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Thank you for mentioning this! Really bothered by all the positive comments, especially coming from savvy HN users. Gave this a long look and my main beef is t

Thank you for mentioning this! Really bothered by all the positive comments, especially coming from savvy HN users. Gave this a long look and my main beef is that I couldn't possibly do anything on a Windows Machine in its' current state. Linux isn't just about running apps - there's a philosophy behind the system. Users first! As long as Microsoft continues to disrespect the rights of users in regard to privacy, data-collection, data-sharing with unnamed sources, tracking, uncontrollable OS operations (updates, etc) - I will never go near it. I find it especially offensive that ex-open source and ex-Linux users (working for Microsoft) have the audacity to come on here and try to sell this as a 'Linux on Windows' system when most of what makes Linux special (respect for the user) has been stripped away. It's like giving a man who is dying of thirst sea water. Most comments here appear to be positive and that's fine... whatever. To anyone reading this... please don't sell your souls and the future of software technology for ease of use and abusive business practices. /rant

thegenius2000 11y ago
This is so true I'm loathe to add to it. I dual boot my laptop b/w Windows and Linux because the WiFi network at my school has issues with Linux...so I'm forced to use Windows, also for games, but it's such a pain. Today it updated forcefully while I was trying to study; I tried to postpone the update but the option was grayed out. The Windows philosophy through and through is to treat users as ignorant and incompetent idiots for whom even the most basic of tasks must be performed, and who cannot make important decisions. This, IMHO, is the epitome of disrespect, and the reason I look forward with great anticipation to the day when I am able to solely operate within computing environments that afford me the same dignity as the cars I drive.
- adrianN 11y ago
  I hope you only drive old cars, because newer cars aren't really designed to let the user change anything. You always need to take them to a specialist shop.
  - creshal 11y ago
    And the specialist might have to take it to other specialists because the diagnostics and repair equipment is so outrageously proprietary and specific nowadays that only one shop per major city can afford it.
    - rkangel 11y ago
      Which at least partly because have become much more complex things. Complex systems with many electronic and mechanical systems interacting need complex tools to debug.
      - creshal 11y ago
        Only partly. There's no technical reason why you need to have 70 differently wired connectors to access the engine computer's UART port… and why they cost over a hundred dollars each.
        kagamine 11y ago
        Or why the error codes are kept secret from the user, resulting in only the dealership, not your local independent, being able to fix some things. And also the requirement of specialist tools to do non-specialist jobs like set the engine timing, and then charging a lot for purchase of the tool. It will be interesting to see how serviceable electric cars become once they are old enough to start being parted out and the used market expands to those who 'just need something to go from A to B'.
  - jsight 11y ago
    I have been hearing this for about 20 years now. It still isn't true.
- tempestn 11y ago
  It's odd for me to read this, because the main reason I use Windows for my desktop over OSX is that it offers increased control. Obviously nothing is as customizable as Linux, but Apply software seems much more about taking decisions away from the user than Microsoft. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. It's, "It just works," vs, "You can make it work the way you want." I see Windows as sitting between OSX and Linux on that spectrum. That said, for most development work I prefer Linux, and run a Linux home server as well as various VMs, so this announcement sounds great to me. And as a final aside: basically all of the information gathering that people complain about with Windows can very easily be turned off. In fact, for the most part the installation wizard actually leads you through how to turn it off. For me that makes it a non-issue, although I understand that some feel differently.
  - tripzilch 11y ago
    > basically all of the information gathering that people complain about with Windows can very easily be turned off. In fact, for the most part the installation wizard actually leads you through how to turn it off. For me that makes it a non-issue, although I understand that some feel differently. It's absolutely not a non-issue when I was helping my mother set up her new Win10 laptop. She doesn't want to be tracked, I don't want her to be tracked. But currently she is being tracked by Microsoft very much. As are millions of other people that REALLY do not want to, if they had the choice. There was no wizard when I got there to help her. Obviously she had set up most of the laptop herself because she's not intimidated by computers and really pretty good with them (at age 66). Except she couldn't get email to work. And neither could I, btw. She wanted two accounts in the windows 10 default mail client, one from the ISP and a very old hotmail account. Somehow this just wouldn't work and the stupid mail client was actively hiding the information I (or she) needed to troubleshoot the problem (not just a bit, I got like zero information. and a numerical error code. it's beyond me why MS would want to translate standard error messages from IMAP and SMTP into something even more cryptic). I ended up installing Thunderbird, which works. But I digress. My mom is not a HN-reader, so she hadn't quite heard about Win10's totalitarian surveillance features, and when first setting up her laptop she wasn't quite sitting there in the adversarial position of "I'd rather brick my system than let it spy on me" that any of us would need to assume in order to later claim "the information gathering that people complain about with Windows can very easily be turned off". She doesn't want to be tracked, so I'm sure she ticked off a couple of the checkboxes that were clear about it. But maybe not the ones that popped up warnings about your system. Or the ones that were misleadingly worded as if they are something beneficial ("just like the US government does" is not really a bar for good intentions) that you need to Google to figure out what they really mean. Or the tiny checkboxed that only explain their maliciousness in a very tiny font next to the big friendly letters that just want to steam you through the wizard. (I didn't see any wizard, but this is the deliberately misleading I remember from win8, obviously intending to grab as much private info from users while pretending to give them a choice). During the afternoon I helped her, I only had time to set up the email and do a few other things. In addition of having to wait through 45 minutes of some giant update, which upset her a bit because it was a brand-new laptop, high-end thingy, why did we have to wait for things to happen? Damn right. The longer I'm on Linux, the more and more ridiculous it seems to have the OS yank control from you at what are probably the most inopportune moments (boot-up and shutdown ... really?!) So I didn't have time to help her, Google for all the privacy options in Win10 and disable them. What you probably don't know, because you "easily" disabled them right away, is that after this initial setup phase, Win10's remote surveillance features are as quiet as they can possibly be. (until you try to disable them of course at which point they'll scream bloody modal murder) And with her, that situation is by no means unique. There are millions upon millions of sufficiently able people running Windows that are currently being tracked, against their wishes, because the options are misleading and/or hidden. And they even pay Microsoft for the privilege ... So yeah no. Just like computer security in general isn't about you being safe and protected from criminals, that's easy enough, unless you're being targeted, if you are clever and paying attention, don't click the shady popups/emails and you're mostly fine. Criminal phishers or ransomware peddlers would be out of a job (or be more clever) if everybody has the knowledge like that. Just like Microsoft wouldn't have even bothered doing all that work on their surveillance tracking systems if the features would have been as "easily turned off" for everyone that doesn't want to be tracked. Just like any whitehat hackers, on the rare occasions I hear them about the fundamental moral reasons why they do what they do, in addition to "hacking is fun" (also goes for grey/blackhat), is every time not because they and their tech-savvy friends need their protection, no we're catching the bad guys and fixing the vulnerabilities because our mother, grandfather, neighbour, partner, nephew and that friendly man at the cigar/magazine cornershop need the protection because they don't want to be hacked just as much as we don't, but not everyone has the time to dig into computers as deeply as us to protect ourselves. And you know, those very same people also don't want to be tracked, given the choice. At the very most they'll shrug and admit defeatedly "well, yeah, ... I don't mind so much, I guess" -- because to them it seems to be price to pay for not having to really dig deep into their system and just be able to use that laptop for email and web-browsing. But no, they don't really want to be tracked. It's NOT a choice, for them, it factors as an additional cost of being able to use a computer. Source: I teach people (of all ages, but mostly children 8-18y) general computer usage. None of them want to be tracked. None. The ones that even claim they do, I haven't met a single one that, after sitting down and talking for a while, didn't just boast "oh, I don't care" because the alternative would be admitting that they don't have the skill/knowledge to fix the situation, or because simply not using Facebook because it's creepy as fuck, would be social suicide. That's not a choice. It's not a choice! Just because we (hackernewserpeoples) are clever enough to opt to not pay that cost because it's technically optional, doesn't make it a "non-issue".
- golergka 11y ago
  Given that most users in the world fut that description perfectly, I'm quite glad that Microsoft adopted such aggressive auto-update policies. I try not to use Windows if I can, but I enjoy living in a world with less botnets.
- nix0n 11y ago
  Next time, go to a Run box and type services.msc, there you can turn off the Windows Update service, the Trusted Installer service, etc. You've got to be willing to pop the hood: admittedly MS tends to hide the hood release lever.
technomancy 11y ago
> I find it especially offensive that ex-open source and ex-Linux users The thing is, from an "open source" perspective, what they're doing is great and totally legit. From a free software perspective, it has a lot of potential to be suspicious and troubling. If all you care about is "the best technology; yay" rather than user freedoms, your concerns are moot.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  Your perspective is perfectly valid, but I'd like to add another. It's possible to care about user freedoms and still think this is a good thing. It doesn't create any dependencies on Microsoft, just opens up opportunities for more full-featured free software to run on more computers. If Microsoft ever decided to pull support, nobody would be left unable to run their software. These are the same Ubuntu binaries that run on Linux, and anyone could move over to that if they wanted to. There's a stereotype that the open source people are practical but don't care about political issues and the free software people hate everything proprietary with a passion, but of course that's not always the case. Big companies like Microsoft aren't monocultures. They have some really amazing people, even if not everyone is perfectly enlightened. The path to more user freedom is allowing those good people to continue to push technology in the right direction. This is a step toward more freedom. Many of us don't just use one computer. I use every OS on different desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, servers, and consoles. They might not all be equally free, but I only need one to be fully free to know that I have freedom that can't be taken away. Even for those who don't have a fully free system, the most important thing in my opinion is that the option always exists. If they aren't served by proprietary software, they have somewhere to go. GNU won against all odds. It's here to stay, proliferating across so many devices. I'm happy to welcome people who might not have ventured outside Windows into the family!
  - hydromet 11y ago
