HOW the updates are done is important. Ubuntu, for instance, is a lot less aggressive in pushing the updates. This may be sub-optimal for some user who don't care about keeping their system up to date, but I prefer a system where I can postpone that stuff for a few days without incessant nagging from the OS.
Just like with Vista there are several "editions" of Windows 10, you need Enterprise or Mobile Enterprise to do that.
Which is AFAIK not for sale through the usual retail channels. So you would need some generous employer who covers your home PC in the volume licensing agreement of your company, or an outright pirated copy.
If you don't have either, you can
- either take the updates as Microsoft says
- or switch to some other OS. I'd say Linux, but a lot of people seem to prefer Mac OS (see the latest statistics at netmarketshare.com).
So far it should be sufficient to limit Windows Update to "important" updates but don't let it collect "recommended" updates. KB3035583 is only "recommended", not "important".
If you don't trust Microsoft even that far, you could switch off Windows Update and use a third-party tool like WSUS Offline Update instead (http://www.wsusoffline.net/) which will do essentially the same, with some extra blacklisting by the maker of WSUS Offline Update. Obviously this means trusting some guy on the internet more than Microsoft, but WSUS Offline Update has a good reputation so far and my own experience with it is positive.
On Windows, one might have a Linux distribution lying around as an.iso file. I actually have some large FAT partitions for storing data, and downloaded (X)Ubuntu on one of those. But I don't see me trying to run it as a Windows process: The.iso is only intermediate storage before burning to DVD or maybe copying to USB. So the 2GB limitation of address space under Windows does not matter.
The 2GB file-size limit in Linux looks slightly more relevant at first glance, but I still think it is a rare edge case. Your link says that large filesystem support, which removes that limit, was introduced with Kernel 2.4. Kernel 2.4 was released on 4th January 2001 and EOL in December 2011, according to Wikipedia. So in order to have a problem with it, a user that wants to install Ubuntu today would need to have a machine with an OS obsolete 4 1/2 years ago, and no access to another PC to download and burn a DVD. Which is remotely possible, but only remotely;-)
Look at the source of the article (the usage numbers at netmarketshare.com).
Mac OS (all versions) is at 9.21% according to their latest numbers. In the last year it was hovering at 7-8%. So even if you don't trust that latest uptick (and I would agree that NMS numbers sometimes look weird), Mac appears sort of silently popular.
Not bad for a system that hardly gets promotion. What I see in terms of advertisement is usually for iPhones and iPads, not for Mac OS.
It requires a bit of research before buying hardware for Linux, but I found that once a piece of hardware is supported in Linux, it usually stays supported for a long time.
If something is NOT supported, it usually has one of two reasons: 1) Hardware vendor not releasing programming info. What you would call "not freedom friendly". 2) Very new hardware sometimes lacks support, because drivers are not ready yet. Especially GPUs. That is usually a case of complex programming tasks and less manpower than on the Windows development teams. Typically, they catch up after a while.
Unless the smartphone user uses something like Cyanogen Mod, which promises "no spyware" too. And being Open Source, probably actually delivers. Unless the developers have failed to remove the telemetry when putting together their Cyanogen version. But I'd trust them a lot more than Google.
Bitching about smartphone being hypocrites is complete bullshit unless you know what firmware exactly they are running.
You'd definitely need the uphill pump water for storage in small scale hydro. to bridge gaps in the supply from the other two. Not feasible for everyone, as not everyone has a convenient hill nearby.
In my experience, Windows XP and Windows 7 very rarely required registry hacks or configuration on the command line. So that was the standard to aim for if you wanted easy usability for newbies. In Windows 8 and later though, I find it often necessary to find functionality via some sort of search function. Google actually works best for me, which makes Windows and Linux equal these days - either way I need to google stuff. Some examples, without claiming completeness:
- Group policies under Windows for fine-tuning permissions. There are too many of them to keep them all in mind. Setting permissions on the file system was a less extensive topic to learn.
