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This seems like a very naive view to me. This attack on Wine is by extension an attack on Linux, or otherwise I don't understand it. Wine exists for convenience

This seems like a very naive view to me. This attack on Wine is by extension an attack on Linux, or otherwise I don't understand it. Wine exists for convenience for Linux users to use Software that has not been made available on Linux. Some advantages of Linux: * Can choose from a variety of window managers to suit your needs, from windows-like (Chalet, Zorin), to developer focussed (eg i3) * Linux is free. Windows 10 isn't, unlike you claim. Unless I'm been mislead, the Windows 10 for-free offer was simply an ugrade for existing Windows installs; not a free to all offering. It's therefore unavailable unless you've already 'bought-in' to the Microsoft ecosystem. * Linux has had updating figured out for years and lets you update in the background. Windows still pesters you do reboot. * Package managers are a much more efficient way to download and install software than any way I have seen on Windows. Some disadvantages of Windows 10: * Bundled with a lot of bloatware (from what I have seen) * Tracking / selling user data (PII? Not sure.) * Ads on the start menu Plus, with the existence of Linux, at least Microsoft doesn't have a full monopoly over the PC OS market. That said, I'd rather have myself be nestled firmly in the hands of a community than a corporation. I still wonder why Windows exists when Linux is such an excellent OS. /s

Fnoord 9y ago
The "for free" offer was temporary, and has expired. That is what matters. It even worked on pirated versions. You could even upgrade say your Windows XP to a later version (pirated or not) and then upgrade to Windows 10, for free. You get a valid license that way. You paid 2-fold: one, you were an early adopter and therefore beta tester. Two, you paid with your privacy. The anti-spyware toolkits to remove the telemetry and other stuff weren't sophisticated. Plus, Microsoft went out of their way to sabotage these. Linux also requires reboots because of kernel upgrades. Microsoft maybe does it more, but its also due to bad programmed 3rd party apps. Windows has its own package manager these days. Apple's App Store and Microsoft's Windows Store are nothing more than a GUI for a package manager with some Web 2.0 (or 3.0) capabilities. Your disadvantages are fair enough, but they can all be circumvented with say O&O ShutUp or one of the many other applications which remove the spyware/bloatware/adware. What I f* ing hate about Windows is the lack of shell scripts and the need for Powershell and CMD.exe/*.bat. I don't want to use or (re)learn that shit. Microsoft could've adopted Bash but they went with Powershell instead. Windows Subsystem for Linux is decent, as was Cygwin, but it just isn't the same as native. The same's true for WINE. So I still prefer macOS; seems to be the best of both worlds. Although terrible for gaming. You want a gaming rig for that. Which could very well run on Linux, these days, given Steam's adoption plus WINE. Good summary though. Could use some nuances (which I did mention) but we gotta start somewhere.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Win10 is still ridiculously easy to pirate, and the "assistive technology loophole" remains open. I don't think this is accidental, especially after all the underhanded tactics MS was using in an attempt to force everyone to upgrade. They probably figured monetising your personal data was worth far more than just selling Win10 licenses.
  - mrighele 9y ago
    I think it is more about getting as much users as possible to use their store and the Windows 10 ecosystem, where they are probably planning to get most of the money (and use part of that to fund Windows development) (Yes, Windows 8 has the store too, but I think that there are a number of difference that makes the distinction relevant)
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    > They probably figured monetising your personal data was worth far more than just selling Win10 licenses. That plus the people who run older versions of Windows already paid for it. If they're pirated they didn't paid for it, but its unlikely they will and they didn't pay the PII tax either.
- uhhhhhhh 9y ago
  The free upgrade was to gain critical mass for the upgrade, they learned with vista, 8/8.1 that users were happy with xp/7 and wouldn't pay to change, even with LTS running out. Free upgrade was a way to convince a lot of those people to upgrade. I wouldn't compare it to Linux being free in any way. Microsoft needs to reboot to do most of its updates of its own tools, not because of badly programmed 3rd party apps but its own badly programmed apps. Out of the box with no additional software it still needs to reboot, it also takes forever, hijacks reboots without the users ability to override (sometimes for 30-60 minutes while it tries to install updates). Linux only needs to reboot for kernel upgrades, and even that isn't a full requirement (there are ways, but they aren't worth it, to load a new kernel without rebooting). Windows store is very far from anything like a linux package manager, and it ties you into their ecosystem without extensibility. Same with Apple. Linux package management is extensible and controllable (get packages from these sources, not those, blacklist this version, etc...) so I wouldn't consider them anywhere remotely equivalent. The obvious/known privacy issues in windows 10 can be disabled, but the fact the user has to know about find and run third party, reasonably advanced tools/scripts to stop the operating system from spying and advertising to you is absolutely not acceptable from my perspective. I guess sometimes nuance needs to be more nuanced For the record I use osx/linux for work, linux/windows at home. Windows only for games that don't work on linux yet.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
> * Package managers are a much more efficient way to download and install software than any way I have seen on Windows. Package managers are probably my second least favorite thing about using Linux as a desktop (the Linux Desktop community would be the first by a wide margin). Package managers, as implemented, are a horrible mechanism for software installation. They have all the problems of walled garden app stores, shared namespaces, and the registry. Ever see a package manager database get corrupted? Good luck ever fixing that. Want to install two different versions of the same application? Too bad, unless they're different enough that the repo maintainers decided they were separate software (only python 2/3 comes to mind). How about installing software to a different path? Nope, sorry. Good luck with make install. There are even Linux developers sane enough to realize that this is silly, which is why you have things like AppImage. Not that more than a handful of applications are distributed that way, because Linux people quite often mistake tradition for wisdom. Oh, and the little problem of Linux not having a defined base system you can rely on. Installers/uninstallers aren't any better, but they're only worse in different ways. That's why there's Portable Apps.
- adrianN 9y ago
  They also have the benefit of walled-garden appstores: Users don't have to care about all of the things you mentioned. If I want to use Thunderbird I just apt-get install it. Normal users almost never want two versions of the same program, and they don't make install either. I've never seen a corrupted package database. I have seen lots of software on Windows that couldn't be properly deinstalled for some reason or other though.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
    Typical Linux community response: "Normal users don't need that." "I've never seen it, therefore it isn't a problem." You want to talk up a system for being stable, malleable, and under the user's control, then you pull out lame excuses like that. It's no wonder Windows still kicks the Linux Desktop's ass in the market even with all its crap and having to pay for it.

