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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the pull-the-other-one dept.

Upcycle Windows 7

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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  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 30 2020, @03:34AM (7 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday January 30 2020, @03:34AM (#951012) Journal

    We can't even agree as to what Linux is any more, most distros come with software that hasn't changed much in a decade (except for games - make that two decades). The eagerly anticipated and much heralded unleashing of creativity in open source didn't happen. Everything is a bad copy of proprietary software. And some of the UIs are just SO fugly (gnome, I'm looking at you! Wish nobody had to).

    The trend is changing slowly. People are realizing that free software isn't financially viable for developers unless it's incorporated into the surveillance economy, which is ethically compromising.

    Now if the FSF actually gave a shit about improving the lives of developers, they would work to come up with solutions to the financial model. But no, they don't really care about the future of software, not beyond getting donations to keep their own paycheque coming. Want proof? What new models have they come up with? The "well, set up a foundation for your project and beg for donations " doesn't count. Even the SPCA has prior art. And the Heart Foundation, the Diabetes Foundation, the NRA ...

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  • (Score: 2) by Pav on Friday January 31 2020, @06:37AM (6 children)

    by Pav (114) on Friday January 31 2020, @06:37AM (#951674)

    Isn't that what heretics such as Roberto Mangabiera Unger [youtube.com] are about? Much more free software gets developed in Europe (although that's changing as Europe becomes more neoliberal), and large successful US-based free software projects such as VistA (ie. the hospital management software used by the VA) is being discontinued in favour of proprietary software owned by certain political donors. VistA is a good example of how US free software projects come into being ie. free software allows workers to implement solutions without being as controlled by budgets. VistAs death could not be arranged financially, only politically... but utimately politics is for sale. Even insurgent health employees won't be able to keep it alive. Free Software can't become mainstream in a neoliberal economy... but neoliberalism itself doesn't seem long-term-stable in itself, so perhaps things may change, and perhaps in the not so distant future.

    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 31 2020, @05:58PM (5 children)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Friday January 31 2020, @05:58PM (#951861) Journal
      Which is why I'm saying the current model doesn't work for FOSS. We need a new model. We don't have one anywhere in sight. The FSF certainly isn't proposing one.
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      • (Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday February 02 2020, @10:08PM (4 children)

        by Pav (114) on Sunday February 02 2020, @10:08PM (#952885)

        That's the nature of the economy, and it's hardly just software developers... it's doctors, lawyers, and practically everyone else in the same trap... you're screwing over your fellow citizen, yourself, or often both. It's the golden rule (ie. those that have the gold make the rules). All the FSF does is arrange the software world so the average citizen requires less "gold" to have influence in the world.

        • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday February 02 2020, @11:38PM (3 children)

          by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday February 02 2020, @11:38PM (#952925) Journal

          All the FSF does is arrange the software world so the average citizen requires less "gold" to have influence in the world.

          Nonsense AND bullshit. Anyone with a computer can create software that is closed source as easily as open source - just that if they create closed source, they have a greater chance of influencing their own personal world by making some $$$.

          The big users of FOSS have all the gold. Google. Facebook. Amazon. So it's funny how that worked out, taking FOSS and locking it away on servers so it's no longer open?

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          • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday February 03 2020, @07:48AM (2 children)

            by Pav (114) on Monday February 03 2020, @07:48AM (#953063)

            Really? I know more open source than closed source developers, and if closed source developers are better paid on average I'm not seeing the evidence - only a few are well paid. I even think Bernie Sanders helped people at both IBM and Google at different times engage in industrial action for better wages and conditions. I think you're blaming the FSF for a society-wide problem. Tomas Piketty got his Nobel Prize by collating centuries of data, and finding the deep mathematical truth that the capital class's return on investment is ALWAYS is greater than one (on average), and that this means that it's a mathematical certainty for capital to own everything and for the rest of the economy to always be in extreme poverty. (Fun side-fact - the old game of Monopoly was originally invented to teach how this ALWAYS happens). Europeans for centuries escaped from the centres of advanced civilization to the wilds of the New World for exactly that reason. Things were different for a time only because after WWII governments took extreme measures to make things different (ie. 90% top marginal tax rate, ~45% company tax rate), but now under neoliberalism we're sinking back to the norm (and blaming it on automation, kids today etc...).

            • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday February 03 2020, @12:05PM (1 child)

              by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Monday February 03 2020, @12:05PM (#953092) Journal
              The people working with companies like google to develop server-based spyware aren't releasing the stuff they develop - so it's closed source. Nice try, but a failure to recognize how much open source isn't open in reality.
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              • (Score: 2) by Pav on Monday February 03 2020, @04:13PM

                by Pav (114) on Monday February 03 2020, @04:13PM (#953162)

                Don't blame the FSF - the AGPL bans SaaS. People make good livings from genuinely free software. Just because eg. the US government has been given enough incentive to allow corporate spying hardly means the blame lays at the FSFs feet. The same with monopolistic behavior, and on down the line.