- Installing software NOT in the standard repository under Linux. Not really difficult but requires some work on the command line where spelling is important => it's Google again to prop up my memory for those fiddly details.
TL:DR Both Windows and Linux have become too complex to manage them without some sort of cheat sheet.
According to the article it is still unclear why exactly the keys were blocked, Microsoft has not answered inquiries from Heise yet. I guess one may assume that some keys were pirated, but the sudden increase of rejected keys still makes me wonder...
Having lots of binaries (in the sense of closed source applications you cannot simply recompile) is the main reason to run Windows, period.
It is not just a matter of ancient binaries, the closed source development model still dominates on Windows. Even Linux is not entirely free of it, a lot of business software is closed source even there (Oracle comes to mind). And with close source often comes the necessity to keep old binaries running.
The geek gamer market might have shrinked a bit, but there is still money in it. Besides, the requirements for the architecture are not so different from the server/workstation market. A succesful Zen processor might also work well for small servers.
In other reports Intel currently seems to have an almost 100% advantage in IPC (Instruction per Clock) over Piledriver. Assuming Zen gets that 40% improvement and the clock speeds are roughly the same as Skylake, -an Intel quadcore would still win by ~40% over an AMD quadcore -but an AMD octacore would beat an Intel quadcore by ~40%, if the application scales well to eight cores.
So it would depend a lot on the software. But AMD would finally be able to win against the i7 quads with software that scales well to eight cores.
I guess Intel could still counter by lowering prices of the E-Series. But they wouldn't like that one bit I guess;-)
it wouldn't be surprising to see the quality go down and down to the point that many customers abandon it, as Microsoft turns into another Oracle.
Possible, but I think it would be a mistake on part of Microsoft to let this happen.
Windows being the OS that (almost) everyone uses makes for strong network effects (as defined here: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/network-effect.asp). If the quality of Windows drops to the point where customers leave in droves, it will probably have a nasty (from Microsoft's POV) feedback effect:
-Increasing market share of other OSes will make other platforms more attractive for software and hardware vendors, as there is now more money to be earned with those platforms
-Increasing choice of software and hardware for those other platforms will boost their attractivity further. For instance, right now there are few offers of pre-configured Linux machines. Change that and buying a Linux machine becomes more interesting for non-geeks. Market share for other platforms might increase even more.
Perhaps because in large parts of IT, it is still difficult to ignore Microsoft and simply use something else. Windows (all versions combined) has around 90% market share on the desktop, and the choice in putting together a non-Windows system is still somewhat limited.
Not using Apple or Facebook is much easier. I'll grant you that Google is pretty pervasive, avoiding Google might be as hard as avoiding Microsoft.
I'll feel like "we won" when Windows is about as popular as IE.
They're working on it with Windows 10;-)
Seriously, I could get used to the interface but by now it are the privacy issues (not proven, but there is reason to mistrust Win10) that make me not want it. And Linux is slowly getting better for games. If it wasn't for those, I'd drop Windows 7 in favor of Linux tomorrow. Might happen anyway when the extended support for Windows 7 runs out.
New Intel hardware running only Windows 10 seems a bit far-fetched/exaggerated.
TFA suggests Microsoft might not deliver drivers for older hardware on new Windows versions, but that should not keep the hardware vendors from supporting other OSes. But if Intel was going Windows-only, well, fortunately there is still AMD. Apple switching to AMD would be an option
A semi-applicable example would be Android and its applications.
Originally it was pretty much free as in speech, but in recent years Google licenses the newer, proprietary versions of the apps only under the condition that the phone manufacturer does not make "competing" phones outside the android ecosystem. One instance is reported here: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-acer-alibaba-google-idUSBRE88C0HW20120913 Semi-applicable example because the "rug" is not the open source project itself, but the proprietary apps running on it.
It is nice if the OS does the clearing, but the application programmer should not rely blindly on it.
