So you build your next home gadget around Windows...and it's an amazing success...and now you decide to Kickstart it...and Windows is only free to you as a developer...so just how much extra are you going to have to charge to have Windows on the final version?
Maybe it's nothing, maybe it's very little, maybe it's a lot. So whether it is worth it depends on the value of the feature that you are using the Windows version for, if there is no specific Windows feature that you're using it for then write platform-agnostic code and you can distribute it to Windows or Linux systems. Honestly it seems pretty obvious doesn't it?
Malware on IoT...um...not good. I'll leave it to your imagination.
That's pretty much all that comment is anyway, exactly what malware runs on ARM versions of Windows?
Windows development is taught in high schools all over the world, and a lot of the tools are free to students.
Most of the development taught in schools is platform agnostic, usually c/c++ or java.
Linux development is mostly limited to commercial programmers and the more advanced hobbyists.
So you're saying the market of beginner hobbyists is the one not served by Linux, I doubt that very much. In fact I'd say there are probably more commercial programmers for Windows than there are for Linux.
Why would its performance be abysmal? The Raspberry Pi 2 has 1GB of RAM, the base memory footprint for Windows 8 is ~280mb which is about 60% of what Windows 7 uses, not sure what Windows 10 uses but I'm assuming it's going to be much the same. More to the point one of the biggest memory hogs from a lowend perspective is often the graphics driver, and Pi 2 doesn't have a heavyweight GPU so that shouldn't be a problem.
On a lot of things you can't run a compiler and its output.
Which makes "a lot of things" useless to people who need to run a compiler and its output. The iPad and Surface RT are among them.
I think you're missing the point, where did you get the impression that these devices were to supposed to be everything to everybody?
Conversely netbooks are a horrible compromise pretty much no matter what you do. For anything you can do on a tablet it is almost always better and for anything a tablet can't do you're better off with an ultrabook than a netbook. That's the reason netbooks died out.
In OS X, the Applications folder is one click away. Not ideal, I'd rather have a menu with all of my applications (and I used to have that in OS 9).
Because it is pinned to the dock, which you can do with the taskbar in Windows.
You're forgetting that there's not just one Start Menu folder in Windows, there are two: one user-specific and one for all users. So two locations to scan.
Just like how in OSX and Linux not everything executable is in an "Applications" folder, Windows users simply do not understand this which is one of the reasons Windows still dominates the desktop space.
Are you seriously suggesting this is a good replacement for the Start menu?
No i'm saying between that, the taskbar, the desktop and search the start menu is pretty pointless. That is why there is no start menu on OSX.
The times when the start menu is actually useful (when you don't even know what you're trying to find) is so rare that if you have to look in 2 places it's no big deal, same as on OSX where just because it is an executable program doesn't mean it is in the Applications folder.
I do, the keyboard does work (but I have the TypeCover), I don't have the dock. You're right that bluetooth, pen pressure and wifi != 2.4GHz don't work out of the box with Ubuntu but it is trivial to install the drivers to make them work.
Sure, it's faster for the programs you use often enough that you remember their name. That's maybe 20 out of the 200 programs I've installed.
If you don't know their name then are you just reading them all and hoping on jogs your memory?
I do know I filed them somewhere in Programs->XML tools (or one of a few categories I've set up and that make sense for me).
Easy, just go to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs in Explorer just like you would on a Mac through Finder or on Linux through Nautilus, Konquerer or whatever. How exactly do you go about this on other platforms currently?
The problem is that there's drivers missing for a lot of things, and certain things just don't work.
Like what? The graphics, sound, networking, usb, etc... are all just standard Intel. Touchscreen input works out of the box too. The pen input on the Pro 1 & 2 is just wacom (official and non-official drivers exist).
To add to that, Linux still has some catching up to do in terms of high resolution displays so that things don't end up really tiny on the high resolution display.
An 80-column-wide window with a 6-pixel-wide font is 480xsomething inside the chrome, which means two 80-column-wide windows can comfortably fit side-by-side.
80 columns is not enough.
On Windows RT you also can't run a compiler and its output.
On a lot of things you can't run a compiler and its output.
There's Instagram, Vine and Snapchat clients for Windows
...Phone.
No, i didn't write phone because I didn't mean phone. I said "clients", which you wrongly inferred to mean getting them from the service provider.
PrimeVine is an example for Vine. Snapper is an example for snapchat.
These are not the only examples.
I have no smartphone. Is a smartphone still a luxury, or has it become a necessity?
