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How Microsoft Built, and Is Still Building, Windows 10
An anonymous reader writes with this Venturebeat story about how Windows 10 is different from previous versions because of the way it was designed, including 15 public preview builds, and how much work is still being done. Windows 10 for PCs arrived two weeks ago. Thankfully, we don't need to wait years to say this will be a Microsoft operating system release like no other. The most obvious clue is not the fact that Windows 10 was installed on more than 14 million devices in 24 hours, that you can get it for cheap or upgrade to it for free, nor even that it ships with a digital assistant and a proper browser. No, the big deal here is that Microsoft is turning its OS into a service, and that means as you read these words, it's still being built. For the next few years, we'll be getting not just Windows 10 updates and patches, but new improvments and features. This is possible because Microsoft built this version very differently from all its previous releases.
After using Solaris and IRIX during the 1990s, and then Linux during most of the 2000s and up until recently, I'm seriously considering switching to Windows. I've been very disturbed by what has happened to open source software recently. I used to like GNOME 2, but GNOME 3 was a total disaster, and even after years nothing has been done to really fix it up. I used to like Firefox, but since Firefox 4 it has just gotten worse and worse with each release. I used to like Debian, but sine switching to systemd with Debian 8, I've had all sorts of problems with it, and I've wasted too much of my time trying to debug stupid boot/init issues that just shouldn't happen in a stable release of any distro. It's not like I can move to a different distro, because all of the practical distros have switched to systemd, or will be switching soon! Then there are the many security flaws affecting OpenSSL and bash and other popular open source software.
I used *NIX systems because they were reliable, and I knew I could trust them. But that trust has really started to deteriorate lately, especially when it comes to Linux distros and the open source software ecosystem. At this point, I'm thinking that I may just be better off using Windows. It isn't the 1990s any longer. I don't like to admit it, but Windows has come a long way. If they can provide me with an OS that boots consistently, that's fast, that runs useful software, and doesn't cost too much, I'll consider switching. I'll even use Edge, if it's better than Firefox, which the evidence so far suggests that it is, or soon will be.
Well no, it's called slashdot (/.) but you do know where that comes from right? I'm sure you do, you wouldn't be here if you didn't.
Anyhoo.
i agree, this isn't that much of a paid ad, it is, but it's actually useful information if you want to see the direction things are going. I love me some Linux, but my day to day job is mostly windows boxes, I connect to my linux boxes from a windows box, I spend hours maintaining windows boxes.
I'm interested to see what enterprise changes they have in store. Home users might be quick to jump onto a subscription based service, but losing that much control probably won't sit well with enterprise users.
Eventually it will be a full circle, thin dumb clients remoting into VMs hosted by MS or whoever, in massive data centers. That's your os, hell your computer won't even need a hard drive as you'd be basically network booting into your OS ala Linux Live CDs, with persistence but the OS itself is no where near your computer.
This is the first step, get us away from buying software and push us towards paying for services (software AS a service). As well, this model allows MS to launch now, but continue to actually build the os. Windows 10, if done right, will be the best OS MS has ever produced, if done right. They have a huge chance here to start acting like some of the linux community, actively listening to user feedback and FIXING THINGS.