32 ms·

It's nice to see Microsoft cares. OTOH part of the attraction of the RPi for me is that people freely share their knowledge, code and cool hacks. Adding a humo

by teh 12y ago

It's nice to see Microsoft cares. OTOH part of the attraction of the RPi for me is that people freely share their knowledge, code and cool hacks. Adding a humongous blob of unmodifiable software doesn't really align with any of that. In the best case people will shun this, in the worst case it could harm the culture.

andyjohnson0 12y ago
I'm fairly sure that most RPi users neither modify the OS that their device is running or even look at the source code. The community-led innovation mainly happens higher up the stack, and in the hardware add-on space, and I don't see how Windows on RPi would change that. Windows on RPi is unlikely to ever be mainstream, so anyone using Windows-specific features on software would have to accept that their code would be interesting to only a small minority of other RPi users. Meta: Why all the anti-MS cynicism on the threads for this topic? Isn't it kind of old now? (Edit: Added "...unlikely to ever be mainstream...")
- GauntletWizard 12y ago
  Because Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is older than dirt. Microsoft had a long habit of adopting public standards, adding proprietary extensions, and then smothering the standard by making their extensions intentionally obtuse and hard to interoperate with. I don't honestly see how they could do such with the Pi, but I'm honestly not awful enough to see all the nasty possibilities. From a different perspective: As someone who until recently lived in Washington, Microsoft's management stack hasn't changed. It is still a very Sales-driven organization, with very little leeway given to Engineering to drive things that are useful, interesting, or innovative. How this fits into a Microsoft sales plan, I don't see; It might be somebody's pet project based on their child's interest in a Pi (As was basically the origin of the Zune and Kinect; I know the sales guys who responsible for allowing those to be engineered). Regardless, I expect it to be a redheaded stepchild, because it's sales potential is not proven.
  - BinaryIdiot 12y ago
    > From a different perspective: As someone who until recently lived in Washington, Microsoft's management stack hasn't changed. It is still a very Sales-driven organization, with very little leeway given to Engineering to drive things that are useful, interesting, or innovative. You say you lived in Washington, are you implying you were a Microsoft employee? Seems from everyone I'm hearing from that they've been making major structure changes for a while now and a lot of the old management has been shuffled or removed (especially with those huge rounds of layoffs) so I'm curious as to why I'm hearing something different from what you're saying.
    - GauntletWizard 12y ago
      No, my reasons for leaving WA are completely unrelated to Microsoft's layoffs. And, despite being in the Seattle area for nearly 10 years, I never did work for them. I just knew a bunch of people who did. Sure, it's getting stirred up there, but most of the layoffs were low-level, contract, vendor, and new-hire employees. From what I have heard, the management structure has had a power struggle, but it was between two camps of the good old boys, and the new boss is the same as the old boss.
- paulojreis 12y ago
  > Meta: Why all the anti-MS cynicism on the threads for this topic? Isn't it kind of old now? I feel bad when I have the "anti-MS" feeling. I truly do; I feel like I'm being over-simplistic, I feel that I'm being prejudiced... Well, you get the point. However, you can't really say this is "kind of old". "Embrace, extend and extinguish" practices are recent, even considering the short "horizons" in IT. And, after the "Mobile-first, cloud-first" vision [1], you can't really blame people for finding these MS initiatives a lot like "hangin' with the cool kids" or "sounding hip". [1] http://news.microsoft.com/2014/03/27/satya-nadella-mobile-first-cloud-first-press-briefing/ http://news.microsoft.com/2014/03/27/satya-nadella-mobile-fi...
  - andyjohnson0 12y ago
    "finding these MS initiatives a lot like "hangin' with the cool kids" or "sounding hip"." This announcement is undoubtedly partly publicity-driven. But its also about keeping Windows visible and relevant to groups who may not use PCs much. And if the RPi does become the standard IoT hardware platform, then Microsoft will want a bit of that too. And embrace, extend, extinguish makes no sense in a community-driven ecosystem. MS knows that.
    - tkubacki 12y ago
      >And embrace, extend, extinguish makes no sense in a community-driven ecosystem. MS knows that So assuming EEE would "make sense in community-driven ecosystem" they still would do that. Wouldn't they ? I'm ok with Windows on Rasp2 - Linux needs competition.
- Nux 12y ago
  > Meta: Why all the anti-MS cynicism on the threads for this topic? Isn't it kind of old now? No, they're still evil monkey corporation. Their marketing has improved and so has the quality of some of their products; but do not fall for it, copulation will ensue. They have nothing in common with "open" or "free".
finnn 12y ago
I could be wrong, but doesn't the raspberry pi require a humongous blob of unmodifiable binaries to run even linux? From what I understood, a number of hardware components are have closed source drivers and such, that made many dislike the entire platform
- hackertux 12y ago
  The Raspberry Pi requires nonfree software to start up. It can't reach the point of executing free software unless this nonfree program is part of the installed system software: https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers

by teh 12y ago

andyjohnson0 12y ago

I'm fairly sure that most RPi users neither modify the OS that their device is running or even look at the source code. The community-led innovation mainly happens higher up the stack, and in the hardware add-on space, and I don't see how Windows on RPi would change that. Windows on RPi is unlikely to ever be mainstream, so anyone using Windows-specific features on software would have to accept that their code would be interesting to only a small minority of other RPi users. Meta: Why all the anti-MS cynicism on the threads for this topic? Isn't it kind of old now? (Edit: Added "...unlikely to ever be mainstream...")

GauntletWizard 12y ago
Because Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is older than dirt. Microsoft had a long habit of adopting public standards, adding proprietary extensions, and then smothering the standard by making their extensions intentionally obtuse and hard to interoperate with. I don't honestly see how they could do such with the Pi, but I'm honestly not awful enough to see all the nasty possibilities. From a different perspective: As someone who until recently lived in Washington, Microsoft's management stack hasn't changed. It is still a very Sales-driven organization, with very little leeway given to Engineering to drive things that are useful, interesting, or innovative. How this fits into a Microsoft sales plan, I don't see; It might be somebody's pet project based on their child's interest in a Pi (As was basically the origin of the Zune and Kinect; I know the sales guys who responsible for allowing those to be engineered). Regardless, I expect it to be a redheaded stepchild, because it's sales potential is not proven.
- BinaryIdiot 12y ago
  > From a different perspective: As someone who until recently lived in Washington, Microsoft's management stack hasn't changed. It is still a very Sales-driven organization, with very little leeway given to Engineering to drive things that are useful, interesting, or innovative. You say you lived in Washington, are you implying you were a Microsoft employee? Seems from everyone I'm hearing from that they've been making major structure changes for a while now and a lot of the old management has been shuffled or removed (especially with those huge rounds of layoffs) so I'm curious as to why I'm hearing something different from what you're saying.
  - GauntletWizard 12y ago
    No, my reasons for leaving WA are completely unrelated to Microsoft's layoffs. And, despite being in the Seattle area for nearly 10 years, I never did work for them. I just knew a bunch of people who did. Sure, it's getting stirred up there, but most of the layoffs were low-level, contract, vendor, and new-hire employees. From what I have heard, the management structure has had a power struggle, but it was between two camps of the good old boys, and the new boss is the same as the old boss.
paulojreis 12y ago
> Meta: Why all the anti-MS cynicism on the threads for this topic? Isn't it kind of old now? I feel bad when I have the "anti-MS" feeling. I truly do; I feel like I'm being over-simplistic, I feel that I'm being prejudiced... Well, you get the point. However, you can't really say this is "kind of old". "Embrace, extend and extinguish" practices are recent, even considering the short "horizons" in IT. And, after the "Mobile-first, cloud-first" vision [1], you can't really blame people for finding these MS initiatives a lot like "hangin' with the cool kids" or "sounding hip". [1] http://news.microsoft.com/2014/03/27/satya-nadella-mobile-first-cloud-first-press-briefing/ http://news.microsoft.com/2014/03/27/satya-nadella-mobile-fi...
- andyjohnson0 12y ago
  "finding these MS initiatives a lot like "hangin' with the cool kids" or "sounding hip"." This announcement is undoubtedly partly publicity-driven. But its also about keeping Windows visible and relevant to groups who may not use PCs much. And if the RPi does become the standard IoT hardware platform, then Microsoft will want a bit of that too. And embrace, extend, extinguish makes no sense in a community-driven ecosystem. MS knows that.
  - tkubacki 12y ago
    >And embrace, extend, extinguish makes no sense in a community-driven ecosystem. MS knows that So assuming EEE would "make sense in community-driven ecosystem" they still would do that. Wouldn't they ? I'm ok with Windows on Rasp2 - Linux needs competition.
Nux 12y ago
> Meta: Why all the anti-MS cynicism on the threads for this topic? Isn't it kind of old now? No, they're still evil monkey corporation. Their marketing has improved and so has the quality of some of their products; but do not fall for it, copulation will ensue. They have nothing in common with "open" or "free".

finnn 12y ago

I could be wrong, but doesn't the raspberry pi require a humongous blob of unmodifiable binaries to run even linux? From what I understood, a number of hardware components are have closed source drivers and such, that made many dislike the entire platform

hackertux 12y ago
The Raspberry Pi requires nonfree software to start up. It can't reach the point of executing free software unless this nonfree program is part of the installed system software: https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers