Free Software Foundation 'demands' Windows 7 be released as free software

[Evernessince]

If people want to support an open source os that runs windows programs, go and donate to ReactOS. They will finish far before MS open sources windows 7.

 

[Nobina]

The request was to make it free to use not to open source it.

That's exactly what they want. Free as in freedom (you can do whatever you want to it), not free as in free beer.

 

[Red999]

Actually linux is more successful than windows in server market.

it's linux desktop that fail. Google and Firefox contribute to that failure by disabling hardware acceleration for video decoding in their Linux version. simply playing a youtube video makes 1 core fully consumed

 

[0dium]

They won't do it. They need to force everyone to install spyware 10

 

[BestJoeyEver]

Just torrent it nobody will do anything about it. arrest me.

Ah yes, just TORRENT the unreleased source code. Why didn't anyone think of that? /s

 

[Bullwinkle M]

"Free Software Foundation 'demands' Windows 7 be released as free software"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It IS free software!

You can download it for free

You can use the 90-day trial for free

You can even use the torrented (pre-activated) copies forever.......for FREE!

What part of FREE do they not understand?

 

[ChickyBoom]

But Windows 10 *already is* free software!! LOL

 

[treetops]

Long live programs.

 

[Max Loh]

If Microsoft release Windows' source code, someone will dig into how it works and improve current compatibility layer like Wine.
One day Linux may run Windows application smoothly, and Windows would lost its advantages over Linux, which is free.

 

[Seraphim401]

??????????????????

What a terrible failure!

 

[Nobina]

"Free Software Foundation 'demands' Windows 7 be released as free software"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It IS free software!

You can download it for free

You can use the 90-day trial for free

You can even use the torrented (pre-activated) copies forever.......for FREE!

What part of FREE do they not understand?

The part where they can't change the code for free as they please.

 

[Bullwinkle M]

But Windows 10 *already is* free software!! LOL

Good one!
But some of the readers may not understand that you were just joking

Maybe I can rephrase it for them.....
Spyware Platform 10 is not even remotely close to being free

Even if Microsoft were to give you a so-called "free" pre-activated copy of Windows 10, you would still be paying for it with the extortionary (one-sided) Licensing Agreement, Loss of privacy, Loss of control, Blackmail, malware, etc.

You lose much more than simply paying for the right to use their malware
(A.K.A. Windows 10)

You will lose much more with a "free" copy of Windows 10 than you ever could with a "free" copy of Windows 7

 

[skris88]

Excellent idea!

Win7 is the fastest and most stable version of Windows ever. It runs rings around Windows 10 - just dual boot both OSs and see for yourself.

But you must make sure you NEVER use Internet Explorer browser (or you will get infected).

My Win7 PC running Google Chrome browser been malware free for more than a decade (unless the venerable Malwarebytes is lying!)

Happy to pay a nominal amount even!

 

[skris88]

If people want to support an open source os that runs windows programs, go and donate to ReactOS. They will finish far before MS open sources windows 7.

I tried ReactOS but, sorry to say, it was a big fail.

 

[Puiu]

And why not? If it has a large enough following and Microsoft is no longer going to profit from it, there is no reason not. Call it corporate governess or whatever you like and let groups like these continue to maintain it doesn't sound all that far fetched.

Microsoft still profits a lot from it (businesses that can't upgrade and need extended support) and denying mainstream users windows 7 also profits MS because it pushes people to windows 10.

I can understand asking MS to make windows 95 or windows 98 open source/free to use, but windows 7? that's just not going to happen.

 

[Puiu]

Excellent idea!

Win7 is the fastest and most stable version of Windows ever. It runs rings around Windows 10 - just dual boot both OSs and see for yourself.

But you must make sure you NEVER use Internet Explorer browser (or you will get infected).

My Win7 PC running Google Chrome browser been malware free for more than a decade (unless the venerable Malwarebytes is lying!)

Happy to pay a nominal amount even!

You will load slightly faster from cold boot, but sleep times are much much better on windows 10. And besides, by the time your wifi connects on windows 7, you would be surfing your favorite site on windows 10 for quite some time.

FYI, windows 10 also includes security patches and other mitigation patches that will affect performance slightly. For example, an unpatched windows 7 is faster than a fully patched windows 7.

 

[Nobina]

Having Microsoft away from your OS is not a con but a pro. If I ever decide to switch to W7 this will be a positive factor.

 

[MobileJAD]

And why not? If it has a large enough following and Microsoft is no longer going to profit from it, there is no reason not. Call it corporate governess or whatever you like and let groups like these continue to maintain it doesn't sound all that far fetched.

No longer profit from? Except that the article just cited many of the European education and health care agencies that are still using Windows 7 based computers (probably really cheap and ancient computers) that are in fact paying Microsoft for support. Because there are customers out there that aren't willing to change out their systems for newer ones and will pay Microsoft for support, Microsoft is in fact still profiting from Windows 7.
Now the fact that Microsoft still has proprietary code in Windows 7 that is in use with Windows 10, that Microsoft wants to keep hidden as a trade secret, is a whole other story.

