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On January 14th, Windows 7 reached its official "end-of-life," bringing an end to its updates as well as its ten years of poisoning education, invading privacy, and threatening user security. The end of Windows 7's lifecycle gives Microsoft the perfect opportunity to undo past wrongs, and to upcycle it instead.
We call on them to release it as free software, and give it to the community to study and improve. As there is already a precedent for releasing some core Windows utilities as free software, Microsoft has nothing to lose by liberating a version of their operating system that they themselves say has "reached its end."
Also at The Register and Wccftech.
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Free Software Foundation Demands That Microsoft Release Windows 7 as Free Software
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by vux984 on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:40AM (7 children)
The FSF isn't "demanding" anything.
Second, MS won't do it; they've got extended maintenance contracts already signed; that they'll be honoring for a while yet. Win7 is making them money for a while yet.
Third, MS is almost gauranteed to have bought/licensed, and distributes all kinds of 3rd party software, drivers, codecs, and on and on that they can't simply simply open source. Nevermind that a lot of the code is still in Windows 10.
Some of the issues raised by other posters are also legit -- that MS isn't going to deliberately sabotage Win10 adoption by keeping 7 going; that MS isn't going to air all their dirty source code laundry; much of which is code that is still IN windows 10.
This is just a PR stunt. The FSF ought to know better than to waste time on something like this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:46AM
> The FSF ought to know better
Well, iirc, RMS is no longer there to offer the FSF his steadying hand (ducks!)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:53AM
The FSF knows very well that this PR stunt is a big shot of free publicity for them, more than they could ever afford to pay for.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 30 2020, @03:05AM
It's become apparent that the financial model for free software doesn't work for most developers. Now the FSF is just trying to stay in the public eye to pay their own salaries, not to advance the state of the art. If they wanted to be relevant, they could have worked on discovering new financial models for free software, but no, developers should be dependent on large corporations and begging for donations.
They're stuck in the 1980s. You know, their administrators and lawyers and fundraisers get paid, and everyone else gets exploited because they don't need to be paid to "live their dream job."
Aren't there a few game companies that tried that shit?
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday January 30 2020, @03:20AM (3 children)
Headline is accurate. It is also accurate that FSF is just as irrelevant as it was 4 months ago.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday January 31 2020, @02:26AM (2 children)
It's a request. Calling it a "demand" is just typical headline click-bait inflation. My friends called on me to play as a kid -- that's not a demand. To call on someone to do something is a request, nothing more.
When its a "demands" the demander expects the demandee to submit to their will, usually with some sort of threat of coercion/force/consequences to back it up; so refusal creates conflict. This all adds up to suggesting a 'fight is brewing', and is typical clickbait headline bullshit. "Workers demand better wages" usually in the context of protesting/striking or threatening job action; that's a demand. I call on my kids to clean their room this weekend; that's a request. I'd like them to do it, but they're free to ignore it. Now, if it doesn't get done for too long; maybe next time I "ask" there's an edge to it -- maybe now they're advised they aren't going out / eating dinner / playing video games / whatever until its done -- now I've made a demand -- we're headed for conflict if it doesn't get done.
FSF "demands" Microsoft open source Win 7 ? Really? What is the FSF doing or even threatening to do, or even pretending to symbolically threaten to do? Nothing.
If we wanted an headline that was accurate, how about:
"FSF calls on Microsoft to open source windows 7" -- given the quote, that seems to be the most straightforward way to report it: to say they did the thing they actually did, using the words they actually used.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 31 2020, @02:43AM (1 child)
I could pull out the dictionary definition of "demand", that certainly encompasses this. Or...
https://www.fsf.org/windows/upcycle-windows-7 [fsf.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Friday January 31 2020, @03:21AM
I actually did look at an idiom dictionary before posting; and it said 'call on' was to request, and I stand by that.
But, yup, the FSF made a completely toothless demand, but its in their own words now; headline is accurate ... you win. Game over. :)