Haven't tried it myself, but GP said to put an express DENY "right" on the GWX folder. I remember from my MSDN classes (a long time ago) that "deny" overrides any granted rights and sorta has a higher priority, because the system checks for "deny" first. If a "deny" is found it stops checking for rights and assumes the user has no permission. Thus it seems quite plausible that "deny" does what turning off permissions fails to do.
Dead hard drive and CD/DVD-drive going too? And you still insist on using that laptop?
I like to keep old PCs running myself, but at that point I'd either repair it (if it makes sense, laptop parts are often vendor-specific and expensive as spare parts) or completely replace it.
But if that's not an option, what about a new Live DVD? That would at least get rid of the obsolete Firefox...
As others have written, there is a difference between APIs and implementation. But GPLed software is not more endangered than lots of closed source software is too. Because it does not depend on the sort of license used. With tools like Dependency Walker (http://www.dependencywalker.com/), you can in many cases also discover the interfaces of proprietary code, re-implement them and and try to claim fair use. I guess your chances of succeeding would be about the same as in the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit.
For what it's worth, I agree with the decision of the court, but my point is that the GPL is not really special here. If GPL software is in danger now, lots of closed source software is too.
Considering Google and trying to control Android, I agree that is a dick move but does not make Android worthless for the community. Cyanogen Mod for instance describes itself as "a customized, aftermarket firmware distribution [...] based on the Android Open Source Project" So the Android Open Source Project still lives on in ways that serve the end user. I guess if a phone vendor wanted to avoid being pressured by Google, they could try and use Cyanogen Mod instead of Android. Marketing might still be difficult though, depending on how many people know what Cyanogen Mod is all about.
So far, the bizarre technical workarounds work for me, it is just the nagging worry what stunt Microsoft will pull next.
And I already have the dual-boot setup. Games are my main reason to keep using Windows (for now), almost everything else is Open Source software that is available under Linux as well.
Office => LibreOffice Browser => Firefox Music player => plenty of options in Linux
So thanks for the advice, but I'm pretty much prepared for taking the plunge already. I'm just delaying the inevitable because I like my games;-)
I've read that the stated reason was making forks difficult. But that is rarely a good idea: Parts of the industry have invested into LLVM/Clang instead, and now GCC has real competition. With a permissive, non-GPL license that Stallman must really hate;-p
I get you are joking, but here's a serious answer anyway: Windows is a decent operating systems at its core these days, and Windows 7 even had a decent GUI. The only problem is that Microsoft can't leave a good thing alone if it does not make them money. If necessary, they will introduce new "features" that serve them more than their users. So far we had
-the attempt to push a tablet and phone GUI on the desktop user (Windows 8). Presumably to train the user to accept Windows Phone.
-and recently, increasingly shameless data collection from personal data. My best guess why is monetizing the user's private life by selling personalized ads.
IMHO we are at the point where Microsoft's shenanigans are diminishing the worth of Windows to the user.
No, but it arguably is everyone's fault for trusting Microsoft at all.
If you use a closed source operating system, trusting the vendor is a necessity. Because no one else can fully check what is going on in the code. With something like Linux it is still difficult, but you have a greater chance that someone will discover shenanigans. If only by accident while browsing the code. So a malicious Linux vendor still has discovery to fear.
Now I agree that Microsoft have displayed untrustworthiness in ever increasing amounts over the years. I think the minimum precautions for a private user are not to use Windows for highly critical stuff. So far, my personal consequence is that I never, ever use Microsoft products for online banking. I'm also refusing to upgrade my main PC to Windows 10, and planning to jump ship entirely in 2020 when Win 7 support runs out. That might cost me a few games that won't run in WINE, but sometimes you have to make a sacrifice.
In this case, it might be a good idea to sue the building company for damages too, if you are reasonably sure you can win. The verdict of the court should count as proof.
Unfortunately, many other system components are not open source, such as the drivers. Over ten years ago, when there were no open source AMDs GPU drivers (yet), I wondered why people don't adapt the Mac OS X drivers (Macs were using ATI GPUs at the time). Some browsing in the repository showed me that those parts were not published. Overall, my impression is that Apple is keeping some parts open (good) but has no interest in opening up the rest. Which is completely legal of course, but they are not exactly driving open source either.
