Window 10 - Microsoft Qualifies The Term Free

[lxskllr]

Linux enthusiasts have been saying that exact same thing for nearly two decades.

"But if *this* takes off"
"Just give it a few more years"

Linux has plenty of good things going for it, but a platform for widespread gaming it is not, nor will it be. There's not enough home PC adoption for developers to deem it a worthwhile investment of their time and money, when Windows is on the majority of PCs and they've been working with DirectX forever. The market is already cornered on this one.

Never before has GNU/Linux had a premier game company/distribution platform behind it. If it's gonna happen, I think it'll happen in five years. DirectX isn't needed for anything. AAA games have been made with opengl. It remains to be seen if devs are interested in switching.

 

[ninaholic37]

Never before has GNU/Linux had a premier game company/distribution platform behind it. If it's gonna happen, I think it'll happen in five years. DirectX isn't needed for anything. AAA games have been made with opengl. It remains to be seen if devs are interested in switching.

Some games compiled as win32 exes using DirectX ran great for me in Wine, which was nice because I got my Wine install down to ~70MB after getting rid of the "MS-cloned programs" junk I'd never use (full install was around 170MB). The last Windows OS close to that size was probably Windows 98SE, which was about 200-250MB for basic install. Wine worked better for me than Win98SE with DirectX 6.1a or 9c, my video and sound worked out-of-the-box, so if I had to pick one to play win32 games, I would choose Wine over Windows.

 

[escrow4]

Never before has GNU/Linux had a premier game company/distribution platform behind it. If it's gonna happen, I think it'll happen in five years. DirectX isn't needed for anything. AAA games have been made with opengl. It remains to be seen if devs are interested in switching.

Up against Microsoft with bottomless billions. Nope.

 

[lxskllr]

Up against Microsoft with bottomless billions. Nope.

What does MS have to do with anything? For kicks, I just looked at the Steam store, and they list ~2400 SteamOS/Linux titles. They aren't all AAA titles, but whatever. Most games are garbage anyway. If I could get any game I wanted on Debian gratis, I doubt I'd play more than 5 a year.

 

[sweenish]

DirectX and Windows is what MS has to do with the argument.

A small handful of big games have announced SteamOS support, and that's more support than *nix has ever seen. It still won't take over. In five years, people will have experienced the fact that the amount of money needed to create a SteamOS port isn't worth it.

I just don't see Linux ever acquiring the kind of footprint it would need. OS X will do it first (if another OS was going to supplant Windows), and that's BSD-based. Different enough to keep screwing Linux in the mainstream.

 

[Mushkins]

What does MS have to do with anything? For kicks, I just looked at the Steam store, and they list ~2400 SteamOS/Linux titles. They aren't all AAA titles, but whatever. Most games are garbage anyway. If I could get any game I wanted on Debian gratis, I doubt I'd play more than 5 a year.

Wow...

It's great and it's coming and all hail gaming on linux, but "they're not AAA titles and most games are crap, I won't even play them?"

You're not really selling a convincing argument here.

 

[ninaholic37]

Wow...

It's great and it's coming and all hail gaming on linux, but "they're not AAA titles and most games are crap, I won't even play them?"

You're not really selling a convincing argument here.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37050737#post37050737

 

[Chaotic0ne]

The way I'm seeing it is I got Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, and I'll be supported for 4 years on my PC, correct? I plan on upgrading the motherboard and CPU before that, which means I'll require a brand new windows license. So as long as I understand their terms correctly, and I'll get 4 years of support on this device, then I'm OK with it. But on the other hand I can see how a lot of people will be pissed over this, and for good reason. So I'm not defending MS, I'm just saying that provided I understand their terms, I'm not going to be personally effected either way.

 

[hasu]

I read somewhere (as Microsoft said) that "Windows 10 will be the last version of windows". Now, I think it has some hidden meaning! Does that mean end of Windows?

Linux is pretty close to Windows usability wise. But still there are hardware incompatibilities mainly with peripheral devices such as printers and scanners. For some reason, those manufactures are not willing to support Linux completely. One reason may be that there is no standards in Linux across various flavors. So supporting such an OS becomes more expensive. But once demand goes up, that might change.

 

[Mushkins]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37050737#post37050737

Narrow-minded tripe bred of intentional ignorance isn't particularly convincing either. Sorry.

 

[Mushkins]

I read somewhere (as Microsoft said) that "Windows 10 will be the last version of windows". Now, I think it has some hidden meaning! Does that mean end of Windows?

Linux is pretty close to Windows usability wise. But still there are hardware incompatibilities mainly with peripheral devices such as printers and scanners. For some reason, those manufactures are not willing to support Linux completely. One reason may be that there is no standards in Linux across various flavors. So supporting such an OS becomes more expensive. But once demand goes up, that might change.

"Windows 10 is the last version" is just sensational marketing doublespeak to grab headlines. All it means is they're moving to a style similar to what Apple does with OSX. It's still named "OSX" but they push out a new version with new features and core updates every year or so. They actually already started doing this with Windows 8 and 8.1. I wouldn't get too hung up on it.

 

[ninaholic37]

dead link

 

[escrow4]

The way I'm seeing it is I got Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, and I'll be supported for 4 years on my PC, correct? I plan on upgrading the motherboard and CPU before that, which means I'll require a brand new windows license. So as long as I understand their terms correctly, and I'll get 4 years of support on this device, then I'm OK with it. But on the other hand I can see how a lot of people will be pissed over this, and for good reason. So I'm not defending MS, I'm just saying that provided I understand their terms, I'm not going to be personally effected either way.

