paying customers exists.

        These problems are not fixable, and even if they were, the religious opposition to allowing closed source paid software to somehow "pollute" the "purity" of open source wouldn't allow any distro to adopt it. So if you want choices, the only *nix systems are from Apple. If you want to sell *nix software, again, Apple. Because a distro that caters to the paying market is somehow evil, and you're not even given that option. So you settle for increasingly limited selections of software with increasingly limited capabilities compared to what's possible, with a schizophrenic (systemd or no systemd) core OS.

        And what RedHat/IBM wants, they get. History repeats itself. It doesn't even rhyme - it's the exact same players as 40 years ago.

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        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:16PM

          by Reziac (2489) on Saturday January 25 2020, @07:16PM (#948564) Homepage

          Also, at the business level, there's liability to consider. My sister's office discards anything that's not officially supported, from hardware to software to vehicles, because when you're dealing with megamillion dollar clients, and where if you fuck up, people die, you can't afford the potential for "You used software that's unsupported or not industry standard, and your building fell down. Here's your lawsuit." Opensource is completely out of the question, even if it were better software, because it's neither industry standard nor supported in an official, legally-defensible way.

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          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.