For the application programmer, it depends on how much a data leak in the application would hurt. -If the OS specifies that memory is cleared, relying on it it is IMHO OK for low security applications. -For high security applications, always clear the memory. Don't trust that the OS does it.
In case of Paris, German police caught one guy with weapons in his car and plans for going to Paris. Assuming he wanted to participate in the terrorist attacks, that makes one out of nine terrorists successfully intercepted. By traditional search methods, not by communication surveillance.
Other attacks went entirely unimpeded (Charlie Hebdo, the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 2005 London bombings). So I think monitoring communications is remarkably useless against terrorism.
Yeah. Still perhaps the right thing to do at a moment in history where corporations are quickly annihilating what's left of democracy and state of right. For a case in point: does your representative know what's being negotiated "in your name" in some obscure international treaty (be it TTIP, CETA, TPP or whatever the current abomination is called)?
Likely he doesn't know. Which should be reason enough to reject the treaty come ratification time. But somehow I doubt that my (or your) representative has the balls to say "NO".
IMHO US fines are not too high, other countries' fines are too low. If a company can make billions of profits by breaking the law and is fined only a fraction of those billions, it is the rational choice to continue doing so. Only if the fines become higher than the illcit gains, we can expect them to have an effect.
This said, the EU is slowly waking up. A few years ago and after long forbearance, they finally fined Microsoft for their anti-competitive behavior in a way that (presumably) hurt.
Shortly after the data protection rules in the EU were enacted, the EU Commission agreed to a shady compromise to avoid problems for the internet industry. This compromise is known as the Safe Harbour deal from 2000.
Today, the European Court of Justice is hearing a case where this practice is in dispute, and it may end with the Safe Harbour deal being ruled invalid. It would not be the first case where a law or international contract is found illegal after the fact.
Slashdot Mirror
HOW the updates are done is important. Ubuntu, for instance, is a lot less aggressive in pushing the updates.
This may be sub-optimal for some user who don't care about keeping their system up to date, but I prefer a system where I can postpone that stuff for a few days without incessant nagging from the OS.
Just like with Vista there are several "editions" of Windows 10, you need Enterprise or Mobile Enterprise to do that.
Which is AFAIK not for sale through the usual retail channels.
So you would need some generous employer who covers your home PC in the volume licensing agreement of your company, or an outright pirated copy.
If you don't have either, you can
- either take the updates as Microsoft says
- or switch to some other OS. I'd say Linux, but a lot of people seem to prefer Mac OS (see the latest statistics at netmarketshare.com).
So far it should be sufficient to limit Windows Update to "important" updates but don't let it collect "recommended" updates. KB3035583 is only "recommended", not "important".
If you don't trust Microsoft even that far, you could switch off Windows Update and use a third-party tool like WSUS Offline Update instead (http://www.wsusoffline.net/) which will do essentially the same, with some extra blacklisting by the maker of WSUS Offline Update.
Obviously this means trusting some guy on the internet more than Microsoft, but WSUS Offline Update has a good reputation so far and my own experience with it is positive.
On Windows, one might have a Linux distribution lying around as an .iso file. I actually have some large FAT partitions for storing data, and downloaded (X)Ubuntu on one of those. .iso is only intermediate storage before burning to DVD or maybe copying to USB. So the 2GB limitation of address space under Windows does not matter.
But I don't see me trying to run it as a Windows process:
The
The 2GB file-size limit in Linux looks slightly more relevant at first glance, but I still think it is a rare edge case. ;-)
Your link says that large filesystem support, which removes that limit, was introduced with Kernel 2.4. Kernel 2.4 was released on 4th January 2001 and EOL in December 2011, according to Wikipedia.
So in order to have a problem with it, a user that wants to install Ubuntu today would need to have a machine with an OS obsolete 4 1/2 years ago, and no access to another PC to download and burn a DVD. Which is remotely possible, but only remotely
Look at the source of the article (the usage numbers at netmarketshare.com).
