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I don't know about stupid, but perhaps woefully out of touch. In 2020, they're still trying to fight fights from the 1990s, using tactics that haven't really wo

• squarefoot 7y ago
  Well, in 2020 people are more sensitive to privacy issues, malware and spyware are still much easier to hide in closed source software, and bugs are much easier to correct if one has the sources at hand, therefore I'd say the request would be even more legit today compared to the 90s. I however agree that's is not going to happen both because of the nightmare of relicensing 3rd party code, and because an OSS Win7 release with community updates and security patches (no telemetry) would probably displace a good number of Windows 10 installs in short time.
  • mumblemumble 7y ago
    Absolutely. But, even if you frame it that way, asking Microsoft to open source Windows 7 feels like trying to take a 2020 concern and approach it as if we were still back in 1999. If closed source software that talks to the Internet is an inherent privacy risk, let's maybe start by focusing on Google Chrome and Android, which have access to much bigger pots of honey than Windows itself does these days.
    • zozbot234 7y ago
      Both Google Chrome and Android have open source releases.
      • mumblemumble 7y ago
        Their existence doesn't do much to alleviate privacy concerns circling the closed-source bits of the versions of those apps that basically everyone is using, though. In short, this seems to be one of those spots where all the FSF has is a hammer.