    > If Microsoft ever decided to pull support, nobody would be left unable to run their software. These are the same Ubuntu binaries that run on Linux, and anyone could move over to that if they wanted to. That's a good point. Its all about having real options (freedom to move) and minimal switching costs. That said, I'm still concerned about a possible Trojan Horse scenario here whereby Linux on Windows is the hook to try and get people into the proprietary Windows dev tools (Visual Studio etc.) and checked into the Azure "roach motel" cloud (easy to check into, hard to check out). > Big companies like Microsoft aren't monocultures. They have some really amazing people, even if not everyone is perfectly enlightened. Microsoft most definitely has some amazing and talented people, but I disagree with you about culture: the culture of any company is undoubtedly set from the top down (the founders or directors). Please do not be so naive to think Satya Nadella does not set the culture at Microsoft, (hierarchical in nature). This isn't to say there may not be some fiefdoms within a company as large as Microsoft, but there is an overarching culture and it comes from the top. > Many of us don't just use one computer. This is probably true for some, but some people might only be able to afford one computer. One scenario I can see which might be appealing to a developer, as of this announcement yesterday, is using a MacBook with Apple's Boot Camp to partition the internal drive such that one could have as many options as possible (OS X on one partition, and Windows 10 with Linux on the other). > GNU won against all odds. It's here to stay, proliferating across so many devices. I'm happy to welcome people who might not have ventured outside Windows into the family! It would be really cool to hear what RMS (Richard Stallman) thinks about this. I wonder if he's be up for an AMA on Reddit to address this seemingly earth shaking announcement by MSFT?
city41 11y ago
I think a key point that is being missed here is most of the people excited about this probably run OSX, not Linux. OSX has long been the "'Linux' for people who don't really want to run Linux" (not really meant as an insult, I'm typing this from OSX right now). Apple is just as proprietary, commercial and anti-competitive as Microsoft here. FWIW, this excites me because it potentially means I can go from two machines to one, and always have IE/Edge at my fingertips. It will greatly improve my dev workflow if it pans out like people are hoping it does.
- riotdash 11y ago
  "Apple is just as proprietary, commercial and anti-competitive as Microsoft here." The big difference is that Apple actually doesn't fk their users in the ass. People always complain how Apple products are so expensive etc. but you know that's how they make money and they actually invest in to the privacy and security of their users (good example: the FBI case) I will happily keep on paying high price for the Apple products in the future too as long as all of my personal data is not being broadcasted to hundreds of spy servers, as long as random ads are not being slammed to my face while I'm developing and as long and I AM in the control of the OS and not the other way around. Maybe some people enjoy being slaves to MS but at least some people wanna decide THEMSELVES how their hosts-file work and when their computer should restart to install the updates. I'm sorry but Microsoft has been, is and most likely will be horrible company in the future too. Unless they completely stop this BS and start to respect their users and keep it that way I can't believe any rational developer considers MS platform as an option.
  - creshal 11y ago
    > The big difference is that Apple actually doesn't fk their users in the ass. Like with their SMB support? When, given the choice of complying with the GPL or re-writing an SMB client from scratch, Apple chose the latter and subjected users to utterly broken SMB support for several releases just so they did not have to open source their pitiful collection of patches?
  - recursive 11y ago
    Apple is pretty user-hostile. Moreso than MS in my estimation. Try changing the battery in your iphone, or getting music on it without using itunes.
homero 11y ago
I nuked win10 after it decided to uninstall a program all by itself
- wfunction 11y ago
  What program was this...?
  - ionised 11y ago
    It uninstalled CPU-Z and a couple of other things for me during the first update.
    - homero 11y ago
      Yeah it's my fucking computer, don't uninstall, don't restart, if I wanted an ipad I wouldn't buy a Lenovo desktop dicks. Then it made sure candy crush was installed. Wtf? This isn't a game, I have work to do Microsoft! I like monitoring my $300 i7 not play games on a $1k pc.
sreenadh 11y ago
@jupiter2 Well put. I really liked, "It's like giving a man who is dying of thirst sea water.". The fact of the matter is that MS has not yet realized or is unwilling to correct its core issue, and instead it is going many nothings like be it an atom forked text editor or running Ubuntu in windows.
- ulber 11y ago
  VS Code is not an Atom fork. They share the packaging tech (Electron), but the application code is completely separate. VS Code is an evolution of an MS online editor component (called Monaco IIRC). I think this is the third time I'm writing this reply on HN. Seems to be a common misconception.
partycoder 11y ago
One aspect is the technology, another aspect are the values driving that technology, another aspect is the legal aspect. You are mixing them all and that's how the debate gets stuck into some neckbeard-limbo that nobody cares about. Society made a lot of progress when religion and state got decoupled from each other. There are some things that should be handled separately. What I have to say about this is: Technology-wise, GNU/Linux software is separate from that of Windows at the binary level as well as dependencies. For them to extend such software means that they would need to build on that. That would extend the GNU/Linux ecosystem. Legally-wise, open source software is protected by open source licensing that requires derived software to also be licensed as open source. It is challenging to achieve the "extend" part of the "embrace/extend/extinguish" loop if open source licenses are in place. In terms of values, they're a for-profit corporation trying to reach out to developers. Same as every other company. They have open sourced .NET, they've released some of their actually important software on Linux (SQL Server), they have embraced the Linux platform on their cloud environments... everything possible to appeal to developers. It doesn't appeal to me, though.
- hydromet 11y ago
  Yes partycoder, it sure would be interesting to hear what "neckbeard" RMS has to say about this move by Microsoft today, would it not?
  - partycoder 11y ago
    I think he has a full fledged beard making him not fit into the neckbeard type. RMS was foresighted enough to make licensing a core part of open source. I have a deep respect for the man. The Achilles heel for open source software remains to be patents. In that regard I think many proprietary players still have the upper hand.
    - reitanqild 11y ago
      The Apache License helps in this regards as far as it is used, doesn't it?
    - 11y ago
fsloth 11y ago
