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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.'"
so Microsoft wants only the agile and extreme to survive, while the slackers get left behind. makes sense to me.
Now we don't even test anymore - the customers can test.
Go team retard!
They forgot to push the button.
Does that mean they were fellated?
Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
Can you please explain why developers need the early access? Is Windows 8.1 not backwards compatible? If it's not available to devs prior to GA will the users end up spending several months being able to do nothing but play solitaire? What is the significance of a third-party piece of software being GA on the exact day as the OS it targets?
No more Ballmer, no more Developers, Developers, Developers?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
In the real world, developers must have access to the RTM bits before [general availability].
I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but is this really true? As long as Microsoft has tested and is certain of backwards compatibility, then it doesn't matter.
In any case, who are these devs and why are they so irate? There's nothing at work worth getting emotional about. It's just work.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Withold access to the new APIs until their own stuff is out-the-door. Then third party developers will have to spend months playing catch-up ...
AccountKiller
The devs can use Windows 8.1 preview and Visual Studio 2013 preview to make their apps.
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.
What the fuck. No. Words mean things, and "release to manufacturing" means that the software is ready for Releasing To Manufacturing. It doesn't mean "beta 15", or "we think this might be ready", or "release candidate". It means that it's ready to ship and that this is what will be going out the door on launch day.
Google's infinite betas are a bit of mild industry humor, but "beta" doesn't have an inherent definition. You can stretch it to justify almost anything. But "RTM", "release candidate", and others have very specific, unambiguous meanings. If it's not finished, it's not RTM no matter who the hell says it is.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The APIs were in the CTP. If nothing changed it shouldn't be as scary as the story indicates. Though it does make for good MS bashing, which is why it's here.
in the real world, everyone is a developer.
The devs can use Windows 8.1 preview
I think the point of the article is that developers feel likely to end up burned by any substantial differences between Windows 8.1 preview and Windows 8.1 RTM. When a difference between preview and RTM causes an application not to work, it may end up with unjustified 1-star ratings (or whatever the equivalent on Windows Store is).
If a behavior difference between preview and release causes an application that worked under preview to fail under release, the owners have to deal with increased support issues resulting from this failure. Support costs money.
Keep in mind that Windows "8.1" is really just a service pack for Windows 8. Only the marketing department ran amok and decided to bump the version number to make it look like this "rapid release" shit.
It is hilarious watching all the betaz folks getting all crazy excited over a damn service pack.
Simply put, you, the developer, are out of picture. MS, simply, don't, care, about, you, anymore. Period.
Well I guess in the "real world" there's no open source software, since developers and users get access to the same code at the same time.
Sure, Firefox has the Beta, Aurora, and Nightly channels, Chrome has something analogous, and Ubuntu has the beta of the next semiannual Alliterative Animal version. But the vast majority of end users don't expect them to be supported in the same way that the release is supported. Beta users expect breakage. However, developers can rely on builds marked "release candidate" to be nearly identical in behavior to the RTM, especially once the final release candidate is declared RTM a short time in advance of pushing it out to the vast majority of end users. Even if this window between the release of an RC and its deployment is only a few days, it's still long enough for developers to fix those application defects that have the highest impact.
Microsoft still has that brilliant cash cow and business stronghold - Office - to power them through these tough times. /sarcasm
in the real world, everyone is a developer.
How so? In comments to stories about cryptographic lockdown policies sometimes called "walled garden", some users (who shall remain nameless for the moment) keep claiming that the vast majority of users of computing devices have no desire to learn a programming language or do anything else commonly associated with job titles that fall under "developer". This is why the lockdown inherent in game consoles and devices running iOS doesn't hinder their adoption by the general public.
Case in point: The forthcoming Xbox One console is believed to run a customized build of Windows 8 alongside the "Windows XB" used by games. If "everyone is a developer," who will have access to the Xbox One SDK?
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
if the code isnt finished, it's beta software at best.
MICROSOFT, YOU ARE SELLING BETA SOFTWARE.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Wait there are really people developing for Windows 8?