Mac OS (all versions) is at 9.21% according to their latest numbers. In the last year it was hovering at 7-8%. So even if you don't trust that latest uptick (and I would agree that NMS numbers sometimes look weird), Mac appears sort of silently popular.
Not bad for a system that hardly gets promotion. What I see in terms of advertisement is usually for iPhones and iPads, not for Mac OS.
It requires a bit of research before buying hardware for Linux, but I found that once a piece of hardware is supported in Linux, it usually stays supported for a long time.
If something is NOT supported, it usually has one of two reasons:
1) Hardware vendor not releasing programming info. What you would call "not freedom friendly".
2) Very new hardware sometimes lacks support, because drivers are not ready yet. Especially GPUs. That is usually a case of complex programming tasks and less manpower than on the Windows development teams. Typically, they catch up after a while.
Unless the smartphone user uses something like Cyanogen Mod, which promises "no spyware" too. And being Open Source, probably actually delivers. Unless the developers have failed to remove the telemetry when putting together their Cyanogen version. But I'd trust them a lot more than Google.
Bitching about smartphone being hypocrites is complete bullshit unless you know what firmware exactly they are running.
Also, allow the user to drive the ship and try different speeds and angles crashing into the iceberg.
The most likely way it happened historically can remain as preset default.
You'd definitely need the uphill pump water for storage in small scale hydro. to bridge gaps in the supply from the other two.
Not feasible for everyone, as not everyone has a convenient hill nearby.
In my experience, Windows XP and Windows 7 very rarely required registry hacks or configuration on the command line. So that was the standard to aim for if you wanted easy usability for newbies.
In Windows 8 and later though, I find it often necessary to find functionality via some sort of search function. Google actually works best for me, which makes Windows and Linux equal these days - either way I need to google stuff. Some examples, without claiming completeness:
- Group policies under Windows for fine-tuning permissions. There are too many of them to keep them all in mind. Setting permissions on the file system was a less extensive topic to learn.
- Installing software NOT in the standard repository under Linux. Not really difficult but requires some work on the command line where spelling is important => it's Google again to prop up my memory for those fiddly details.
TL:DR
Both Windows and Linux have become too complex to manage them without some sort of cheat sheet.
BTW, German IT website Heise Online is reporting frequent problems reactivating Windows 7 from used Windows 7 Professional licenses. URL:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Windows-7-Aktivierungsprobleme-bei-gebrauchten-Recovery-DVDs-3163528.html
According to the article it is still unclear why exactly the keys were blocked, Microsoft has not answered inquiries from Heise yet. I guess one may assume that some keys were pirated, but the sudden increase of rejected keys still makes me wonder...
Having lots of binaries (in the sense of closed source applications you cannot simply recompile) is the main reason to run Windows, period.
It is not just a matter of ancient binaries, the closed source development model still dominates on Windows. Even Linux is not entirely free of it, a lot of business software is closed source even there (Oracle comes to mind). And with close source often comes the necessity to keep old binaries running.
The geek gamer market might have shrinked a bit, but there is still money in it. Besides, the requirements for the architecture are not so different from the server/workstation market. A succesful Zen processor might also work well for small servers.
In other reports Intel currently seems to have an almost 100% advantage in IPC (Instruction per Clock) over Piledriver.
Assuming Zen gets that 40% improvement and the clock speeds are roughly the same as Skylake,
-an Intel quadcore would still win by ~40% over an AMD quadcore
-but an AMD octacore would beat an Intel quadcore by ~40%, if the application scales well to eight cores.
So it would depend a lot on the software. But AMD would finally be able to win against the i7 quads with software that scales well to eight cores.
I guess Intel could still counter by lowering prices of the E-Series. But they wouldn't like that one bit I guess ;-)
it wouldn't be surprising to see the quality go down and down to the point that many customers abandon it, as Microsoft turns into another Oracle.
Possible, but I think it would be a mistake on part of Microsoft to let this happen.