People are different and have different constraints and optimization parameters. I'm not disagreeing with you as much as pointing out that not all people hold the same things as important as you do. In my context as a software engineer or as a private individual I didn't find your argument convincing from the point of view that it would expose any specific problems that are of my concern. If I was responsible for confidential data my views might align more with yours. "As long as Microsoft continues to disrespect the rights of users in regard to privacy, data-collection, data-sharing with unnamed sources..." I'm already giving up most of my privacy in the general context when using an off-the-shelf cellphone (in the sense that I have no idea how much data leak my daily cell phone use causes and I'm fine with it since I have no time to implement a personal data safety plan). If I wanted privacy I would stop using technology altogether. I just want things that a) work with b) minimal financial risk. "when most of what makes Linux special (respect for the user) has been stripped away." Sorry, for me it's the "Linux the technology stack", that make it special, not the "Linux the philosophy". "please don't sell your souls and the future of software technology for ease of use" For me personally, 'ease of use' is the single most important optimization parameter when choosing technology. Although, in my definition, this encompasses things not only directly related to daily use, but include license cost, security and data loss prevention. The most important thing I care very much for is retaining copy right to my own data. Why 'ease of use'? Because the only thing that truly constrains me in this world, is time. As in, how long I have to live, and how much effort I need to reach my goals. When put in this context, I don't care of the philosophical implications of the way I solve problems and implement things - I just want them done. I.e. if the product does what I want, I don't really care of the philosophy. Perhaps I have too much faith in market forces and jurisdiction prohibiting monopoly but I fail to see much personal benefit in an all encompassing "platform philosophy" as to me, technology platforms should focus on solving real life problems. "please don't sell your souls" I don't pour my soul into the technology platform I use. I pour my soul on the design itself - the implementation on the platform is just the implementation of the design that could very well live in an abstract turing machine. Although the implementation running in live hardware is much, much more fun (and exposes the bugs).
- jupiter2 11y ago
  It saddens me to hear you say this as a developer, a builder, an engineer of our technological future and infrastructure. It falls on Developers - moreso than any other group - to be aware of the dangers the work they perform produces and for whom their work benefits. They must all be aware of the abuses of our basic rights and human dignity modern Private Enterprise engage in. When these same Enterprises pull developers from a system (or systems) that value our individual rights to one that tramples all over them... it angers me. It begins to limit the Philosophically, user-empowering, alternatives we have. When developers rejoice over the actions of an abusive Enterprise, it disheartens me. It feels like the bigger picture is somehow being missed. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: 'Those who give up their freedoms for temporary ease of use deserve neither and will lose both.' I do not mean this to sound harsh. You can both work within the current technological framework (as we all do) and, at the same time, rail against a future that runs counter to our core beliefs. It's ok to do both. It's ok to work within a Microsoft-produced framework and at the same time let them know that some of what they're doing is counter to your belief system as a private, law-abiding individual. What we must not do is defend the Police State we're currently building. It runs counter to everything we hold dear as a democratic and free society. Counter to the best kind of future we can envision for ourselves and future generations. The chasm between the 'haves'' and the 'have-nots'* is only getting wider. The very concept of a fair society where all men are created equal diminishes. Enterprise OSes produced by Microsoft, for example, have privacy-enabled features the common man does not have access to. The common man - you and I - are now constant targets whereas Corporations, those in Government, those in law enforcement and many others accustomed to living above the law continue live under a different set of rules. This is the emerging new standard. China will soon get a special build of Windows 10 without telemetry, without "phoning home". I am certain that this special build will contain the same kind of malware and abusive spyware that benefits the Chinese Government over it's own citizens. So... we, possibly have, an American software company building and deploying tools for repressive regimes. Yet we have become so complacent, there isn't even a discussion about it. That's how bad things have gotten. We shouldn't pretend that this philosophical disconnect is not the biggest change in development. It is essentially the only real difference between Operating Systems/Working Frameworks. As good people... I'm saying that we should never, ever defend it, accept it and be complacent about it.
bechampion 11y ago
Also .. Linux is more than userland... mmu , cfs , kernel things in general ... i'd like to see real benchmarking of this.
_pmf_ 11y ago
> there's a philosophy behind the system. Users first! This is true for a certain type of users (developers deploying on Linux). For a different class of users (desktop/laptop users, or developers developing on Linux), Linux has a documented history of "Fuck you very much". Microsoft has recognized that there is a large overlap between these two classes.
espadrine 11y ago
> Linux isn't just about running apps - there's a philosophy behind the system. It isn't just about the philosophy either. Not to me. Linux offers a stellar scheduler, phenomenal file systems such as ext4 and XFS (soon ZFS!), cgroups… the list goes on.
- ramgorur 11y ago
  and bash
endemic 11y ago
> As long as Microsoft continues to disrespect the rights of users in regard to privacy, data-collection, data-sharing with unnamed sources, tracking, uncontrollable OS operations (updates, etc) - I will never go near it. You've taken the words right out of my mouth. At first blush, Linux interop on Windows seems like the best of both worlds, but in reality you're giving up a lot more than you gain.
wmccullough 11y ago
The true reality is that Microsoft could do anything, and the anti Microsoft crowd will never be satisfied.