 

[loki1944]

You will load slightly faster from cold boot, but sleep times are much much better on windows 10. And besides, by the time your wifi connects on windows 7, you would be surfing your favorite site on windows 10 for quite some time.

FYI, windows 10 also includes security patches and other mitigation patches that will affect performance slightly. For example, an unpatched windows 7 is faster than a fully patched windows 7.

You mean how my W10 pcs don't wake up from sleep and my W7 pcs do?

 

[sunil007]

Software is not charity

 

[trparky]

They won't do it. They need to force everyone to install spyware 10

Bullshit. Windows 10 isn't spyware and you damn well know it! It's nothing more than scare tactics spread by people who have their tinfoil hats on too tight. Sure, Windows 10 does send some data to Microsoft but there is nothing indicating that there is any personally identifiable data being sent. Yes, there is metadata and telemetry but metadata and telemetry is a far cry from actual user data.

Besides, do you have any damn clue how many lawsuits that Microsoft would be enduring every day of the week if Windows 10 was really spying on us? Do you? Let's put it this way... Harvard wouldn't be able to pump out enough lawyers to handle the massive load of lawsuits that would be filed against them every day of the week. And we're not even talking about the massive amounts of monetary payouts that Microsoft would be forced to payout. And not only that but think about all of the violations of HIPAA laws, those alone would get Microsoft in so much hot water that they would quite simply be dead.

They would be sued into the ground with the force of a multi-megaton nuke. Microsoft is stupid but they're not that f**king stupid. People like you need to really start thinking with more logical thoughts instead of believing all of this conspiracy crap.

Software is not charity

That's what a lot of people around here don't seem to understand, it takes a lot of man-hours to write this kind of stuff and people expect to be paid real money for their work.

 

[mixpan]

And why not? If it has a large enough following and Microsoft is no longer going to profit from it, there is no reason not. Call it corporate governess or whatever you like and let groups like these continue to maintain it doesn't sound all that far fetched.

It is literally stated in the article you just (haven't) read why Microsoft wouldn't do that!!

 

[kraligor]

It's ruined even on the kernel level, thanks to stable_api_nonsense.txt. There's not even a driver model, per se. The driver model is that "we do whatever the f*ck we want, and you're our *****". Like why do ALL my friggin Intel DKMS drivers break whenever I upgrade to a new kernel? Every. Single. Time. Not to mention NV driver installs, oh boy. That's often a half day project.

And this is just the kernel. Then comes libc. Xorg. Mesa. GNOME. Mutter, GTK+. libwhatever. It's just an endless combination of an endless number of libraries, in endless versions (with API breaks all the time), with an endless number of random broken distro patches, compiled with an endless number of build flags, with an endless number of compiler versions with their various bugs.

And they actually expect this mess to work. They expect vendors to provide awesome driver support. They want killer apps. What the hell. Like almost all mainstream apps are moving to Flatpaks or similar measures to dodge all this cr@p, because it's completely unsustainable as it is.

And I'm not saying this as an outside hater, I'm doing Linux deployment for a living. Been releasing GUI apps for various distros (along with the proper Windows release). Been dealing with Linux for around 15 years now, both server and client side. And I'm telling you, it's a f*cking mess.

Kinda weird that I'm able to use Linux perfectly fine in a productive environment then. On various different systems. Desktops and servers.

On the other hand, I have to deal with the shortcomings of Windows 10 daily, and it's just a massive pain in the ***. Broken updates, two completely different, but overlapping system settings UIs (after YEARS of W10 being available, seriously wtf), complete lack of support from Microsoft, and I'm not even getting started. It feels like a hobby project, not like a state of the art OS.

 

[Capaill]

The request itself is bullshit. You can upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Microsoft has told to create ausb installer, you enter your Windows 7 key and it just works. If you have a bios key it may work as well, should be on a sticker as well.

In any case, it isn't really end of life as a software, just that version. The natural path is to upgrade or migrate.

Sure, Windows will work if you upgrade to Windows 10. But will all your other software?

Windows Vista / 7 came out when software development was exploding, many large institutions (governments, banks, hostpitals, etc) would have purchased specialist software that runs on that version of Windows. And cannot work on Windows 10 due to all the new licensing requirements or driver changes. Those institutions are basically stuck on Win7 because the cost of migrating their software or finding a vendor that will provide the software on Win10 is so prohibitive. And these aren't institutions where you can just turn the software off.

Windows is a critical software for most businesses and MS did not provide even the option of full compatibility in Win10.

 

[carlosjs23]

Just like with Linux, where they banded together to make 1 superior Linux distro that everyone loves? /sarcasm

Lol, not a chance it would become superior to a large, paid team at MS. All that would happen if they released the source code would be fragmentation (with dozens of different groups claiming theirs is better).
Open source software is seldom better than their counterpart. And it gets even worse the more complex the task...

But, we don't need to worry about that. MS isn't going to release it. It would cost them (and their shareholders) too much...

Oh fck, you made me imagine all the distros that could emerge. But doesn't have to be like that (Like GNU/Linux fragmentation), I rather wish the community ports all the things necessary to run Windows apps on Linux.

Anyways ignore me I'm just dreaming in public.