As I said, you can run it in bluestacks or just get a cheap smartphone or communicate in one of the many other ways available. You're limited only by limitations you are inventing.
Is BlueStacks based on Google Play or AOSP?
Im not even going to bother to do a lmgtfy link.
Android distributions based on AOSP lack Google Play Store and thus cannot download Google Play Store-exclusive applications.
Right.
In any case, it appears that BlueStacks is something that "everyone's gonna have to install"
No, it doesn't. Maybe in the contrived case where you don't have a smartphone, refuse to get a smartphone yet want to run a smartphone app. If for whatever reason it doesnt work in bluestacks then get a cheap smartphone or dont use the app.
The display in my Dell Inspiron mini 1012 is even "worse" at 1024x600, yet 120 dpi doesn't cause a problem for my use cases. If you hate 16:9, think of it as two 8:9 windows side by side. And side by side is something you can do on a netbook or x86 tablet that you can't do on tablets that run a phone OS.
Side by side is pretty useless when your windows are 512x300, especially when you can't do them "fullscreen" so you end up with a lot of wasted window chrome. On Windows RT you can split the windows and you don't end up with a bunch of useless chrome. On a lot of Samsung devices you can do multi-window setups as well.
There's Instagram, Vine and Snapchat clients for Windows and even an official Instagram one in Beta. You can use the whatsapp web client on your device so long as you have the app on a smartphone to register.
And as I said you can run the Android apps in bluestacks.
How come an iPad is a luxury, but a $700 smart phone isn't?
I make perfectly fine phone calls on my old RAZR 3
It is to some degree, but it does a lot more than your RAZR and I think we're at the point where it is just being intentionally stupid to still consider a modern phone to be nothing more than a device to make phone calls.
The point here is that if you have say an iPhone then an iPad isn't really going to get you anything you couldn't do on your phone aside from it being perhaps a little more convenient to do it on a larger screen.
Right, but if every phone was upgraded to the version it is technically able to be upgraded to by the hardware vendors, then I doubt there would be very many phones still running android 4.3 (that people were still using).
Well that's a pretty key point, is there any evidence to support that? Also it isn't just 4.3, this vulnerability is anything prior to 4.4.
I suppose this is true of PCs and windows updates as well, but there is enough consumer demand that Microsoft continues to release patches
Like I said, if it doesn't say "hey, here's an update" they won't care, Windows does that, Android does not. Android's approach to updates is a new operating system version rather than a patch.
Search is a great feature! Having a mouse and clicking around a GUI browsing for files was the most gimmicky, mouth-breather way of launching programs that added nothing for users. If you want something then just type it, it's faster than hunting through and clicking ever-expanding menus trying to reveal what you're looking for. Not only that but I don't need to rely on different operating systems having all the items in the same place, for example if I need mouse settings I just search for it and whether it's Windows 7, Windows 8 or OS X it gives me all the mouse-related items. I can do it with programs too so I don't need to worry that somebody may have organized their programs or files differently to me if I use their computer.
This also works on phones, I know where I put Safari on my iPhone but I don't know where it is on somebody elses so instead of hunting for it the more efficient way is to search. I could just browse for it but search is quicker.
Power users can go further than search and do things like scripts that copy lnk files from the start menu folder (yes it is what drives the start screen in Windows 8 too) to a directory that you add to your PATH variable so you can just launch any applications directly from the command line without having to remember where they are. This is great for when you have to work on a different system where things aren't where you expect them to be.
You can still put things in sensibly named and organised layouts if you prefer, and you can create shortcuts to things you need and place them in the most appropriate locations. I'm not sure where you get the idea that you cannot do that anymore.
I don't wish to be "stuck" with Win10 as it's going subscription after a year free.
Where did you get that information from? I saw they are going to charge for it after the first year and that they will obviously charge OEMs for it so they can make money but I didn't see anything about "subscription".
How long should they realistically keep doing this? I know it is common to support some hardware for decades, but people just don't keep cell phones that long.
Well if you look at the usage of versions prior to 4.4 it is most of the Android userbase. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule on how long but given that most people are still using earlier versions I think it's pretty clear there needs to be some support.
Continually patching older releases may provide some short term good (if the hardware vendors are even willing to push those patches), but it also allows hardware vendors a convenient way to skirt their responsibility to port newer android versions to their phones.
Well really this is a special case anyway, the problem has been mostly resolved in recent Android versions where this is all moved into the Google Play app/services so Google can update these things directly. Webview specifically has been moved there in later versions.
Maybe this would work. But I still think a consumer demand based approach could work just as well or even better.
I doubt it, most people would have no idea about vulnerabilities such as this or that there is a new version of Android for their phones. If it doesn't say "hey, here's an update" most people don't know or care.
That fact does remain, but what I am arguing is that the real problem is the hardware vendors not google.
That's a fair position to take but in my opinion Google should see the situation and adapt to it by patching the older version especially since many of those phones do lack the capability to run 4.4 (though some may be able to skip 4.4 and run 5.0).
Until the hardware vendors change their ways, I think the most reasonable advice is "Don't buy phones with locked bootloaders, and preferably buy nexus phones from the google play store".
Even an unlocked bootloader isn't going to help you if you don't have a compatible system image, the binary drivers of one version don't necessarily work with the next because of the instability of the kernel ABI.
What Google should do is force a support requirement through the OHA.
Yes, the "no, you tell me" answer. It's not a phonorecord, but the ECU of my car is copyrighted. Am I allowed to transfer the license to my ECU (and the car along with it)?
I'm not sure why you said "car" up until this point when you are specifically referring to the ECU component of a car that has one, which of course not all cars do. Were you trying to be intentionally misleading? ECUs can be replaced irrespective of the First Sale doctrine because that copyright is not tied to the car but to the ECU.
But that is irrelevant anyway, unlike the case of Ubisoft revoking keys for games no ECU has a requirement that ties it to an owner but if it did then it would still satisfy the First Sale doctrine because it is not about being able to use the goods after they were sold but to be able to sell the copyrighted goods in the first place.
So I still don't see how you're relating an ECU to re selling insurance policies, or to Ubisoft game keys for that matter.
Slashdot Mirror
I said "if", not "though".
I know, either way the question of "why" is just as relevant.
So you build your next home gadget around Windows...and it's an amazing success...and now you decide to Kickstart it...and Windows is only free to you as a developer...so just how much extra are you going to have to charge to have Windows on the final version?
Maybe it's nothing, maybe it's very little, maybe it's a lot. So whether it is worth it depends on the value of the feature that you are using the Windows version for, if there is no specific Windows feature that you're using it for then write platform-agnostic code and you can distribute it to Windows or Linux systems. Honestly it seems pretty obvious doesn't it?
Malware on IoT...um...not good. I'll leave it to your imagination.
That's pretty much all that comment is anyway, exactly what malware runs on ARM versions of Windows?
Windows development is taught in high schools all over the world, and a lot of the tools are free to students.
Most of the development taught in schools is platform agnostic, usually c/c++ or java.
Linux development is mostly limited to commercial programmers and the more advanced hobbyists.
So you're saying the market of beginner hobbyists is the one not served by Linux, I doubt that very much. In fact I'd say there are probably more commercial programmers for Windows than there are for Linux.
even if its performance is abysmal
Why would its performance be abysmal? The Raspberry Pi 2 has 1GB of RAM, the base memory footprint for Windows 8 is ~280mb which is about 60% of what Windows 7 uses, not sure what Windows 10 uses but I'm assuming it's going to be much the same. More to the point one of the biggest memory hogs from a lowend perspective is often the graphics driver, and Pi 2 doesn't have a heavyweight GPU so that shouldn't be a problem.
On a lot of things you can't run a compiler and its output.
Which makes "a lot of things" useless to people who need to run a compiler and its output. The iPad and Surface RT are among them.
I think you're missing the point, where did you get the impression that these devices were to supposed to be everything to everybody?
Conversely netbooks are a horrible compromise pretty much no matter what you do. For anything you can do on a tablet it is almost always better and for anything a tablet can't do you're better off with an ultrabook than a netbook. That's the reason netbooks died out.
That hasn't stopped any of those existing clients, probably because there are no official ones for those platforms.
In OS X, the Applications folder is one click away. Not ideal, I'd rather have a menu with all of my applications (and I used to have that in OS 9).
Because it is pinned to the dock, which you can do with the taskbar in Windows.
You're forgetting that there's not just one Start Menu folder in Windows, there are two: one user-specific and one for all users. So two locations to scan.
Just like how in OSX and Linux not everything executable is in an "Applications" folder, Windows users simply do not understand this which is one of the reasons Windows still dominates the desktop space.
Are you seriously suggesting this is a good replacement for the Start menu?