thegenius2000 11y ago

This is so true I'm loathe to add to it. I dual boot my laptop b/w Windows and Linux because the WiFi network at my school has issues with Linux...so I'm forced to use Windows, also for games, but it's such a pain. Today it updated forcefully while I was trying to study; I tried to postpone the update but the option was grayed out. The Windows philosophy through and through is to treat users as ignorant and incompetent idiots for whom even the most basic of tasks must be performed, and who cannot make important decisions. This, IMHO, is the epitome of disrespect, and the reason I look forward with great anticipation to the day when I am able to solely operate within computing environments that afford me the same dignity as the cars I drive.

adrianN 11y ago
I hope you only drive old cars, because newer cars aren't really designed to let the user change anything. You always need to take them to a specialist shop.
- creshal 11y ago
  And the specialist might have to take it to other specialists because the diagnostics and repair equipment is so outrageously proprietary and specific nowadays that only one shop per major city can afford it.
  - rkangel 11y ago
    Which at least partly because have become much more complex things. Complex systems with many electronic and mechanical systems interacting need complex tools to debug.
    - creshal 11y ago
      Only partly. There's no technical reason why you need to have 70 differently wired connectors to access the engine computer's UART port… and why they cost over a hundred dollars each.
      - kagamine 11y ago
        Or why the error codes are kept secret from the user, resulting in only the dealership, not your local independent, being able to fix some things. And also the requirement of specialist tools to do non-specialist jobs like set the engine timing, and then charging a lot for purchase of the tool. It will be interesting to see how serviceable electric cars become once they are old enough to start being parted out and the used market expands to those who 'just need something to go from A to B'.
- jsight 11y ago
  I have been hearing this for about 20 years now. It still isn't true.
tempestn 11y ago
It's odd for me to read this, because the main reason I use Windows for my desktop over OSX is that it offers increased control. Obviously nothing is as customizable as Linux, but Apply software seems much more about taking decisions away from the user than Microsoft. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. It's, "It just works," vs, "You can make it work the way you want." I see Windows as sitting between OSX and Linux on that spectrum. That said, for most development work I prefer Linux, and run a Linux home server as well as various VMs, so this announcement sounds great to me. And as a final aside: basically all of the information gathering that people complain about with Windows can very easily be turned off. In fact, for the most part the installation wizard actually leads you through how to turn it off. For me that makes it a non-issue, although I understand that some feel differently.
- tripzilch 11y ago
  > basically all of the information gathering that people complain about with Windows can very easily be turned off. In fact, for the most part the installation wizard actually leads you through how to turn it off. For me that makes it a non-issue, although I understand that some feel differently. It's absolutely not a non-issue when I was helping my mother set up her new Win10 laptop. She doesn't want to be tracked, I don't want her to be tracked. But currently she is being tracked by Microsoft very much. As are millions of other people that REALLY do not want to, if they had the choice. There was no wizard when I got there to help her. Obviously she had set up most of the laptop herself because she's not intimidated by computers and really pretty good with them (at age 66). Except she couldn't get email to work. And neither could I, btw. She wanted two accounts in the windows 10 default mail client, one from the ISP and a very old hotmail account. Somehow this just wouldn't work and the stupid mail client was actively hiding the information I (or she) needed to troubleshoot the problem (not just a bit, I got like zero information. and a numerical error code. it's beyond me why MS would want to translate standard error messages from IMAP and SMTP into something even more cryptic). I ended up installing Thunderbird, which works. But I digress. My mom is not a HN-reader, so she hadn't quite heard about Win10's totalitarian surveillance features, and when first setting up her laptop she wasn't quite sitting there in the adversarial position of "I'd rather brick my system than let it spy on me" that any of us would need to assume in order to later claim "the information gathering that people complain about with Windows can very easily be turned off". She doesn't want to be tracked, so I'm sure she ticked off a couple of the checkboxes that were clear about it. But maybe not the ones that popped up warnings about your system. Or the ones that were misleadingly worded as if they are something beneficial ("just like the US government does" is not really a bar for good intentions) that you need to Google to figure out what they really mean. Or the tiny checkboxed that only explain their maliciousness in a very tiny font next to the big friendly letters that just want to steam you through the wizard. (I didn't see any wizard, but this is the deliberately misleading I remember from win8, obviously intending to grab as much private info from users while pretending to give them a choice). During the afternoon I helped her, I only had time to set up the email and do a few other things. In addition of having to wait through 45 minutes of some giant update, which upset her a bit because it was a brand-new laptop, high-end thingy, why did we have to wait for things to happen? Damn right. The longer I'm on Linux, the more and more ridiculous it seems to have the OS yank control from you at what are probably the most inopportune moments (boot-up and shutdown ... really?!) So I didn't have time to help her, Google for all the privacy options in Win10 and disable them. What you probably don't know, because you "easily" disabled them right away, is that after this initial setup phase, Win10's remote surveillance features are as quiet as they can possibly be. (until you try to disable them of course at which point they'll scream bloody modal murder) And with her, that situation is by no means unique. There are millions upon millions of sufficiently able people running Windows that are currently being tracked, against their wishes, because the options are misleading and/or hidden. And they even pay Microsoft for the privilege ... So yeah no. Just like computer security in general isn't about you being safe and protected from criminals, that's easy enough, unless you're being targeted, if you are clever and paying attention, don't click the shady popups/emails and you're mostly fine. Criminal phishers or ransomware peddlers would be out of a job (or be more clever) if everybody has the knowledge like that. Just like Microsoft wouldn't have even bothered doing all that work on their surveillance tracking systems if the features would have been as "easily turned off" for everyone that doesn't want to be tracked. Just like any whitehat hackers, on the rare occasions I hear them about the fundamental moral reasons why they do what they do, in addition to "hacking is fun" (also goes for grey/blackhat), is every time not because they and their tech-savvy friends need their protection, no we're catching the bad guys and fixing the vulnerabilities because our mother, grandfather, neighbour, partner, nephew and that friendly man at the cigar/magazine cornershop need the protection because they don't want to be hacked just as much as we don't, but not everyone has the time to dig into computers as deeply as us to protect ourselves. And you know, those very same people also don't want to be tracked, given the choice. At the very most they'll shrug and admit defeatedly "well, yeah, ... I don't mind so much, I guess" -- because to them it seems to be price to pay for not having to really dig deep into their system and just be able to use that laptop for email and web-browsing. But no, they don't really want to be tracked. It's NOT a choice, for them, it factors as an additional cost of being able to use a computer. Source: I teach people (of all ages, but mostly children 8-18y) general computer usage. None of them want to be tracked. None. The ones that even claim they do, I haven't met a single one that, after sitting down and talking for a while, didn't just boast "oh, I don't care" because the alternative would be admitting that they don't have the skill/knowledge to fix the situation, or because simply not using Facebook because it's creepy as fuck, would be social suicide. That's not a choice. It's not a choice! Just because we (hackernewserpeoples) are clever enough to opt to not pay that cost because it's technically optional, doesn't make it a "non-issue".
golergka 11y ago
Given that most users in the world fut that description perfectly, I'm quite glad that Microsoft adopted such aggressive auto-update policies. I try not to use Windows if I can, but I enjoy living in a world with less botnets.
nix0n 11y ago
Next time, go to a Run box and type services.msc, there you can turn off the Windows Update service, the Trusted Installer service, etc. You've got to be willing to pop the hood: admittedly MS tends to hide the hood release lever.