Remember Ballmer and MS only "in trouble" because their ever growing profits and income are growing quite as fast as they'd like. they aren't hurting at all
Nobody is suggesting that M$ is in any financial Difficulty. The "in trouble" is 5 quarters of PC sales down. The "in trouble" is missing the boat on massive computing shifts like mobile and cloud. The "in trouble" is its partners are walking away form Windows and announcing greater Android and Chrome products. The "in trouble" is its trying to be a services and devices company...and failing at both. The "in trouble" is those competitors it could crush with spare change or be having or being a monopoly, now have Billions of their own they are struggling to spend. The "in trouble" is suddenly both its cash cows of Windows and OS have competitive replacements at little or no cost.. The "in trouble" is its brand smells of failure. The "in trouble" is everything it had depends on its "windows" monopoly, and suddenly that is looking to be a legacy windows monopoly/Microsoft Office Insurance monopoly, and suddenly those are not not as relevant, and becoming less relevant.
Ballmer is not "in trouble" he is out the door, stabbed in the front by Bill no less, and its not because Microsoft is "in trouble" financially its just all that future computing cash looks to be flowing to other companies who aren't "in trouble"
The people complaining are not Microsoft fans. Let's be honest, they had no intention of writing apps for Windows 8.1. They just wanted to get their hands on the final bits early so they could raise fear, uncertainty and doubt before the general public saw the final product in hopes of thwarting MS again. I think MS is doing the right thing by releasing to everyone at the same time.
8.1 will bring back the look and feel older people where missing
How so? I've read that 8.1 just brings back a visible button in the lower left to open the Start screen. It still has the same problem that the Start screen entirely covers up the applications you were using on the desktop, breaking subconscious continuity, unlike the Windows 7 Start menu or the Classic Shell Start menu that sits in the lower-left corner and leaves what you were working on visible.
This would have never happened and Ballmer.
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.
I don't understand. RTM is the golden master which is finished.
If you walk in the woods, then you feed the mosquitos. So it goes.
If you don't like the way Microsoft treats their developers, then develop for some other vendor (or for yourself).
Do they have the cash?
I'm just thinking that it would be a fitting end to a decades long rivalry.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
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
Google can do this because on release a very small number of normal users, plus some contingent of the most technically hard core are the only ones who are going to be running that version of the OS for a while.
The day 8.1 goes out many millions of fairly non-technical people will be running it. If your software is glitchy at that time, you are screwed.
I would be just as peeved if Apple did not release regular builds leading up to releases like iOS7. Apple also releases beta versions of minor updates too.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is it your OS? No. It is Microsoft's OS. They have never offered a fair field for ISVs. Be glad they still let their users run your app at all.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Hell, at this point, they're so far along they're wearing golf cleats and standing in a puddle of salty vinegar.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I'm so mad I just want to just throw something!
Just for the nSSaSS pleasure, so they can enjoy all the 0day exploits.
This post is a public plea for someone within Microsoft to come forward with documentation on the rationale behind the recent apparent loss of all reason and common sense by the company.
Please, please come forward now!
The actions of this company make no sense to us. We are bewildered by the illogically behavior of Microsoft's direction.
Everyone knows that to ruin the useability of Windows by the utter donkey skit that is the Metro Interface makes no sense. There must be some greater reason behind these mysterious decisions that Microsoft has recently under taken.
So give us an internal memo or two! There must have been voices of intelligence within Microsoft who argued against the self-destructive path that it has recently undertaken.
Let us know why Microsoft is committing public suicide.
Windows 8.1 does away with the fixed split when you run two modern apps in split view. It used to be that you had two "modes" - one for when your app was the main app and one for when your app had the narrow strip at the left or right.
That last mode is now gone. Your app may now have both more and less space. As an app developer you'll have do content with this more fluent split. It has actually broken several apps. Not that they will not run - they just look like s*** when they don't take advantage of the assigned space.
Yes - as an app developer I can test this on the preview version of 8.1 - but it would be nice if I could actually test on the real RTM version.
What irks me is that I have seen no really good explanation from MS as to *why* we will not get the RTM bits. Which makes you start guessing. Is it perhaps that it is not quite ready, and they want be able to push last-minute updates to a known and controllable crowd (OEMs). Maybe they are afraid that if a broader community (without NDAs?) got to see the unfinished bits they would risk a bad rep even before launch?
If that is the case, those in charge are really, really stupid. The OEM bits *will* leak to the Internet at some point.