Fnoord 9y ago

The "for free" offer was temporary, and has expired. That is what matters. It even worked on pirated versions. You could even upgrade say your Windows XP to a later version (pirated or not) and then upgrade to Windows 10, for free. You get a valid license that way. You paid 2-fold: one, you were an early adopter and therefore beta tester. Two, you paid with your privacy. The anti-spyware toolkits to remove the telemetry and other stuff weren't sophisticated. Plus, Microsoft went out of their way to sabotage these. Linux also requires reboots because of kernel upgrades. Microsoft maybe does it more, but its also due to bad programmed 3rd party apps. Windows has its own package manager these days. Apple's App Store and Microsoft's Windows Store are nothing more than a GUI for a package manager with some Web 2.0 (or 3.0) capabilities. Your disadvantages are fair enough, but they can all be circumvented with say O&O ShutUp or one of the many other applications which remove the spyware/bloatware/adware. What I f* ing hate about Windows is the lack of shell scripts and the need for Powershell and CMD.exe/*.bat. I don't want to use or (re)learn that shit. Microsoft could've adopted Bash but they went with Powershell instead. Windows Subsystem for Linux is decent, as was Cygwin, but it just isn't the same as native. The same's true for WINE. So I still prefer macOS; seems to be the best of both worlds. Although terrible for gaming. You want a gaming rig for that. Which could very well run on Linux, these days, given Steam's adoption plus WINE. Good summary though. Could use some nuances (which I did mention) but we gotta start somewhere.