Other vendors "tactically" open source parts of their ecosystem, while keeping the presumably most profitable parts to themselves. An example would be AMDs GPU drivers, where they keep the drivers for the professional cards proprietary. Overall still a good thing IMHO, Linux already profits from much improved driver quality and stability.
Google is actually going the other way, by making their newer Android apps increasingly closed source and letting the open source versions languish. Sure you can still get those, but the gap to the latest closed source apps is increasing, not shrinking.
I disagree about the software as a service being the modern threat to open source software. For the same reasons that one might prefer open source over closed source software, open source is preferable over software as a service. Closed source software is less free than open source, software as a service even less than closed source software.
Assuming that all software as a service is also closed source of course. But otherwise, it would by definition be open source software itself and not a threat to open source software.
Close but not quite correct. One could also do source code auditing using an anonymous download of the "official" executables for comparison, posing as one of many end users. The authors could then still slip in a flaw, but the executables compiled by the developer(s) would not match the executables from the anonymous download.
This could be beaten with the Ken Thompson hack, but I think the Ken Thompson hack is not easy to implement in an undetectable way.
- First, the developer(s) would need to control the distribution of the compiler executables, not only that of the TOR executables.
- Second, the developer(s) would also need to need to compromise those debugging tools the auditors might use, otherwise a look at the executables would show what is going on.
They already burned 6.85 billion on Nokia, if you take the $7.2 billion for the acquisition and the $350 million for the sale of Nokia's phone business reported in this news at face value. In the meantime, Windows branded Nokia phones didn't sell that well either.
These numbers may leave out some details, but I think it is clear that Microsoft lost quite a lot of money on this acquisition. I'm not surprised at all if their confidence is low.
You guys know about WSUS Offline Update, don't you? Download all the patches and install them offline. Much quicker than letting Windows download them piecemeal (and obviously can be used to update machines that don't have a fast internet connection).
You know that this doesn't work, right? The offline servicing model can't patch certain things, and it doesn't know which it can't patch. For example, certain updates that require a reboot cannot be patched together via offline servicing. You have to install one set of updates, then process the next. It's on YOU to figure out which ones conflict.
In my experience, WSUS Offline Update (http://www.wsusoffline.net/) does handle that: When it hits the point where it cannot proceed because a previous update is not fully installed yet, it will display a message that tells you to reboot the computer and restart the update installer. Which can be a bit tedious, but still gets the job done.
Tried to install the "convenience rollup" on my machine. Got the message "Dieses Update ist nicht fuer Ihren Computer geeignet" ("This update is not suitable for your computer"). Note that I could get it only through Microsoft Update Catalog in the first place, so a user error in picking the wrong version seems pretty unlikely..
Between this and other users' posts that warn about the rollup containing all the telemetry and GWX crap, I've deleted the useless update now and will go back to WSUS Offline Update (http://www.wsusoffline.net/). Semi-on topic, there are also some third party hints on how to speed up patching of a Windows 7 reinstall: At http://wu.krelay.de/en/, the author lists a few updates that are supposed to accelerate the search for missing updates, if you install them manually before starting the search. I've not tried it myself yet, as I don't want to reinstall Windows just to try it out. But other users seem happy with the advice.
Perhaps it has to do with Steam users generally not worrying much about other people having partial control over their computer?
I'm one of those people who have refused Windows 10 so far, but I also use Steam very sparingly: DRM (even in a relatively benign form) and one-sided EULA terms are a reason why I only have purchased a handful of Steam games so far, with correspondingly low activity on Steam.
In the Steam usage stats, people like me will obviously not leave a big footprint.
I'd like to add that it might be possible to improve on the regenerative braking. The Tesla model S for instance already comes with a dual motor, all-wheel-drive in all current versions. If Tesla can increase the regenerative braking power to approximately the power for accelerating, disc brakes could become a rarely used thing on the Tesla.
K6 (all versions) is listed as now unsupported on the Debian mailing list. That would make the AMD Athlon (aka K7) from 1999 the oldest still supported AMD chip.
It seems there won't be much competition in the 2016 GPU lineups:
- AMD is doing small to medium chips, their 2016 Polaris line will cover notebooks and midrange desktop GPUs.
- Nvidia is doing fairly high end chips at higher prices. In 2016, some people might ask themselves if they want "Polaris 10" (the bigger of the AMD chips) or spend more money on the the GTX 1070. But for most the choice will be easy.
2017 will be more interesting, with AMD Vega competing against the just released GTX 1080. Also, AMD Vega will probably have HBM 2 memory.
Which is just for DRM. Best example is the last Sim City, where it turned out that the "needs servers for single player" was fake.
No way the cloud can keep up in latency with the local PC, and games that need too much processing power for a typical gamer PC would be too expensive to run server side.
The only kind of game where an internet connection is legitimately necessary are MMO games.
Windows 2000 was as good as XP, except for lacking some details such as 48bit LBA support out of the box.
I ran Windows 2000 until 2007, when I couldn't get my new PC to run stable under it. Switching to XP solved the issue. In hindsight, I suspect the drivers for the Nvidia graphics card (8600 GT): That card was not officially supported under Windows 2000, so I was running it under the XP driver. Which would start and run without complaining, until the computer crashed...
Slightly OT, but just yesterday Seamonkey's composer annoyed me by "reformatting" the HTML source code on the file I was tinkering with. It added line breaks and empty lines unasked. My quick fix was using Notepad++ instead.
Similar here, but for me it is the sheer brazenness Microsoft shows in the EULA with regard to collecting and processing your private data. With the Windows 10 interface I could live.
Fortunately, my last big reason for not migrating to Linux is dwindling: Both Valve and the WINE Team are doing a good job of making more games available under Linux. That might not include the latest blockbusters, but there is a passable range of choices by now.
Valve puts effort into making their games run well on Linux, probably motivated by Gabe Newell thinking that Microsoft might try to marginalize other publishers' app stores by pushing their own. Reportedly, some of their games (Left4Dead IIRC) already have performance parity with Windows.
If Windows 10 goes the other way in terms of reliability, we might actually see games that run better on Linux than on Windows. I think my main reason to stick with Windows is crumbling...
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Haven't tried it myself, but GP said to put an express DENY "right" on the GWX folder. I remember from my MSDN classes (a long time ago) that "deny" overrides any granted rights and sorta has a higher priority, because the system checks for "deny" first. If a "deny" is found it stops checking for rights and assumes the user has no permission. Thus it seems quite plausible that "deny" does what turning off permissions fails to do.
Dead hard drive and CD/DVD-drive going too? And you still insist on using that laptop?
I like to keep old PCs running myself, but at that point I'd either repair it (if it makes sense, laptop parts are often vendor-specific and expensive as spare parts) or completely replace it.
But if that's not an option, what about a new Live DVD? That would at least get rid of the obsolete Firefox...
As others have written, there is a difference between APIs and implementation. But GPLed software is not more endangered than lots of closed source software is too. Because it does not depend on the sort of license used. With tools like Dependency Walker (http://www.dependencywalker.com/), you can in many cases also discover the interfaces of proprietary code, re-implement them and and try to claim fair use. I guess your chances of succeeding would be about the same as in the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit.
For what it's worth, I agree with the decision of the court, but my point is that the GPL is not really special here. If GPL software is in danger now, lots of closed source software is too.
Considering Google and trying to control Android, I agree that is a dick move but does not make Android worthless for the community. Cyanogen Mod for instance describes itself as
"a customized, aftermarket firmware distribution [...] based on the Android Open Source Project"
So the Android Open Source Project still lives on in ways that serve the end user. I guess if a phone vendor wanted to avoid being pressured by Google, they could try and use Cyanogen Mod instead of Android. Marketing might still be difficult though, depending on how many people know what Cyanogen Mod is all about.
So far, the bizarre technical workarounds work for me, it is just the nagging worry what stunt Microsoft will pull next.
And I already have the dual-boot setup. Games are my main reason to keep using Windows (for now), almost everything else is Open Source software that is available under Linux as well.
Office => LibreOffice
Browser => Firefox
Music player => plenty of options in Linux
So thanks for the advice, but I'm pretty much prepared for taking the plunge already. I'm just delaying the inevitable because I like my games ;-)
I've read that the stated reason was making forks difficult. But that is rarely a good idea: ;-p
Parts of the industry have invested into LLVM/Clang instead, and now GCC has real competition. With a permissive, non-GPL license that Stallman must really hate
I get you are joking, but here's a serious answer anyway:
Windows is a decent operating systems at its core these days, and Windows 7 even had a decent GUI. The only problem is that Microsoft can't leave a good thing alone if it does not make them money. If necessary, they will introduce new "features" that serve them more than their users. So far we had
-the attempt to push a tablet and phone GUI on the desktop user (Windows 8). Presumably to train the user to accept Windows Phone.
-and recently, increasingly shameless data collection from personal data. My best guess why is monetizing the user's private life by selling personalized ads.
IMHO we are at the point where Microsoft's shenanigans are diminishing the worth of Windows to the user.
No, but it arguably is everyone's fault for trusting Microsoft at all.
If you use a closed source operating system, trusting the vendor is a necessity. Because no one else can fully check what is going on in the code. With something like Linux it is still difficult, but you have a greater chance that someone will discover shenanigans. If only by accident while browsing the code. So a malicious Linux vendor still has discovery to fear.
Now I agree that Microsoft have displayed untrustworthiness in ever increasing amounts over the years. I think the minimum precautions for a private user are not to use Windows for highly critical stuff. So far, my personal consequence is that I never, ever use Microsoft products for online banking. I'm also refusing to upgrade my main PC to Windows 10, and planning to jump ship entirely in 2020 when Win 7 support runs out. That might cost me a few games that won't run in WINE, but sometimes you have to make a sacrifice.
In this case, it might be a good idea to sue the building company for damages too, if you are reasonably sure you can win. The verdict of the court should count as proof.
Unfortunately, many other system components are not open source, such as the drivers. Over ten years ago, when there were no open source AMDs GPU drivers (yet), I wondered why people don't adapt the Mac OS X drivers (Macs were using ATI GPUs at the time). Some browsing in the repository showed me that those parts were not published. Overall, my impression is that Apple is keeping some parts open (good) but has no interest in opening up the rest. Which is completely legal of course, but they are not exactly driving open source either.
Other vendors "tactically" open source parts of their ecosystem, while keeping the presumably most profitable parts to themselves. An example would be AMDs GPU drivers, where they keep the drivers for the professional cards proprietary. Overall still a good thing IMHO, Linux already profits from much improved driver quality and stability.
Google is actually going the other way, by making their newer Android apps increasingly closed source and letting the open source versions languish. Sure you can still get those, but the gap to the latest closed source apps is increasing, not shrinking.
I disagree about the software as a service being the modern threat to open source software. For the same reasons that one might prefer open source over closed source software, open source is preferable over software as a service. Closed source software is less free than open source, software as a service even less than closed source software.
Assuming that all software as a service is also closed source of course. But otherwise, it would by definition be open source software itself and not a threat to open source software.
Turns out that you need to install Windows6.1-KB3020369-x64.msu first. My bad...
Close but not quite correct. One could also do source code auditing using an anonymous download of the "official" executables for comparison, posing as one of many end users.
The authors could then still slip in a flaw, but the executables compiled by the developer(s) would not match the executables from the anonymous download.
This could be beaten with the Ken Thompson hack, but I think the Ken Thompson hack is not easy to implement in an undetectable way.
- First, the developer(s) would need to control the distribution of the compiler executables, not only that of the TOR executables.
- Second, the developer(s) would also need to need to compromise those debugging tools the auditors might use, otherwise a look at the executables would show what is going on.
They already burned 6.85 billion on Nokia, if you take the $7.2 billion for the acquisition and the $350 million for the sale of Nokia's phone business reported in this news at face value. In the meantime, Windows branded Nokia phones didn't sell that well either.
These numbers may leave out some details, but I think it is clear that Microsoft lost quite a lot of money on this acquisition. I'm not surprised at all if their confidence is low.
You guys know about WSUS Offline Update, don't you? Download all the patches and install them offline. Much quicker than letting Windows download them piecemeal (and obviously can be used to update machines that don't have a fast internet connection).
You know that this doesn't work, right? The offline servicing model can't patch certain things, and it doesn't know which it can't patch.
For example, certain updates that require a reboot cannot be patched together via offline servicing. You have to install one set of updates, then process the next. It's on YOU to figure out which ones conflict.