Reading slashdot one-liner: (irm http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot).rdf.item | fl title,desc*
Greedy little angry birds want there 8.1
Well we are still on windows 7 and you can just eat zune bots.
If the screens and features do not change, why call it a new release? Screen shots in a book that may be incorrect or that say "preview" on them don't impress publishers.
People who do support work for a living and can not play with the real thing before it goes out to the real world look really dumb.
I've had the same Core i7 PC since 2010 that cost £800 and all I've spent on it in that time was £124 for an SSD drive.
It still runs every game on max settings. BF3, Saint's Row, Metro Last Light. The myth that PC gamers spend hundreds every year is an urban legend put about by console gamers, who spend more on four game titles than most PC gamers spend on their basic rig, to make themselves feel better.
Windows Dev: Gives us the RTM MS or else!
MS: Or else?
Windows Dev: Or.... or... I will continue to buy into your mono-culture by not learning any portable languages or tool chains and only develop for your product to the greater glory of your holiness.
MS: I might have stepped in something, lick clean my shoe and try to hide your excitement.
Windows Dev: Yes glorious master.
MS knows EXACTLY how to treat its 3rd party developers. Like shit and the 3rd party developers will lap it up hoping that one day they will be bought out. Or *shiver* partnered. Which is code for getting it so hard up the ass your tonsils hurt.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Heh... You know what else gets released on the 17th of October? Ubuntu 13.10... Hmm...
It's not an urban legend, it used to be fact, back in the days of the Voodoo, Voodoo2, Riva 128, TNT, TNT2 and Geforce.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Seriously, what is WRONG with Microsoft these days? They are making so many short sighted decisions in every area of their business. Technet subs withdrawal, Surface product forecasting, Windows 8 UI, Xbone, the list goes on. Lets hope the upcoming reshuffle and new leadership introduce a new way of doing things. They also desperately need a new PR agency. Their marketing of Surface, among others, has just been awful.
You missed the point. He was applauding the fact that it's no longer necessary to spend hundreds or thousands a year on keeping up with the Joneses to run the latest games, and that the "stagnation" is actually rather good for that reason.
It was never a fact. The subset of the market who was willing to spend $500 on a graphics card, let alone a new one every years, was tiny - perhaps even smaller than it is today. Game developers tended to lag their requirements by a couple of years in order to be able to sell their games, so the latest card was not ever needed (during the first couple of generations it was rare for games to require 3D acceleration). In the period when there still was a night-and-day difference between the latest cards from one year to the next, this also meant that old models depreciated in price, meaning even customers looking to upgrade would take a good few steps behind cutting edge.
There was never any time when PC gamers needed to spend hundreds on upgrades every year.
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.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
and 1 core per virus scanner
and 1 core per IE tab
and 1 core per zynga game
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
the "drop the final" is the RTM, and anyone can get it.
And remember how the APIs got changed between "preview" and release.
Destroyed an entire company.
so Microsoft wants only the agile and extreme to survive, while the slackers get left behind. makes sense to me.
Sounds more to me like Microsoft is making consumers be beta testers for all of the 3rd party software out there, and putting a much higher support burden on the independent software developers since they can't test their software on the released OS until the public does.
Or, since Microsoft developers have access to the code, their apps can be tested and ready to go when 8.1 releases, giving them an advantage over their competition. Of course, they would have to hope that the Justice Department forgets that they sanctioned Microsoft in the past for that very behavior.
Oh Microsoft... please continue screwing your unhappy army developers at your own expense
Of course they will delay. Technet members with Software Assurance will be able to get the RTM after the looming technet death dates. Most casual technet members will lose download abilities this weekend. Delay and keep people on the time limited evaluation copy so they will have to obtain RTM through other means.
There was never any time when PC gamers needed to spend hundreds on upgrades every year.
Well, bollocks. Back in those days PCs were moving fast enough that if you wanted to play the latest games any way but by postcard, you needed a whole new fucking PC every year, with a new video card. Sure, you didn't need to upgrade; you could play the shittier games that came out that year, and watch everyone else play Mechwarrior, or whatever.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not trying to troll, but this is a legitimate questions. For windows 7, when they released service pack 1, did they release that on MSDN before and to developers before it was released online to windows update? If they did, then shame on MS for changing their policy. If they did not, then I see no difference between the two as this is not a new OS, just a service pack.