userbinator 9y ago
Win10 is still ridiculously easy to pirate, and the "assistive technology loophole" remains open. I don't think this is accidental, especially after all the underhanded tactics MS was using in an attempt to force everyone to upgrade. They probably figured monetising your personal data was worth far more than just selling Win10 licenses.
- mrighele 9y ago
  I think it is more about getting as much users as possible to use their store and the Windows 10 ecosystem, where they are probably planning to get most of the money (and use part of that to fund Windows development) (Yes, Windows 8 has the store too, but I think that there are a number of difference that makes the distinction relevant)
- Fnoord 9y ago
  > They probably figured monetising your personal data was worth far more than just selling Win10 licenses. That plus the people who run older versions of Windows already paid for it. If they're pirated they didn't paid for it, but its unlikely they will and they didn't pay the PII tax either.
uhhhhhhh 9y ago
The free upgrade was to gain critical mass for the upgrade, they learned with vista, 8/8.1 that users were happy with xp/7 and wouldn't pay to change, even with LTS running out. Free upgrade was a way to convince a lot of those people to upgrade. I wouldn't compare it to Linux being free in any way. Microsoft needs to reboot to do most of its updates of its own tools, not because of badly programmed 3rd party apps but its own badly programmed apps. Out of the box with no additional software it still needs to reboot, it also takes forever, hijacks reboots without the users ability to override (sometimes for 30-60 minutes while it tries to install updates). Linux only needs to reboot for kernel upgrades, and even that isn't a full requirement (there are ways, but they aren't worth it, to load a new kernel without rebooting). Windows store is very far from anything like a linux package manager, and it ties you into their ecosystem without extensibility. Same with Apple. Linux package management is extensible and controllable (get packages from these sources, not those, blacklist this version, etc...) so I wouldn't consider them anywhere remotely equivalent. The obvious/known privacy issues in windows 10 can be disabled, but the fact the user has to know about find and run third party, reasonably advanced tools/scripts to stop the operating system from spying and advertising to you is absolutely not acceptable from my perspective. I guess sometimes nuance needs to be more nuanced For the record I use osx/linux for work, linux/windows at home. Windows only for games that don't work on linux yet.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago

> * Package managers are a much more efficient way to download and install software than any way I have seen on Windows. Package managers are probably my second least favorite thing about using Linux as a desktop (the Linux Desktop community would be the first by a wide margin). Package managers, as implemented, are a horrible mechanism for software installation. They have all the problems of walled garden app stores, shared namespaces, and the registry. Ever see a package manager database get corrupted? Good luck ever fixing that. Want to install two different versions of the same application? Too bad, unless they're different enough that the repo maintainers decided they were separate software (only python 2/3 comes to mind). How about installing software to a different path? Nope, sorry. Good luck with make install. There are even Linux developers sane enough to realize that this is silly, which is why you have things like AppImage. Not that more than a handful of applications are distributed that way, because Linux people quite often mistake tradition for wisdom. Oh, and the little problem of Linux not having a defined base system you can rely on. Installers/uninstallers aren't any better, but they're only worse in different ways. That's why there's Portable Apps.

adrianN 9y ago
They also have the benefit of walled-garden appstores: Users don't have to care about all of the things you mentioned. If I want to use Thunderbird I just apt-get install it. Normal users almost never want two versions of the same program, and they don't make install either. I've never seen a corrupted package database. I have seen lots of software on Windows that couldn't be properly deinstalled for some reason or other though.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  Typical Linux community response: "Normal users don't need that." "I've never seen it, therefore it isn't a problem." You want to talk up a system for being stable, malleable, and under the user's control, then you pull out lame excuses like that. It's no wonder Windows still kicks the Linux Desktop's ass in the market even with all its crap and having to pay for it.