Windows being the OS that (almost) everyone uses makes for strong network effects (as defined here: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/network-effect.asp). If the quality of Windows drops to the point where customers leave in droves, it will probably have a nasty (from Microsoft's POV) feedback effect:
-Increasing market share of other OSes will make other platforms more attractive for software and hardware vendors, as there is now more money to be earned with those platforms
-Increasing choice of software and hardware for those other platforms will boost their attractivity further. For instance, right now there are few offers of pre-configured Linux machines. Change that and buying a Linux machine becomes more interesting for non-geeks. Market share for other platforms might increase even more.
Perhaps because in large parts of IT, it is still difficult to ignore Microsoft and simply use something else. Windows (all versions combined) has around 90% market share on the desktop, and the choice in putting together a non-Windows system is still somewhat limited.
Not using Apple or Facebook is much easier. I'll grant you that Google is pretty pervasive, avoiding Google might be as hard as avoiding Microsoft.
I'll feel like "we won" when Windows is about as popular as IE.
They're working on it with Windows 10 ;-)
Seriously, I could get used to the interface but by now it are the privacy issues (not proven, but there is reason to mistrust Win10) that make me not want it. And Linux is slowly getting better for games. If it wasn't for those, I'd drop Windows 7 in favor of Linux tomorrow. Might happen anyway when the extended support for Windows 7 runs out.
New Intel hardware running only Windows 10 seems a bit far-fetched/exaggerated.
TFA suggests Microsoft might not deliver drivers for older hardware on new Windows versions, but that should not keep the hardware vendors from supporting other OSes. But if Intel was going Windows-only, well, fortunately there is still AMD. Apple switching to AMD would be an option
A semi-applicable example would be Android and its applications.
Originally it was pretty much free as in speech, but in recent years Google licenses the newer, proprietary versions of the apps only under the condition that the phone manufacturer does not make "competing" phones outside the android ecosystem.
One instance is reported here: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-acer-alibaba-google-idUSBRE88C0HW20120913
Semi-applicable example because the "rug" is not the open source project itself, but the proprietary apps running on it.
It is nice if the OS does the clearing, but the application programmer should not rely blindly on it.
For the application programmer, it depends on how much a data leak in the application would hurt.
-If the OS specifies that memory is cleared, relying on it it is IMHO OK for low security applications.
-For high security applications, always clear the memory. Don't trust that the OS does it.
Fascist regimes also like to make listening to their opposition punishable. Like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feindsender#Persecution. Looks familiar?
In case of Paris, German police caught one guy with weapons in his car and plans for going to Paris. Assuming he wanted to participate in the terrorist attacks, that makes one out of nine terrorists successfully intercepted. By traditional search methods, not by communication surveillance.
Other attacks went entirely unimpeded (Charlie Hebdo, the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 2005 London bombings). So I think monitoring communications is remarkably useless against terrorism.
Yeah. Still perhaps the right thing to do at a moment in history where corporations are quickly annihilating what's left of democracy and state of right. For a case in point: does your representative know what's being negotiated "in your name" in some obscure international treaty (be it TTIP, CETA, TPP or whatever the current abomination is called)?
Likely he doesn't know. Which should be reason enough to reject the treaty come ratification time. But somehow I doubt that my (or your) representative has the balls to say "NO".
Because the USA are more willing to collect?
IMHO US fines are not too high, other countries' fines are too low. If a company can make billions of profits by breaking the law and is fined only a fraction of those billions, it is the rational choice to
continue doing so. Only if the fines become higher than the illcit gains, we can expect them to have an effect.
This said, the EU is slowly waking up. A few years ago and after long forbearance, they finally fined Microsoft for their anti-competitive behavior in a way that (presumably) hurt.
Shortly after the data protection rules in the EU were enacted, the EU Commission agreed to a shady compromise to avoid problems for the internet industry. This compromise is known as the Safe Harbour deal from 2000.
Today, the European Court of Justice is hearing a case where this practice is in dispute, and it may end with the Safe Harbour deal being ruled invalid. It would not be the first case where a law or international contract is found illegal after the fact.