4 ms·

> It's better to be loved by few and hated by many than to try to please everyone... But that goes exactly against for example what ms is doing. It's making wi

> It's better to be loved by few and hated by many than to try to please everyone... But that goes exactly against for example what ms is doing. It's making windows for 'everyone' while pissing-off privacy-conscious and freedom-conscious people in the process. Yet it's still at the 'top of the game'. What am I missing?

mseebach 10y ago
It's still better, obviously, to suceed in pleasing (almost) everyone. It's just very very hard. Put differently, for any n, it's better that n% of people love you flat out, than everybody loves you n%. But for large enough ns, either is very lucrative. Subaru n=2, Microsoft n=40, or something like that.
imtringued 10y ago
The only commercial alternative is OS X so you end up with vendor lock-in either way.
- l1n 10y ago
  Reminder that there are commercial Linux distributions (RHEL, Oracle, etc).
scholia 10y ago
> What am I missing? You're probably over-estimating the number of privacy-conscious and freedom-conscious people in the general public, who mainly use Windows, Android and Facebook. Windows is arguably the least privacy-invasive of those. https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardenin... Further, in tables of probably dubious merit (but all we have), Microsoft generally comes out as one of the most admired and most ethical companies. http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/09/microsoft-on-the-worlds-most-ethical-companies-list-5-years-in-a-row/ http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/09/microsof... Windows is openly-licensed to OEMs (just sign up on the website) and available at retail. You are free to build your own Windows PC or even start your own PC manufacturing company. Windows source code is available on application ;-) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/
- gear54rus 10y ago
  While I do agree that Android has privacy problem, it's probably the best mobile choice in regards to those factors right now (since everything else is closed as much as possible). > Microsoft generally comes out as one of the most admired and most ethical companies http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/09/microsoft-on-the-worlds-most-ethical-companies-list-5-years-in-a-row/ http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/09/microsof... https://www.quora.com/How-did-Microsoft-become-the-worlds-most-ethical-company https://www.quora.com/How-did-Microsoft-become-the-worlds-mo... In all seriousness, I'm supposed to believe that someone who has released a system like win10 is ethical? They made their goals clear with this one. Perhaps they don't spill the oil in the ocean or make dubious financial schemes like those banks, but that's not enough for me, sorry. > Windows source code is available on application ;-) Same way intel ME source is probably available somewhere to someone, doesn't mean they shouldn't be burned down to the ground for inventing it.
  - scholia 10y ago
    > it's probably the best mobile choice in regards to those factors right now Well, I use Android, but it basically has no privacy. I ought to be bothered enough to install Cyanogenmod, but I haven't.... > someone who has released a system like win10 is ethical I don't see why not. It's a mobile operating system and in my opinion the privacy issues have been ridiculously overblown. I don't use Chrome, and I do use Ghostery and uBlock Origin and a few other things, but I have no problems using my Windows 10 set-up with Basic telemetry. Windows 10 is already being rolled out by the US Defense Department (for the increased security), and almost all global companies are going to move to it in the 2020s. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208%28v=vs.85%29.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208%28v=vs....
DasIch 10y ago
People don't care about privacy, even quite a few people actually in tech don't care about it that much. There are even post-privacy people who are, at least to some degree, opposed to it. Software freedom is something that only a minority of the open source people are interested in and that's overall not a large group to begin with.
- Loughla 10y ago
  I disagree that people don't care about privacy. I think most people care very much. It's that people don't understand what information is available about them, and what sacrifices they have to make to ensure privacy. Should they begin to understand that on a large scale, they would then begin to care about privacy.
PopsiclePete 10y ago
Is there significant overlap between these "privacy-conscious" people you speak of and 8 of your closest tech geek friends who frequent Slashdot? Because if yes, then MS has nothing to worry about.

mseebach 10y ago

It's still better, obviously, to suceed in pleasing (almost) everyone. It's just very very hard. Put differently, for any n, it's better that n% of people love you flat out, than everybody loves you n%. But for large enough ns, either is very lucrative. Subaru n=2, Microsoft n=40, or something like that.

imtringued 10y ago

The only commercial alternative is OS X so you end up with vendor lock-in either way.

l1n 10y ago
Reminder that there are commercial Linux distributions (RHEL, Oracle, etc).

scholia 10y ago

> What am I missing? You're probably over-estimating the number of privacy-conscious and freedom-conscious people in the general public, who mainly use Windows, Android and Facebook. Windows is arguably the least privacy-invasive of those. https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardenin... Further, in tables of probably dubious merit (but all we have), Microsoft generally comes out as one of the most admired and most ethical companies. http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/09/microsoft-on-the-worlds-most-ethical-companies-list-5-years-in-a-row/ http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/09/microsof... Windows is openly-licensed to OEMs (just sign up on the website) and available at retail. You are free to build your own Windows PC or even start your own PC manufacturing company. Windows source code is available on application ;-) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/

gear54rus 10y ago
While I do agree that Android has privacy problem, it's probably the best mobile choice in regards to those factors right now (since everything else is closed as much as possible). > Microsoft generally comes out as one of the most admired and most ethical companies http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/09/microsoft-on-the-worlds-most-ethical-companies-list-5-years-in-a-row/ http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2015/03/09/microsof... https://www.quora.com/How-did-Microsoft-become-the-worlds-most-ethical-company https://www.quora.com/How-did-Microsoft-become-the-worlds-mo... In all seriousness, I'm supposed to believe that someone who has released a system like win10 is ethical? They made their goals clear with this one. Perhaps they don't spill the oil in the ocean or make dubious financial schemes like those banks, but that's not enough for me, sorry. > Windows source code is available on application ;-) Same way intel ME source is probably available somewhere to someone, doesn't mean they shouldn't be burned down to the ground for inventing it.
- scholia 10y ago
  > it's probably the best mobile choice in regards to those factors right now Well, I use Android, but it basically has no privacy. I ought to be bothered enough to install Cyanogenmod, but I haven't.... > someone who has released a system like win10 is ethical I don't see why not. It's a mobile operating system and in my opinion the privacy issues have been ridiculously overblown. I don't use Chrome, and I do use Ghostery and uBlock Origin and a few other things, but I have no problems using my Windows 10 set-up with Basic telemetry. Windows 10 is already being rolled out by the US Defense Department (for the increased security), and almost all global companies are going to move to it in the 2020s. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208%28v=vs.85%29.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208%28v=vs....

DasIch 10y ago

People don't care about privacy, even quite a few people actually in tech don't care about it that much. There are even post-privacy people who are, at least to some degree, opposed to it. Software freedom is something that only a minority of the open source people are interested in and that's overall not a large group to begin with.

Loughla 10y ago
I disagree that people don't care about privacy. I think most people care very much. It's that people don't understand what information is available about them, and what sacrifices they have to make to ensure privacy. Should they begin to understand that on a large scale, they would then begin to care about privacy.

PopsiclePete 10y ago

Is there significant overlap between these "privacy-conscious" people you speak of and 8 of your closest tech geek friends who frequent Slashdot? Because if yes, then MS has nothing to worry about.