Devs Flay Microsoft For Withholding Windows 8.1 RTM

CWmike writes "Windows app developers are taking Microsoft to task for the company's decision to withhold Windows 8.1 until mid-October. Traditionally, Microsoft offers an RTM to developers several weeks before the code reaches the general public. On Tuesday, however, Microsoft confirmed that although Windows 8.1 has reached RTM, subscribers to MSDN will not get the final code until the public does on Oct. 17, saying it was not finished. Antoine Leblond, a Microsoft spokesman, said in a blog post, 'In the past, the release to manufacturing milestone traditionally meant that the software was ready for broader customer use. However, it's clear that times have changed.' Developers raged against the decision in comments on another Microsoft blog post, one that told programmers to write and test their apps against Windows 8.1 Preview, the public sneak peak that debuted two months ago. One commenter, 'brianjsw,' said, 'In the real world, developers must have access to the RTM bits before [general availability]. The fact that Microsoft no longer seems to understand this truly frightens me.'"

Comments

Re:Differences between preview and RTM

[mystikkman]

Take Google, which just drops the new version of the Android SDK over the wall along with the hardware running the new version of the Android OS. I didn't notice any outrage there, perhaps because they don't allow comments on their blog posts(or they don't have blog posts). Or perhaps because if Google does it, it's okay.

The funny thing is that Google doesn't even release a beta or RC version for Android like MS did with the 8.1 preview. Where's the Slashdot story and outrage?

The Slashdot story "Linux Vendors Push For Open-Source In Hybrid Datacenter Clouds" has just 19 comments after 4 hours. Now most of Slashdot comments consist of lame karmawhores like tuppe666, tepples, MightyMartian and bmo competing with each other to post the most puerile anti-MS drivel and modding each other up in the echochamber and shouting down anyone who points out their over the top hate and idiocy. Sad, really, atleast earlier insightful comments used to get modded up, now they have no chance.

Re:Oh really, briansjw?

[dbIII]

However, Win7 was the first version where 64 bit OS installations really took off.

It's also when we found out how much legacy 16 bit shit was a point of failure in expensive applications and wouldn't run on 64 bit Win7 - I'm looking at you AutoDesk, Halliburton, and just about every "security" copy protection dongle supplier on the planet. It's no use if your expensive per seat application won't run because some IDIOT has coded something as recent as a usb driver for a evil dongle thing in 16 bit.

Re:the upgrade myth

[Alioth]

Well that's the problem!

In the past, a PC gamer would replace their main rig every year to 18 months, and this would drive quite a bit of sales. In fact, ordinary PC users would change their computer every 2 to 3 years because the new ones were much better, and new software was more capable (and a lot more bloated) and wouldn't run well on a 2 year old machine. This started changing in the early 2000s for non-gaming PCs (my non-gaming development box I built in 2002 lasted 7 years - basically until components started to fail). For gamers this started changing towards 2010 - now there's little advantage in changing your gaming rig more than once every 3 or 4 years.

The result - while PC usage is probably still growing a little, PC *buying* is declining rapidly because a machine from 2010 is still good enough even for gamers, and a machine from 2005 is good enough for typical email/browse the web stuff. My main gaming rig now is a decent spec *laptop* with nvidia graphics and an i7, and not a hideously overweight one either like gaming laptops of 5 or 6 years ago. Since hardly anyone buys Windows retail, falling PC sales means falling Windows sales. A Windows license for a normal PC is lasting 6 years or more now as people only replace when components actually fail beyond economic repair, and most every day users are no more likely to buy a Windows upgrade any more than they will switch to Linux. A Windows license on a gaming PC is lasting at least 3 years now, possibly more - when in the past, Microsoft could rely on gamers buying a new Windows license every year to 18 months and non-gamers every 2 to 3 years.