In my experience, WSUS Offline Update (http://www.wsusoffline.net/) does handle that:
When it hits the point where it cannot proceed because a previous update is not fully installed yet, it will display a message that tells you to reboot the computer and restart the update installer. Which can be a bit tedious, but still gets the job done.
I'm running Windows 7 64 bit, German version.
Tried to install the "convenience rollup" on my machine. Got the message "Dieses Update ist nicht fuer Ihren Computer geeignet" ("This update is not suitable for your computer").
Note that I could get it only through Microsoft Update Catalog in the first place, so a user error in picking the wrong version seems pretty unlikely..
Between this and other users' posts that warn about the rollup containing all the telemetry and GWX crap, I've deleted the useless update now and will go back to WSUS Offline Update (http://www.wsusoffline.net/). Semi-on topic, there are also some third party hints on how to speed up patching of a Windows 7 reinstall:
At http://wu.krelay.de/en/, the author lists a few updates that are supposed to accelerate the search for missing updates, if you install them manually before starting the search. I've not tried it myself yet, as I don't want to reinstall Windows just to try it out. But other users seem happy with the advice.
Perhaps it has to do with Steam users generally not worrying much about other people having partial control over their computer?
I'm one of those people who have refused Windows 10 so far, but I also use Steam very sparingly:
DRM (even in a relatively benign form) and one-sided EULA terms are a reason why I only have purchased a handful of Steam games so far, with correspondingly low activity on Steam.
In the Steam usage stats, people like me will obviously not leave a big footprint.
Interesting report, thanks.
I'd like to add that it might be possible to improve on the regenerative braking. The Tesla model S for instance already comes with a dual motor, all-wheel-drive in all current versions. If Tesla can increase the regenerative braking power to approximately the power for accelerating, disc brakes could become a rarely used thing on the Tesla.
K6 (all versions) is listed as now unsupported on the Debian mailing list.
That would make the AMD Athlon (aka K7) from 1999 the oldest still supported AMD chip.
It seems there won't be much competition in the 2016 GPU lineups:
- AMD is doing small to medium chips, their 2016 Polaris line will cover notebooks and midrange desktop GPUs.
- Nvidia is doing fairly high end chips at higher prices.
In 2016, some people might ask themselves if they want "Polaris 10" (the bigger of the AMD chips) or spend more money on the the GTX 1070. But for most the choice will be easy.
2017 will be more interesting, with AMD Vega competing against the just released GTX 1080. Also, AMD Vega will probably have HBM 2 memory.
Heh, just wait until someone feeds it "My Immortal" (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6829556/2/My-Immortal ;-)
Which is just for DRM. Best example is the last Sim City, where it turned out that the "needs servers for single player" was fake.
No way the cloud can keep up in latency with the local PC, and games that need too much processing power for a typical gamer PC would be too expensive to run server side.
The only kind of game where an internet connection is legitimately necessary are MMO games.
Windows 2000 was as good as XP, except for lacking some details such as 48bit LBA support out of the box.
I ran Windows 2000 until 2007, when I couldn't get my new PC to run stable under it. Switching to XP solved the issue. In hindsight, I suspect the drivers for the Nvidia graphics card (8600 GT):
That card was not officially supported under Windows 2000, so I was running it under the XP driver. Which would start and run without complaining, until the computer crashed...
Slightly OT,
but just yesterday Seamonkey's composer annoyed me by "reformatting" the HTML source code on the file I was tinkering with. It added line breaks and empty lines unasked. My quick fix was using Notepad++ instead.
Similar here, but for me it is the sheer brazenness Microsoft shows in the EULA with regard to collecting and processing your private data. With the Windows 10 interface I could live.
Fortunately, my last big reason for not migrating to Linux is dwindling:
Both Valve and the WINE Team are doing a good job of making more games available under Linux. That might not include the latest blockbusters, but there is a passable range of choices by now.
Interesting trend.
Valve puts effort into making their games run well on Linux, probably motivated by Gabe Newell thinking that Microsoft might try to marginalize other publishers' app stores by pushing their own. Reportedly, some of their games (Left4Dead IIRC) already have performance parity with Windows.
If Windows 10 goes the other way in terms of reliability, we might actually see games that run better on Linux than on Windows. I think my main reason to stick with Windows is crumbling...