technomancy 11y ago

> I find it especially offensive that ex-open source and ex-Linux users The thing is, from an "open source" perspective, what they're doing is great and totally legit. From a free software perspective, it has a lot of potential to be suspicious and troubling. If all you care about is "the best technology; yay" rather than user freedoms, your concerns are moot.

ewzimm 11y ago
Your perspective is perfectly valid, but I'd like to add another. It's possible to care about user freedoms and still think this is a good thing. It doesn't create any dependencies on Microsoft, just opens up opportunities for more full-featured free software to run on more computers. If Microsoft ever decided to pull support, nobody would be left unable to run their software. These are the same Ubuntu binaries that run on Linux, and anyone could move over to that if they wanted to. There's a stereotype that the open source people are practical but don't care about political issues and the free software people hate everything proprietary with a passion, but of course that's not always the case. Big companies like Microsoft aren't monocultures. They have some really amazing people, even if not everyone is perfectly enlightened. The path to more user freedom is allowing those good people to continue to push technology in the right direction. This is a step toward more freedom. Many of us don't just use one computer. I use every OS on different desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, servers, and consoles. They might not all be equally free, but I only need one to be fully free to know that I have freedom that can't be taken away. Even for those who don't have a fully free system, the most important thing in my opinion is that the option always exists. If they aren't served by proprietary software, they have somewhere to go. GNU won against all odds. It's here to stay, proliferating across so many devices. I'm happy to welcome people who might not have ventured outside Windows into the family!
- hydromet 11y ago
  > If Microsoft ever decided to pull support, nobody would be left unable to run their software. These are the same Ubuntu binaries that run on Linux, and anyone could move over to that if they wanted to. That's a good point. Its all about having real options (freedom to move) and minimal switching costs. That said, I'm still concerned about a possible Trojan Horse scenario here whereby Linux on Windows is the hook to try and get people into the proprietary Windows dev tools (Visual Studio etc.) and checked into the Azure "roach motel" cloud (easy to check into, hard to check out). > Big companies like Microsoft aren't monocultures. They have some really amazing people, even if not everyone is perfectly enlightened. Microsoft most definitely has some amazing and talented people, but I disagree with you about culture: the culture of any company is undoubtedly set from the top down (the founders or directors). Please do not be so naive to think Satya Nadella does not set the culture at Microsoft, (hierarchical in nature). This isn't to say there may not be some fiefdoms within a company as large as Microsoft, but there is an overarching culture and it comes from the top. > Many of us don't just use one computer. This is probably true for some, but some people might only be able to afford one computer. One scenario I can see which might be appealing to a developer, as of this announcement yesterday, is using a MacBook with Apple's Boot Camp to partition the internal drive such that one could have as many options as possible (OS X on one partition, and Windows 10 with Linux on the other). > GNU won against all odds. It's here to stay, proliferating across so many devices. I'm happy to welcome people who might not have ventured outside Windows into the family! It would be really cool to hear what RMS (Richard Stallman) thinks about this. I wonder if he's be up for an AMA on Reddit to address this seemingly earth shaking announcement by MSFT?

