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Opinion: Even if You Hate the Idea, Windows Users Should Want Windows 10 S To Succeed (arstechnica.com)
Last week, Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 S, a new variant of its desktop operating system aimed largely at the education space. While time will tell how this new edition of Windows fares, if early reactions from enthusiasts are anything to go by, Windows 10 S is in for a tough ride ahead. For one, Windows 10 S only permits installation of applications from the Windows Store. If that wasn't a deal-breaker, several popular applications including Google's Chrome are missing from the Store. Amid all of this, reporter and columnist Peter Bright has an op-ed up on ArsTechnica in which he argues that despite the walled-garden offering, people should want Windows 10 S to succeed as it could make Windows better for everyone else. From his article: This [forbidding execution of any program that wasn't downloaded from the Windows Store] positions Microsoft as a gatekeeper -- although its criteria for entry within the store is for the most part not stringent, it does reserve the right to remove software that it deems undesirable -- and means that the vast majority of extant Windows software can't be used. This means that PC mainstays, from Adobe Photoshop to Valve's Steam, can't be used on Windows 10 S. [...] Some of the arguments against this are bizarre. Notably, the complaint that Microsoft has now erected a paywall -- "you have to pay $50 to run Steam!" -- is very peculiar when one considers that, in general, Windows licenses have never been free. [...] The Windows Store makes bad parts of Windows better: I'd argue, however, that Windows users should want Windows 10 S to succeed. Windows 10 S isn't for everybody, and Windows 10 S may not be for you, but if Windows 10 S succeeds, it will make Windows 10 better for everyone. The Store in Windows RT required developers to write their apps from scratch. With negligible numbers of users, developers were uninterested in doing this work. The Store in Windows 10 has Centennial. In principle, Centennial should make it easy to package existing Win32 apps and sell them through the Store, and if developers of Windows apps adopt Centennial en masse then the Store restriction shouldn't be particularly restrictive. Widespread adoption will be good for Windows users of all stripes.
What we really want people to do is drop the trojan/boated Windows 10 and starting using ElementaryOS or Linux Mint. It's so easy to do folks
It's easy provided that the PC you own 1. allows customizing Secure Boot and 2. is compatible with Linux drivers.
Only PCs shipped with Windows 8 or earlier are required to allow the owner of a PC to disable or customize UEFI's Secure Boot feature. On PCs shipped with Windows 10, the PC maker can choose to make Secure Boot either open or closed. (The FSF uses the term Restricted Boot to refer to Secure Boot that the PC's owner cannot control.) I haven't tried a Windows 10 S device myself, but imagine that all such devices have Restricted Boot, just as all Windows RT tablets had Restricted Boot. Someone stuck with a device with Restricted Boot will have to buy a new PC.
And even if a PC does boot non-Microsoft operating systems, I've seen cases where one or more of WLAN, Bluetooth, audio, and suspend is broken under Linux. Someone who spends several gigabytes of monthly data transfer quota to download a Live USB distribution only to discover that Linux cannot use essential features of his PC chipset will have to buy a new PC.
The summary provided isn't terribly sharp; it takes out any of the justification provided in the Ars piece and relates mostly the author's opinions. Mr. Bright's actual argument is that the Windows 10 Store fills the hole of a single, consistent package manager, promising that applications will be cleanly installed, updated, and uninstalled without the diversity of mechanisms abundant currently. He doesn't offer any defense of Windows 10 S beyond that, nor of the essential problem of a locked-down ecosystem and all of the censorship-related complications, which are waved off in the first three paragraphs (along with a screenshot of the Popcorn Time installer failing to run.) I don't believe he even defends the ostensible cleanliness benefits of closed ecosystems. All of the positives that he cites would be obtainable if it were simply possible to hook into Windows Update, a notion he mentions.
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Actually, Apple doesn't do this at all in MacOS (it only does it in iOS). I can download (or buy a CD/DVD for) any application written for MacOS and run it, no sweat.
Fact is, I rarely even bother with the Apple App Store for the stuff on my laptop.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
On Android you can install Amazon Store, on Windows there's Steam, Origin, UPlay, GoG, on Mac there is Steam as well, these are all curated storefronts with an eye on malware.
The issue here is they cannot be added to Windows 10 S as a companion storefront even though they do as much to "lock out the malware developers and remove the need for virus scanners."
Twinstiq, game news
The walled garden is iOS only.
As a (former) shareware developer for MacOS, I unfortunately have to say: not really. Or, to put it in other terms, only formally but not practically. While my application is still available on my website and various shareware/download sites, distributing applications that way doesn't work in practice due to Apple's unfair advantage and the inertia and laziness of end consumers. Even if you can still de jure get applications from elsewhere, almost nobody does it.Even if you can still de jure get applications from elsewhere, almost nobody does it. De facto developers (and indirectly also the customers) are already locked in via Gatekeeper, the Apple developer network, code signing requirements, constant API changes and intentional breaking of existing code if you do not use the latest official Apple tool-chain, sandboxing, and so on.