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Microsoft Has Received 1 Million Pieces of Feedback For Windows 10
jones_supa writes Microsoft's Windows Insider lead, Gabe Aul, has announced that the company has received one million pieces of feedback through the Windows 10 Technical Preview Feedback app. The app opens right from the Start Menu and it has been critical to the operating system's development allowing testers to send details to Microsoft about what they think of Windows, problems they have been facing, and if there are any improvements they would like to see. The app has been part of both desktop and phone flavors of the OS. Microsoft seems to have made a real effort lately to listen to consumer feedback and has been opening up avenues to discuss new features for some time. Have you sent feedback through the app?
I have to give both Microsoft and Slashdot credit. At least they do listen somewhat to users who voice concerns about their products. It's still not as good as Windows 7, but at least Microsoft is getting rid of some of the worst parts of Windows 8 in Windows 10. And Slashdot did the right thing by getting rid of its shitty beta site after so many users pointed out just how shitty it was.
But Mozilla? Do they listen? Nope! Firefox keeps getting worse and worse with each release. The ruined UI stays ruined, and stuff like Electrolysis and asm.js are just half-assed clones of stuff that Chrome has had from the beginning, or has a much better approach for. Then Mozilla pisses around with something as fucking awful as Firefox OS.
And then there's GNOME. Do they listen? Nope! GNOME 3 was by far the worst open source screwup we've ever seen. It's still total shit, years later. If you don't believe me, go look at recent versions of gedit. Yeah, that's how badly they fucked up what was once a usable text editor.
Finally we have Debian. Do they listen? Nope! Debian's quality has taken a nosedive since they started pushing systemd. What was once the most robust and stable Linux distro, even when it came to its testing and unstable versions, is now one of the most unstable and fragile Linux distros.
Microsoft and Slashdot have done the right thing by at least addressing some of the many issues raised by users. But these other projects, like Firefox, GNOME and Debian, need to start doing that instead of just treating their users like dirt.
Here's some feedback: can we please go back to referring to programs as programs?
I am never going to develop a website using a tablet or phone or anything other than a desktop with shitloads of memory and a full keyboard.
Anyone using .NET, which was supposed to be a big thing starting around 2003 or so, and is still a big thing, is not going to be doing this on a tablet.
I don't want to use a tablet interface to develop for your stupid tablet interface using a tablet. I'm not going to do it.
I will encourage leadership, and that means people who would be glad to spend money for me, to not update at all.
But my voice apparently goes in the bucket of "user" rather than "people who further extend our monopoly".
I very much agree on all items. The thing about systemd and Debian is really tragic though. I did believe the Linux community had good resilience against sabotage, but apparently I was mistaken. There is one last change to make this right, namely when it is still not good a year or so after being the default and more and more people wake up to what is going on.
And Firefox? That is just concentrated stupid. I do keep it around because Chrome is not an option and my default browser (Opera 12) is having trouble with some sites, but I would never make it the default.
They've got to try to restore performance somehow. Getting rid of detail and gradients really helps with performance. Too bad it's still sluggish.
Do you really think that today's GPUs, which can render incredibly-detailed 3D scenes in video games 60-100 times per second, REALLY have trouble with a simple Gradient Fill?
I use a Kubuntu laptop. That said, what we see here is the downside to open source. There is no real penalty for not listening to users and just doing what you want. If you are doing it for free why would you care what others think, as long as you think you're right. Same deal if you have somehow gained a funding source that also doesn't care. BTW, Maybe Google liked Mozilla fucking up Firefox since that would push people to Chrome (yes I know they have a deal with Yahoo now, but most of the stupid shite was done when they got their money from Google). Gnome was a case of this combined with a crew that got too big for their britches. Design have always been uber-gnu and did things as they saw and see fit, and don't have to answer to anyone but themselves and if you don't like it, use Redhat. So there (sticks tongue out). There are a lot of projects that do care. But I think k hubris is easier with open source when you are less likely to lose a paycheque.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Mass release of technical preview software is is showing contempt for users and developers by wasting both sides' time by duplicating effort. In my experience the best way do it is to initially release to a small sample of users an fix the issues they raise. Then release to a somewhat larger sample and fix the issues they raise, etc. If you are getting more than a handful of duplicated reports then you are ramping up too fast. If you are getting reports in at a rate that exceeds your developers capacity to evaluate them and, if necessary, follow up with the user then you are ramping up too fast.
"It's still not as good as Windows 7...": now that is comment which worries me...
I don't think you know what Debian stable means. Debian stable is the fact that the package version in the repository will not change after a feature freeze. This doesn't mean that the packages in that repository are bug free or less prone to crash. It just means that starting from the feature freeze no new packages or package versions will be added to the repository. This means that third party software (or self built software) can be compiled against Debian X stable. And all Debian X stable around the world will have the same package versions. It is a way to prevent the dependency hell that used to plague Linux distributions in the 90's (and early 2000's).
... pry them from my cold, dead hands ..."
And about systemd, it is the proverbial step back to go forward. Sometimes you are stuck and can't move forward anymore, like with the old dated batch like boot system. Replacing it with a modern system will of course take some time to get accustomed to it the new system, and there will even be a period when not all features are there, not all program that depend on it are adjusted and not all packages are bug free (that is where we are right now I guess, although I've been running systemd for a long time without any problems, it's a lot more efficient to work with once you know it). But it doesn't mean it isn't a needed change that was long overdue. In fact systemd is something that had to be created in the 90's, instead of relying on the then already outdated sysv.
Once systemd is feature complete (including the packages that will rely on it), we will start to see many new features that would be impossible with sysv.
I would advice you to learn to accept systemd. If you are a system administrator, you might hold so tight to the old system, that once the 15 years old systems need replacement, you are holding so tight to the old system that you're thrown along with the systems on the scrapyard, mumbling "
What I find interesting is that Microsoft's server version of the OS is pretty damn good. With the server, MS knows exactly who their target market is and develops tools that are amazingly good (Visual Studio is much the same). In that OS, the Modern UI elements they blend in with the tools (like Server Monitor or Resource Monitor) actually make sense and give the admin of the machine an good overview of the health of the machine. I don't see their crazy attempts to blend in touchscreen elements with traditional programs to try and force UI paradigms. Furthermore, you can even decide to install the "core" version of the same said OS. That version has no GUI. It's command line only. Granted it's Powershell, but if you've drank the MS kool-aid and learned PS, it's not a terrible way to admin a machine.
In the consumer market, they really don't know for what platform they should develop the OS for. In the past, they have blindly laid down the UI paradigm of Touchscreens and forgot that Windows machines are also used for content creation, not just consumption. In the process, pissing of the majority of their consumer base that don't use touchscreens. It wouldn't be perceived so damn bad if MS made a decent tablet without it costing $2k and without the multiple hardware iterations to get there. I remember watching the reveal of the Surface and thought if they actually come through on hardware, they could actually have something useful that professionals would seek out. But no, they screwed that up too.
I think it's business as normal in MS and this press release is there only to feed the news cycle and for blogs to get all a twitter about. Internally, MS will manage to screw it up yet again by not regarding any of the feedback as worthy to alter their internal course of action.