city41 11y ago

I think a key point that is being missed here is most of the people excited about this probably run OSX, not Linux. OSX has long been the "'Linux' for people who don't really want to run Linux" (not really meant as an insult, I'm typing this from OSX right now). Apple is just as proprietary, commercial and anti-competitive as Microsoft here. FWIW, this excites me because it potentially means I can go from two machines to one, and always have IE/Edge at my fingertips. It will greatly improve my dev workflow if it pans out like people are hoping it does.

riotdash 11y ago
"Apple is just as proprietary, commercial and anti-competitive as Microsoft here." The big difference is that Apple actually doesn't fk their users in the ass. People always complain how Apple products are so expensive etc. but you know that's how they make money and they actually invest in to the privacy and security of their users (good example: the FBI case) I will happily keep on paying high price for the Apple products in the future too as long as all of my personal data is not being broadcasted to hundreds of spy servers, as long as random ads are not being slammed to my face while I'm developing and as long and I AM in the control of the OS and not the other way around. Maybe some people enjoy being slaves to MS but at least some people wanna decide THEMSELVES how their hosts-file work and when their computer should restart to install the updates. I'm sorry but Microsoft has been, is and most likely will be horrible company in the future too. Unless they completely stop this BS and start to respect their users and keep it that way I can't believe any rational developer considers MS platform as an option.
- creshal 11y ago
  > The big difference is that Apple actually doesn't fk their users in the ass. Like with their SMB support? When, given the choice of complying with the GPL or re-writing an SMB client from scratch, Apple chose the latter and subjected users to utterly broken SMB support for several releases just so they did not have to open source their pitiful collection of patches?
- recursive 11y ago
  Apple is pretty user-hostile. Moreso than MS in my estimation. Try changing the battery in your iphone, or getting music on it without using itunes.

homero 11y ago

I nuked win10 after it decided to uninstall a program all by itself

wfunction 11y ago
What program was this...?
- ionised 11y ago
  It uninstalled CPU-Z and a couple of other things for me during the first update.
  - homero 11y ago
    Yeah it's my fucking computer, don't uninstall, don't restart, if I wanted an ipad I wouldn't buy a Lenovo desktop dicks. Then it made sure candy crush was installed. Wtf? This isn't a game, I have work to do Microsoft! I like monitoring my $300 i7 not play games on a $1k pc.

sreenadh 11y ago

@jupiter2 Well put. I really liked, "It's like giving a man who is dying of thirst sea water.". The fact of the matter is that MS has not yet realized or is unwilling to correct its core issue, and instead it is going many nothings like be it an atom forked text editor or running Ubuntu in windows.

ulber 11y ago
VS Code is not an Atom fork. They share the packaging tech (Electron), but the application code is completely separate. VS Code is an evolution of an MS online editor component (called Monaco IIRC). I think this is the third time I'm writing this reply on HN. Seems to be a common misconception.

partycoder 11y ago

One aspect is the technology, another aspect are the values driving that technology, another aspect is the legal aspect. You are mixing them all and that's how the debate gets stuck into some neckbeard-limbo that nobody cares about. Society made a lot of progress when religion and state got decoupled from each other. There are some things that should be handled separately. What I have to say about this is: Technology-wise, GNU/Linux software is separate from that of Windows at the binary level as well as dependencies. For them to extend such software means that they would need to build on that. That would extend the GNU/Linux ecosystem. Legally-wise, open source software is protected by open source licensing that requires derived software to also be licensed as open source. It is challenging to achieve the "extend" part of the "embrace/extend/extinguish" loop if open source licenses are in place. In terms of values, they're a for-profit corporation trying to reach out to developers. Same as every other company. They have open sourced .NET, they've released some of their actually important software on Linux (SQL Server), they have embraced the Linux platform on their cloud environments... everything possible to appeal to developers. It doesn't appeal to me, though.

