Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Free Software Foundation Demands That Microsoft Release Windows 7 as Free Software

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

takyon writes:

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.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Free Software Foundation Demands That Microsoft Release Windows 7 as Free Software | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 227 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 30 2020, @04:13PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday January 30 2020, @04:13PM (#951233)

    I personally detest the trend of deprecating entire operating systems for no good reason. Software updates can force people into upgrading their OS because there is no method of regression.

    linux distros

    Microsoft ending support for a 10-year-old OS isn't so different from e.g. Ubuntu ending support for an old LTS (in fact, it's 2 years longer than 16.04 was supported). The difference is, technically you could keep supporting it yourself, I guess...but let me know how well that goes, when all your packages stop working one by one over time due to dependency issues you have to manually fix yourself.

    Or are you arguing the "for no good reason" angle of this statement?

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   3