No i'm saying between that, the taskbar, the desktop and search the start menu is pretty pointless. That is why there is no start menu on OSX.
The times when the start menu is actually useful (when you don't even know what you're trying to find) is so rare that if you have to look in 2 places it's no big deal, same as on OSX where just because it is an executable program doesn't mean it is in the Applications folder.
I don't have a Surface Pro, so I can't confirm
I do, the keyboard does work (but I have the TypeCover), I don't have the dock. You're right that bluetooth, pen pressure and wifi != 2.4GHz don't work out of the box with Ubuntu but it is trivial to install the drivers to make them work.
Sure, it's faster for the programs you use often enough that you remember their name. That's maybe 20 out of the 200 programs I've installed.
If you don't know their name then are you just reading them all and hoping on jogs your memory?
I do know I filed them somewhere in Programs->XML tools (or one of a few categories I've set up and that make sense for me).
Easy, just go to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs in Explorer just like you would on a Mac through Finder or on Linux through Nautilus, Konquerer or whatever. How exactly do you go about this on other platforms currently?
Actually, you can put Linux on the Surface Pro.
Yeah that's why I suggested it.
The problem is that there's drivers missing for a lot of things, and certain things just don't work.
Like what? The graphics, sound, networking, usb, etc... are all just standard Intel. Touchscreen input works out of the box too. The pen input on the Pro 1 & 2 is just wacom (official and non-official drivers exist).
To add to that, Linux still has some catching up to do in terms of high resolution displays so that things don't end up really tiny on the high resolution display.
Most definitely.
An 80-column-wide window with a 6-pixel-wide font is 480xsomething inside the chrome, which means two 80-column-wide windows can comfortably fit side-by-side.
80 columns is not enough.
On Windows RT you also can't run a compiler and its output.
On a lot of things you can't run a compiler and its output.
There's Instagram, Vine and Snapchat clients for Windows
...Phone.
No, i didn't write phone because I didn't mean phone. I said "clients", which you wrongly inferred to mean getting them from the service provider.
PrimeVine is an example for Vine.
Snapper is an example for snapchat.
These are not the only examples.
I have no smartphone. Is a smartphone still a luxury, or has it become a necessity?
As I said, you can run it in bluestacks or just get a cheap smartphone or communicate in one of the many other ways available. You're limited only by limitations you are inventing.
Is BlueStacks based on Google Play or AOSP?
Im not even going to bother to do a lmgtfy link.
Android distributions based on AOSP lack Google Play Store and thus cannot download Google Play Store-exclusive applications.
Right.
In any case, it appears that BlueStacks is something that "everyone's gonna have to install"
No, it doesn't. Maybe in the contrived case where you don't have a smartphone, refuse to get a smartphone yet want to run a smartphone app. If for whatever reason it doesnt work in bluestacks then get a cheap smartphone or dont use the app.
The display in my Dell Inspiron mini 1012 is even "worse" at 1024x600, yet 120 dpi doesn't cause a problem for my use cases. If you hate 16:9, think of it as two 8:9 windows side by side. And side by side is something you can do on a netbook or x86 tablet that you can't do on tablets that run a phone OS.
Side by side is pretty useless when your windows are 512x300, especially when you can't do them "fullscreen" so you end up with a lot of wasted window chrome. On Windows RT you can split the windows and you don't end up with a bunch of useless chrome. On a lot of Samsung devices you can do multi-window setups as well.
There's Instagram, Vine and Snapchat clients for Windows and even an official Instagram one in Beta. You can use the whatsapp web client on your device so long as you have the app on a smartphone to register.
And as I said you can run the Android apps in bluestacks.
How come an iPad is a luxury, but a $700 smart phone isn't?
I make perfectly fine phone calls on my old RAZR 3
It is to some degree, but it does a lot more than your RAZR and I think we're at the point where it is just being intentionally stupid to still consider a modern phone to be nothing more than a device to make phone calls.
The point here is that if you have say an iPhone then an iPad isn't really going to get you anything you couldn't do on your phone aside from it being perhaps a little more convenient to do it on a larger screen.
a proprietary instant messaging application that is available only for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone
If there is such a thing then run the Android app in Bluestacks.
So put Linux on it instead.
Even a 10" laptop like the "netbooks" that were in fashion from 2008 to 2012?
The problem with them is the poor resolution of the screen. Also most had the terrible 1366x768 screens which is the awful 16:9 aspect ratio.