hydromet 11y ago
Yes partycoder, it sure would be interesting to hear what "neckbeard" RMS has to say about this move by Microsoft today, would it not?
- partycoder 11y ago
  I think he has a full fledged beard making him not fit into the neckbeard type. RMS was foresighted enough to make licensing a core part of open source. I have a deep respect for the man. The Achilles heel for open source software remains to be patents. In that regard I think many proprietary players still have the upper hand.
  - reitanqild 11y ago
    The Apache License helps in this regards as far as it is used, doesn't it?
  - 11y ago

fsloth 11y ago

People are different and have different constraints and optimization parameters. I'm not disagreeing with you as much as pointing out that not all people hold the same things as important as you do. In my context as a software engineer or as a private individual I didn't find your argument convincing from the point of view that it would expose any specific problems that are of my concern. If I was responsible for confidential data my views might align more with yours. "As long as Microsoft continues to disrespect the rights of users in regard to privacy, data-collection, data-sharing with unnamed sources..." I'm already giving up most of my privacy in the general context when using an off-the-shelf cellphone (in the sense that I have no idea how much data leak my daily cell phone use causes and I'm fine with it since I have no time to implement a personal data safety plan). If I wanted privacy I would stop using technology altogether. I just want things that a) work with b) minimal financial risk. "when most of what makes Linux special (respect for the user) has been stripped away." Sorry, for me it's the "Linux the technology stack", that make it special, not the "Linux the philosophy". "please don't sell your souls and the future of software technology for ease of use" For me personally, 'ease of use' is the single most important optimization parameter when choosing technology. Although, in my definition, this encompasses things not only directly related to daily use, but include license cost, security and data loss prevention. The most important thing I care very much for is retaining copy right to my own data. Why 'ease of use'? Because the only thing that truly constrains me in this world, is time. As in, how long I have to live, and how much effort I need to reach my goals. When put in this context, I don't care of the philosophical implications of the way I solve problems and implement things - I just want them done. I.e. if the product does what I want, I don't really care of the philosophy. Perhaps I have too much faith in market forces and jurisdiction prohibiting monopoly but I fail to see much personal benefit in an all encompassing "platform philosophy" as to me, technology platforms should focus on solving real life problems. "please don't sell your souls" I don't pour my soul into the technology platform I use. I pour my soul on the design itself - the implementation on the platform is just the implementation of the design that could very well live in an abstract turing machine. Although the implementation running in live hardware is much, much more fun (and exposes the bugs).

jupiter2 11y ago
It saddens me to hear you say this as a developer, a builder, an engineer of our technological future and infrastructure. It falls on Developers - moreso than any other group - to be aware of the dangers the work they perform produces and for whom their work benefits. They must all be aware of the abuses of our basic rights and human dignity modern Private Enterprise engage in. When these same Enterprises pull developers from a system (or systems) that value our individual rights to one that tramples all over them... it angers me. It begins to limit the Philosophically, user-empowering, alternatives we have. When developers rejoice over the actions of an abusive Enterprise, it disheartens me. It feels like the bigger picture is somehow being missed. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: 'Those who give up their freedoms for temporary ease of use deserve neither and will lose both.' I do not mean this to sound harsh. You can both work within the current technological framework (as we all do) and, at the same time, rail against a future that runs counter to our core beliefs. It's ok to do both. It's ok to work within a Microsoft-produced framework and at the same time let them know that some of what they're doing is counter to your belief system as a private, law-abiding individual. What we must not do is defend the Police State we're currently building. It runs counter to everything we hold dear as a democratic and free society. Counter to the best kind of future we can envision for ourselves and future generations. The chasm between the 'haves'' and the 'have-nots'* is only getting wider. The very concept of a fair society where all men are created equal diminishes. Enterprise OSes produced by Microsoft, for example, have privacy-enabled features the common man does not have access to. The common man - you and I - are now constant targets whereas Corporations, those in Government, those in law enforcement and many others accustomed to living above the law continue live under a different set of rules. This is the emerging new standard. China will soon get a special build of Windows 10 without telemetry, without "phoning home". I am certain that this special build will contain the same kind of malware and abusive spyware that benefits the Chinese Government over it's own citizens. So... we, possibly have, an American software company building and deploying tools for repressive regimes. Yet we have become so complacent, there isn't even a discussion about it. That's how bad things have gotten. We shouldn't pretend that this philosophical disconnect is not the biggest change in development. It is essentially the only real difference between Operating Systems/Working Frameworks. As good people... I'm saying that we should never, ever defend it, accept it and be complacent about it.

bechampion 11y ago

Also .. Linux is more than userland... mmu , cfs , kernel things in general ... i'd like to see real benchmarking of this.

_pmf_ 11y ago

> there's a philosophy behind the system. Users first! This is true for a certain type of users (developers deploying on Linux). For a different class of users (desktop/laptop users, or developers developing on Linux), Linux has a documented history of "Fuck you very much". Microsoft has recognized that there is a large overlap between these two classes.

espadrine 11y ago

> Linux isn't just about running apps - there's a philosophy behind the system. It isn't just about the philosophy either. Not to me. Linux offers a stellar scheduler, phenomenal file systems such as ext4 and XFS (soon ZFS!), cgroups… the list goes on.

ramgorur 11y ago
and bash

endemic 11y ago

> As long as Microsoft continues to disrespect the rights of users in regard to privacy, data-collection, data-sharing with unnamed sources, tracking, uncontrollable OS operations (updates, etc) - I will never go near it. You've taken the words right out of my mouth. At first blush, Linux interop on Windows seems like the best of both worlds, but in reality you're giving up a lot more than you gain.

wmccullough 11y ago

The true reality is that Microsoft could do anything, and the anti Microsoft crowd will never be satisfied.