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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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"History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions."
-- Ted Koppel
(Score: 1, Troll) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 30 2020, @03:19AM (5 children)
People who only browse the web would not care, but most people have both other software that won't run under Linux, software that doesn't exist except for Microsoft and Apple, and peripherals that either don't work are are missing functions under Linux.
Linux has it's place, but not on desktops in business or the home or schools. I tried in the 90s to get people to switch. It was what I used at work even after I gave up getting others to switch mid-00s. Nobody wants Linux. Those who gave up on Windows are quite happy with Apple, and apples TCO is lower than Windows. They will never switch, even if you offered them a free Linux computer. Or even a free Windows computer.
And they're right - if it meets their needs, why change for an OS that is lacking major chunks of the software ecosystem? People but computers to run software, not operating systems. They really just want the operating system to get out of their way.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @06:12AM
Which is why my district has spent seven figures on Chromebooks. It runs all the software we want, is easy to administrate, and when it stops working we can just replace it with the next $80 machine. In this Web/App based world, the actual OS matters less and less as basically anything will run the software you need.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Thursday January 30 2020, @06:47AM
Higher support costs
Translation: not subsidised by malware merchants.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 30 2020, @06:21PM
People don't know the difference. I literally had a director tell me "we're already paying for MS Word licensing in our product" when our product was using Windows embedded OS and the only user facing app was our in-house developed GUI.
I'd bet more people can locate Laos on a globe than know anything about the distinction between an OS and an application.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30 2020, @08:32PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 31 2020, @01:33AM
First hit for "tco windows vs osx" was this [ttps].
Apple is cheaper for businesses. One big factor is lowered time wasted on supporting users. Widnows doesn't "just work", at least not for long.
Now it's true you can buy a dirt-cheap Windows PC, but that's because the specs are shit in comparison to the cheapest Macs. When linus explained why he used a Mac, he gave the cost breakdown for his laptop, decently specced, compared with a Windows PC with the same specs. The Mac was slightly cheaper. Go figure.
And then there's Window's forced upgrade to Windows 10. When's the last time you heard of anyone losing data or being left with an unbootable machine because OSX updated despite all their attempts, including registry hacks, to prevent it?
And with Windows moving to a subscription-only model after Windows 10 goes EOL, you'll need to have an always-on internet connection and a current subscription or "your" computer becomes a brick.
A subscription for Windows, a subscription for Office, a few other subscriptions, it adds up.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.