Captcha: Teaching
That's been clear for a long time. Their language "strategy" is a ridiculous shamble. They dead-end platforms (e.g. Winforms, VB6, silverlight and soon, WPF), change code interfaces willy-nilly (e.g. Powershell instead of a VBScript.net or Jscript.net).
Frankly, I doubt that the top manaegment of Microsoft wants to fuck with software at all anymore. I think there's not enough money in programming language or programmers. I think they want to be a services and devices company. Period.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Will the low pc price sale eventually afect the cost of a PC computer or notebook?
If they aren't selling they will low production, lowering production can mean higher costs...
This is what killed Vista. It wasn't so much that Vista was a bad OS (I have been running a Vista machine for 6 years now). It is the fact that when it FIRST released it was terrible, because NONE of the hardware drivers were available/worked. This was because Microsoft rushed it out, and didn't give companies enough time to come up with proper software (particularly for hardware). So initially it had tonnes of problems. Even after most of those had been figured out just to do a clean install would take forever as you needed to download about a metric fsck tonne of updated, patches, drivers, etc... to get it in working form. Once there it is fine.
People already hate Windows 8. Not just over elitist slashdotters like ourselves. I got a ultrabook for my folks this summer, and they hate it, and that is their core consumers. Alienate your core consumers and they will look for alternatives, Apple for example as it is easier (Metro is confusing as hell, and no start menu as well), or might as well try Linux (Chrome etc...) as it is no more daunting to use than Win8.
Sounds like someone needs a chair real quick!
I build enough new systems to buy the occasional OEM license now and again.
Did you know that if you keep the disc (I know, right?) you can reinstall it even after a motherboard swap? Now, you can't keep reinstalling it over and over within a short time-frame, but that whole "Windows 7 is locked to your motherboard!!!111one!" thing is a load of crap. It will activate again without any question after (IIRC) 6 months, regardless of the motherboard's self-identification values. Y'know, just like XP has since "activation" began. And really, that does the job. You can't load up 200 systems with the same copy of Windows, but you can reinstall it if you have a problem or need to repair your system.
So... this leads to the same old "oh, I have a spare Win7 license laying around that I don't use from a system I retired a while ago" thing that they've finally (but I'm not completely convinced) put a stop to with Office 2013 where you can actually continue to use the software you paid for even after you've installed it an activated it.
Microsoft could only rely on stupid people to buy a new license every 18 months. Those with a clue bought new licenses when they had either a new machine or a good reason to upgrade.
So both Windows developers can bitch about stuff. Seriously, who still develops against native Windows these days? Enterprise apps are all going web, small one-off apps are built in Python, slightly larger apps should be using GTK or QT toolkits, if you're making a game you should be developing against OpenGL and your engine should run in C and good C compiles on any platform. Nobody runs actual Windows 8 for anything serious, the Windows 8 tablets are locked down and have maybe 10 apps for them.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
If you program specifically for windoze. Cross platform people!
I find their tools much more fun to use anyway. https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/mac/index.action If you have never given xcode a try give it a spin.
I got a Voodoo2 when they were new and very expensive (after much pleading and agreeing for it to be counted as a combined Christmas and birthday present). It lasted 3-4 years, until I replaced it with a low-end GeForce 2MX (which was much cheaper). At the time, I was playing a lot of FPS games and so on. Many of my friends had cheaper cards than the Voodoo2. You could always get better graphics by spending more, but most games were quite playable with cheaper cards. Games like Quake 1 and 2 and Half Life even had software renderers that worked fine, albeit at a lower resolution.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's what we call a "subjective fact." ;-)
Yeah, but what fraction of gamers cared about playing the latest games? 5%, maybe?
I still haven't played Mechwarrior, but I have always wasted a large share of my life playing games.
"the jokes on us"
Pot, kettle, black.
I'll start this by saying that I'm a .NET developer who over the past has defended Microsoft on a lot of stuff and loves the .NET platform as a technology, but let me see if I got this right:
They're saying that the RTM is ready for manufacturers, but isn't ready for developers, and won't be until the day it's released to the public. But if developers really need a stable Windows 8.1 build, they should use the latest Release Candidate. I hope whoever came up with this change in the process at Microsoft isn't the one that's responsible for TFS Process Templates, because not a single part of what they're saying makes any sense from an SDLC perspective.
