I just read the item near the bottom of this post from ZDNet:
The author talks about information gleaned from an item that was temporarily ‘public’ regarding the FTC-Microsoft debacle over the Activision Blizzard acquisition. For those of us who use Windows this discussion may shed some light on what may be coming to Windows going forward. If what I fear comes to pass, I may be dropping Windows sooner rather than later. (Note to the moderators: If you find this item objectionable or inappropriate for It’sFOSS, feel free to remove it/this post
I agree! As I understand it, the Open Source movement is based on freedom where ideas and information can and must be freely shared and the Open Source Community as a whole is a natural outgrowth of that ideal. I add the caveat that what Open Source is and what it is to me may differ, but I hope not by too much.
With all that said I want the Open Source movement and its associated community to be inclusively and equally welcoming to all. That should include individuals, companies, and corporations (all businesses), each with the stature of a single member. Every member should have an equal voice in its evolution. That does not mean that businesses should be allowed to take it over or misuse their membership or its resources to their own ends through financial contributions. What that means to me is that every member should contribute ‘as good as they get’ whether that be financial, time, or any other form of contribution. If the movement/community as a whole keeps these ideals in mind as we go forward I’m confident we do not have to be very concerned that Open Source may go (as you put it) in that direction provided we all keep our eye/minds open and alert.
Thank you for your interest. I don’t really have a problem with M$ monetizing their software offerings, especially Windows since they essentially give it away providing the user has a product key from Windows 7 (I have three or four floating around here) or later at installation time. After all, they invest a lot developing and maintaining it. I’m retired, and I don’t have a business so I don’t have any reason to use or care much about Microsoft 365 or any of their other business offerings and I’m not a fan of all the AI functionality that is being integrated into most everything of theirs because I have no way of really knowing how much of my information/activity is being sent home. Once upon a time I said “I trust Microsoft enough to use their OS because my privacy and security is in their best interest” and their behavior around the time Windows 10 was released supported my confidence. Recently I’m less sure that’s true any more because they seem to be reverting to their ‘Balmer days’ behavior which resulted in anti-monopoly legal actions against them. I’m not sure they occupy enough of the OS market share to monopolize it today, but their behavior has eroded my trust.
With all that that said, I don’t want all my personal information being shared with all their ‘partners’ and I don’t like being interrupted when I’m trying to do something, so I find all those adds and all that AI functionality that seems to be getting integrated into most every aspect of Windows and the software they include with it very irritating and concerning. As I said in my original post, if the current trend continues or accelerates, I may be deciding to drop Windows all together much earlier than I previously anticipated. I’m waiting to see what the next major version of the OS (Windows 12?) brings. If there’s too much AI or advertising integrated into the new release, it’ll probably be “Bye-bye Windows” for me.
A few days back did a installation for a client of windows 11, he uses Microsoft as the software he needs is only available on windows, I did not have time to test it on Linux or wine, so just went with the flow.
I France some of the questions are different from the UK English version, but basically it asked me several times if I wanted publicity, details passed to Microsoft, to the partners, to associated companies, to the seller of the computer, to the manufacturing company… So it went on. With the French language many questions are reversed so never asks do you want, but rather do you not want, Oui non … And double negatives in french are not always positive.
Even my french client was lost with one of these. Sadly could not screen capture the wording for an example.
I don’t have a complex but they are watching you… Think Rockwell song.
Here in the USA we don’t get such granular privacy choices during installation. All we get are the choices of required or required + optional diagnostic data. Well, that may not be entirely true, the installer also asks about things like inking & typing and tailored experiences. I always answer no to those because I don’t have a touch screen so no inking and I don’t want my computer making choices about what I like on my behalf, no matter how well intentioned the effort may be. I’m a big boy now and I can make those decisions for myself, thank you very much
Assuming your response isn’t sarcastic, I don’t think anyone outside M$ has any idea what those requirements will be. I haven’t heard about any ground breaking new hardware/firmware security features for CPUs or motherboards so unless something new is on the horizon, I suspect the Windows 12 hardware requirements will probably be very similar to those of Windows 11. With that said, I suspect M$ will try to ‘upgrade’ those requirements (perhaps by dropping support for the oldest CPUs on the supported hardware list) in an effort to drive new PC sales on behalf of their partners,
Not being sarcastic at all. Just will not sink X amount of dollars into a new PC build, just to run Linux. If I can not do a W12 build then it will run W11. I may go with a W11 build and hope for a free upgrade to W12.
I haven’t seen anything to indicate that Windows 12 will be released this year although I suspect we may see it by the end of '24 so you’ll probably have to go with Win-11 for now. It has been M$s policy since Win-10 was released in '15 to provide free upgrades to the next release/version and I have seen nothing to suggest a change in that policy. You’ll probably be able to upgrade from Win-11 to 12 when it’s released for general availability. FYI, I have no inside M$ information and I am NOT affiliated with them in any way other than being a Win-10/11 user as well as being an interested observer.
Yes!!! That about sums it up!!! Too busy now to attempt any PC build, will have too wait for the winter season!!! Mobo in the rebuild machine will be moved to my spare box, along with all attached drives. Will be using an Asus mobo and hopefully an i7 cpu, 64GB ram and Nvidia graphics card.
