81–90 of 165 posts
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
This is all fine and good. I hope their efforts are sincere. All money and support to free software is most likely good. However, I've been part of the open source community for 25 years, and I remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of open source. It will take a lot to convince me that there is not some underlying goal here that is not beneficial to free software. How much has Microsoft really changed? I…
Woah cool, can you share your scripts? Would love to have something like this.
I added one of the lines for xbox last as this actually seem to work. I have tried many versions before. Anyway, just run this in an elevated powershell instance (after removing lines for apps you want)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is somewhat debatable I suppose. The freedom (if you want to quote RMS) absolutely includes the so called viral provisions of licenses such as the GPL. RMS is quoted as saying proprietary software should be illegal. As a software engineer myself, I find that sort of demagoguery a bit tiring, and consider a license with less mandatory stipulations as more "free" (admittedly under a different definition than the F…
There's nothing in the Free Software definition that requires copy-left licensing and RMS, along with the other FSF members have validated most OSI approved licenses as being Free Software, including BSD, MIT, MPL and Apache 2.0. RMS has said a lot over the years, including that the dual licensing business model (e.g. GPL + proprietary) is a valid business model (i.e. whatever it takes to keep development of the GPL…
This is all fine and good. I hope their efforts are sincere. All money and support to free software is most likely good. However, I've been part of the open source community for 25 years, and I remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of open source. It will take a lot to convince me that there is not some underlying goal here that is not beneficial to free software. How much has Microsoft really changed? I…
This is all fine and good. I hope their efforts are sincere. All money and support to free software is most likely good. However, I've been part of the open source community for 25 years, and I remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of open source. It will take a lot to convince me that there is not some underlying goal here that is not beneficial to free software. How much has Microsoft really changed? I…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and the users are typically non-technical (from "I know how to open Word" to "Where's the 'Any' key?") This isn't nearly as true as it used to be, because those people are on phones and tablets now. People who actually use desktops fall into one of 3 categories: content creators, office workers, and gamers. Microsoft has ruined Windows by trying to make it into a webapp with a tablet UI in a vain effort to recaptur…
You had me until the Linux part. I've been using GNU+Linux and BSD as an OS since the late 90s. I've supported windows and osx as a sysadmins as well. Windows is not the least worst choice, and gnu/Linux has made huge strides in the past few years towards just works. That said though,one of my issues is this concept that everyone should be able to use a computer without learning how. Comp uters are inherently technic…
This is precisely my point. "Just works" is great, until something doesn't "just work", then you have to untangle a pile of complex and opaque interactions, often with poor and outdated documentation, to make something work.
In the past, Windows at least had relatively straight-forward mechanisms of operation that were all well documented and, importantly, didn't ever change all that much. That's starting to change now because MS has moved to the web-developer model of making breaking changes, and not documenting them, in rolling releases. But, it still has significant advantages in all 3 of the use cases I mentioned, so it manages to be slightly better.
What both desktops need to return to, in my idiot-on-the-internet opinion, is simplicity of operation of the underlying mechanisms. The OS doesn't have to be understandable by a chimpanzee, but it should be relatively intuitive and understandable for the average person who's willing to dig in to how things work.
What signs of change are you expecting? Microsoft is a huge organization and change comes slowly to different products. Here's the thing - if we see Microsoft making tangible changes to their behavior, and we reward that with more derision and distrust, then we aren't exactly incentivizing them - or anyone wathcing - to do more. I personally applaud Microsoft on their dramatically increased involvement in open source…
> if we see Microsoft making tangible changes to their behavior, and we reward that with more derision and distrust, then we aren't exactly incentivizing them - or anyone wathcing - to do more Well, if we are speaking of incentives, then here's one ... Don't screw with open source or open standards or your legitimate competitors by unfair competition , because many people will never forget it, so don't be surprised i…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the philosophical difference I was talking about. Doesn't change the fact that all code you release under an Apache license is free software in the sense of the four freedoms as defined by the FSF. Whether you like their ways or not.
That is somewhat debatable I suppose. The freedom (if you want to quote RMS) absolutely includes the so called viral provisions of licenses such as the GPL. RMS is quoted as saying proprietary software should be illegal. As a software engineer myself, I find that sort of demagoguery a bit tiring, and consider a license with less mandatory stipulations as more "free" (admittedly under a different definition than the F…
Yep, this is pretty much what I referred to. It is not just about code being given away, it is about making closed code illegal which is something I disagree with.
I also disagree with less strong but still demagoguery claims about closed code being somehow unethical. Or chest thumping with no data to confirm it about how all open source programmers are the most skilled programmers in the world, how open source is by definition all clean and well done and closed source programmers are all totally incapable. (Tho, people usually stop to drum this one the moment they find first job. Which tends to be closed source.) Or chest thumping about how all open source communities are totally awesome meritocratic places with no bullshit politics going on ever and how all companies are surely political hell holes.
I mean sure, old Microsoft claims about how open source is all amateurs doing bad quality work is equal bullshit, but that does not cancel out sheer ego and overstatements so often coming out of free/open ideologues. RMS totally did the work of 11 people alone, back then, right?
Case in point, overwhelming majority of open source, especially big projects, is written by employed people, which is imo, actually cool. That includes linux and that data is easily googleable. But the free software ideologists will still run about hobbyist magically developing large projects in their spare time (while they are also working overtime in companies they are employed in no less, cause they are passionate and because who would ever add two numbers together).
Another case in point, RMS boasted about there surely being more women in open source, cause it is so much better environment, until data came out and turned out women are more likely to work on close source. (The difference does not say anything wrong nor good about either group imo, just that the claim was confident bullshit based on ego thinking alone. There are enough differences that have nothing to do with how good either environment is.)
This is all fine and good. I hope their efforts are sincere. All money and support to free software is most likely good. However, I've been part of the open source community for 25 years, and I remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of open source. It will take a lot to convince me that there is not some underlying goal here that is not beneficial to free software. How much has Microsoft really changed? I…
I also remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of Microsoft.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just spent a few minutes this morning trying to figure out how to turn off Cortana on my windows 10 virtual machine. I don't want to have to spend 45 minutes of my morning trying to figure out the ins and outs of elevated power shell to just turn one freaking app off on an operating system that I bought and therefore should have control over. In my view, this is very obviously tailored to deter most people from rem…
There's the rub. You didn't buy the operating system. You bought a license to use it. That is not a difference without distinction. Microsoft very much view it as their operating system, even though you've purchased a license to use it. My solution is to use Linux, which has a more permissive license. I'm not sure if that will work for you, but it's nice not actually being dependent on a single vendor. By the way, I'…