But surely this means they'll be reducing prices significantly on their MSDN subscriptions since a large part of the value proposition of a $1500-$5000 / year subscription just flew out the window.
There can't possibly be any valid justification for this. They've got the RTM ISO, putting it up on MSDN and TechNet requires flipping a few switches. I'll take "missing the mark on Mobile, soft numbers for Surface, and alienating developers" for $1000, Alex. What is, "3 things that will ensure your position and relevance continue to erode over the coming years"
When it's Windows 8.1 and Microsoft is struggling and rushing to patch over a huge mistake.
The Windows PG has been drinking more of the "Secrecy" KoolAid recently. They learned from Apple that this is what people think is "Cool", so they have decided to hold off on releasing the bits at the same time to everyone to create a manufactured sense of excitement.
That begin said, it's could also be that they are still not "done" yet. Note that for Windows 8.1 "Preview" was released back on June 26th but it took Microsoft another *MONTH* (July 30th) to release the Enterprise SKU necessary for evaluation by most IT departments. Why the disconnect?!?!
I's more than likely that they passed off Windows 8.1 to the OEM partnters now so they could do better Driver and Device testing. Then wanting to spend an extra couple of weeks working on Application and UI layer fixes before GA in October.
It's most likely a timing issue. :^(
That moment when MBAs have taken over the building.
Point of order;
Most gamers don't replace their machines outright. They upgrade components, and cannibalise parts when they do a 'new build'. To a gamer, the windows installation disks is one of the 'parts' they can cannibalise.
In other words, gamers have never bought a new windows license every 18 months. They'll buy one the first time they build a machine, or when their games start requiring a new version of windows - outside of those circumstances, they'll keep recycling the same license over and over.
From my own sales experience, the majority of windows licenses sold are with laptops, which still have something of an upgrade treadmill, and are more likely to be replaced in general due to them being more susceptible to damage. This is where the biggest fall is occurring as more people are now able to check their emails or pull up files to print from their phones, reducing the dependency on full-size laptops.
Predictable outcomes of the bone-headed decision
1) lots of apps will crash, which will turn off lots of users -- as if users are not turned off to Windows 8 already.
2) lots of developers will get disgusted and quit Windows 8 development -- as if lots haven't already.
Doesn't it still restrict the splitter positions when one or both apps being run are Win8 apps?
Keep in mind that the app has to declare whether it's targeting Win8 or Win8.1 in its manifest. And if it's targeting Win8, then there's a whole lot of compatibility shims, legacy API behavior etc that are enabled for that app. I always assumed that splitting is one of those things.
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.
I want to make my comments less hateful toward Microsoft or anyone else for that matter. Please clarify what I should change in a comment to this journal.
I just bought a very expensive suite of development software that can only be installed on a single CPU. When I discovered my old machine (Windows 7) didn't have the horsepower to run the software, I went out and bought the most powerful notebook I could find. Unfortunately the machine I needed only came with 8. So now I have begged the company to let me move the license to the new machine, but I hate 8 with a passion. Nothing is intuitive. Even things as simple as trying to get back to a browser session once you have moved to some other app. Microsoft has screwed the public big time forcing all the big channels to move to 8 only. I am very unhappy at the position I find myself in with regard to my development seat.
Yeah, if you got a voodoo2 when they were expensive it would have lasted a while. However, if you bought a card when they were at the mid-range price point (Voodoo Rush for example), you did need to upgrade fairly often during that period because 3d was moving ahead in leaps and bounds. Between 1998 and 2002, I'm pretty sure my transition was Voodoo Rush, TNT2, Geforce 2 MX, Geforce 4200...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The Voodoo Rush was released in 1997. The TNT2 in 1999, the GeForce 2MX in 2000 and GeForce 4200 in 2002. All of them are low-end parts except for the TNT2, and so that's one low-end GPU every 2 years. That's about the upgrade cycle that I remember for people who were active gamers. Certainly not spending hundreds of dollars every year on high-end GPUs, as the original poster claimed.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Windows 8 only failed because people who used RTM talked shit about it.
Solution: No RTM for you!
The fact it failed because it sucks seems to elude them.