Right, but if every phone was upgraded to the version it is technically able to be upgraded to by the hardware vendors, then I doubt there would be very many phones still running android 4.3 (that people were still using).
Well that's a pretty key point, is there any evidence to support that? Also it isn't just 4.3, this vulnerability is anything prior to 4.4.
I suppose this is true of PCs and windows updates as well, but there is enough consumer demand that Microsoft continues to release patches
Like I said, if it doesn't say "hey, here's an update" they won't care, Windows does that, Android does not. Android's approach to updates is a new operating system version rather than a patch.
Search is a great feature! Having a mouse and clicking around a GUI browsing for files was the most gimmicky, mouth-breather way of launching programs that added nothing for users. If you want something then just type it, it's faster than hunting through and clicking ever-expanding menus trying to reveal what you're looking for. Not only that but I don't need to rely on different operating systems having all the items in the same place, for example if I need mouse settings I just search for it and whether it's Windows 7, Windows 8 or OS X it gives me all the mouse-related items. I can do it with programs too so I don't need to worry that somebody may have organized their programs or files differently to me if I use their computer.
This also works on phones, I know where I put Safari on my iPhone but I don't know where it is on somebody elses so instead of hunting for it the more efficient way is to search. I could just browse for it but search is quicker.
Power users can go further than search and do things like scripts that copy lnk files from the start menu folder (yes it is what drives the start screen in Windows 8 too) to a directory that you add to your PATH variable so you can just launch any applications directly from the command line without having to remember where they are. This is great for when you have to work on a different system where things aren't where you expect them to be.
You can still put things in sensibly named and organised layouts if you prefer, and you can create shortcuts to things you need and place them in the most appropriate locations. I'm not sure where you get the idea that you cannot do that anymore.
I don't wish to be "stuck" with Win10 as it's going subscription after a year free.
Where did you get that information from? I saw they are going to charge for it after the first year and that they will obviously charge OEMs for it so they can make money but I didn't see anything about "subscription".
How long should they realistically keep doing this? I know it is common to support some hardware for decades, but people just don't keep cell phones that long.
Well if you look at the usage of versions prior to 4.4 it is most of the Android userbase. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule on how long but given that most people are still using earlier versions I think it's pretty clear there needs to be some support.
Continually patching older releases may provide some short term good (if the hardware vendors are even willing to push those patches), but it also allows hardware vendors a convenient way to skirt their responsibility to port newer android versions to their phones.
Well really this is a special case anyway, the problem has been mostly resolved in recent Android versions where this is all moved into the Google Play app/services so Google can update these things directly. Webview specifically has been moved there in later versions.
Maybe this would work. But I still think a consumer demand based approach could work just as well or even better.
I doubt it, most people would have no idea about vulnerabilities such as this or that there is a new version of Android for their phones. If it doesn't say "hey, here's an update" most people don't know or care.
That fact does remain, but what I am arguing is that the real problem is the hardware vendors not google.
That's a fair position to take but in my opinion Google should see the situation and adapt to it by patching the older version especially since many of those phones do lack the capability to run 4.4 (though some may be able to skip 4.4 and run 5.0).
Until the hardware vendors change their ways, I think the most reasonable advice is "Don't buy phones with locked bootloaders, and preferably buy nexus phones from the google play store".
Even an unlocked bootloader isn't going to help you if you don't have a compatible system image, the binary drivers of one version don't necessarily work with the next because of the instability of the kernel ABI.
What Google should do is force a support requirement through the OHA.
Yes, the "no, you tell me" answer. It's not a phonorecord, but the ECU of my car is copyrighted. Am I allowed to transfer the license to my ECU (and the car along with it)?
I'm not sure why you said "car" up until this point when you are specifically referring to the ECU component of a car that has one, which of course not all cars do. Were you trying to be intentionally misleading? ECUs can be replaced irrespective of the First Sale doctrine because that copyright is not tied to the car but to the ECU.
But that is irrelevant anyway, unlike the case of Ubisoft revoking keys for games no ECU has a requirement that ties it to an owner but if it did then it would still satisfy the First Sale doctrine because it is not about being able to use the goods after they were sold but to be able to sell the copyrighted goods in the first place.
So I still don't see how you're relating an ECU to re selling insurance policies, or to Ubisoft game keys for that matter.
I suspect most phones running 4.3 could have been upgraded to 4.4 if the hardware vendors did the work to port the 4.4 release to their phones.
Even *if* your suspicions are correct the fact remains that they cannot be upgraded to 4.4.