You should have got 8.1. OEM versions can be reinstalled at will no issues. 7 is old and tired in 2015.

 

[greatnoob]

Deferred revenue meaning they're estimating (?) the revenue they'll be expecting to receive for that 1 year they're handing out free upgrades so their financial statements don't show a false-positive revenue decline for their shareholders. That's how I understand it. Also might have something to do with the matching principle and the accounting standards they're adhering to. If theyre following anything like GAAP here in Australia they'll need to have those adjusted journal entries ready so their statements agree to an auditors if they're ever checked.

 

[quikah]

Deferred revenue meaning they're estimating (?) the revenue they'll be expecting to receive for that 1 year they're handing out free upgrades so their financial statements don't show a false-positive revenue decline for their shareholders.

This is all just accounting. I am not an accountant, so I could be way off, but this is the basic explanation as I understand it.

This has nothing to do with the free upgrade. Basic idea is that previously they sold each new windows release, now they are changing this to be just upgrades to Windows 10 for the foreseeable future (there will be no more windows releases).

Previously when you bought Windows 7 for $100 you could book that as revenue immediately since future work at the company would be going towards Windows 8. So when you upgrade to Windows 8 that is another $100 of revenue you can book.

Windows 10 is the last release ever (until they change their minds). So you buy 10 for $100. There are free upgrades to 10 that will come out in the future (idea is that these are the same as going from 7 to 8). Since they will no longer be able to sell people upgrades they need to come up with a way for the initial Windows 10 sale to generate revenue over time to justify these upgrades. They do this by deferring the revenue they see from the initial sale. So they will acknowledge $25 of the $100 sale in the first year, then $25 the next, etc. You need to know how to split up the revenue, so you come up with a device lifetime estimate (expect people to upgrade their computer every 4 years) and divide the initial revenue by that number.

 

[GrumpyMan]

This is all just accounting. I am not an accountant, so I could be way off, but this is the basic explanation as I understand it.

This has nothing to do with the free upgrade. Basic idea is that previously they sold each new windows release, now they are changing this to be just upgrades to Windows 10 for the foreseeable future (there will be no more windows releases).

Previously when you bought Windows 7 for $100 you could book that as revenue immediately since future work at the company would be going towards Windows 8. So when you upgrade to Windows 8 that is another $100 of revenue you can book.

Windows 10 is the last release ever (until they change their minds). So you buy 10 for $100. There are free upgrades to 10 that will come out in the future (idea is that these are the same as going from 7 to 8). Since they will no longer be able to sell people upgrades they need to come up with a way for the initial Windows 10 sale to generate revenue over time to justify these upgrades. They do this by deferring the revenue they see from the initial sale. So they will acknowledge $25 of the $100 sale in the first year, then $25 the next, etc. You need to know how to split up the revenue, so you come up with a device lifetime estimate (expect people to upgrade their computer every 4 years) and divide the initial revenue by that number.

Sounds kind of like how you depreciate your vehicle on your taxes if you are self employed.

 

[FrankRamiro]

for the little time i tested Win 10,i think it's much better then Win7:

 

[mikeymikec]

nvm

 

[cmdrdredd]

Of course, but isn't Office 365 selling? Selling a whole pile?

Kind of late on the reply but for $7/month you get 1TB OneDrive cloud storage and Office 365. That's $84 for a year and the cheapest price I've seen for buying office 365 outright is $63. So for roughly $20 more for the year you get 1TB of storage for backups. Personally I'd get the OneDrive storage option and take the copy of Office 365 they throw in if I was looking to get it.

On the WIndows 10 "issue", the way I understand it is that if you upgrade then that license is only good for a certain period of time (lets say 4 years) and if you keep that system you will still have a functioning OS but won't receive the latest updates. That's fine to me, provided the cost of licensing is reasonable which from what I've read isn't too bad. I am hoping they have something setup for people who have a license and are upgrading hardware and need a new license, like a discount but I dunno if they are going to be that generous. As someone mentioned previously, if you upgrade your hardware prior to your license expiration date you will have to buy windows again. This is how it has always been(but people have gotten around it easily). So really for me it's probably not an issue. I plan to get Windows 10, but also plan to upgrade my motherboard, memory, and CPU at some point in the next year. At which point I'll have to purchase a new license for that machine and activate it. That's my assumption anyway.

 

[RampantAndroid]

I thought Office 365 always included the 1TB (and isn't that actually unlimited now?)

 

[Shamrock]

This is excellent news for Win10.

The most simple and clearly written eula, ever.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-releases-new-license-terms-for-windows-10-no-surprises/

 

[Ketchup]

I don't care for this part:

Automatic updates. For consumers and small business, Windows 10 delivers automatic updates, with no option to selectively delay or reject individual updates. "The software periodically checks for system and app updates, and downloads and installs them for you. ... By accepting this agreement, you agree to receive these types of automatic updates without any additional notice." Business customers have additional management options through the Windows Update for Business program, and enterprise customers can assign mission-critical devices to the Long Term Servicing Branch, which includes only security fixes and not feature updates.

In fact, there is a thread going right now where a member cannot properly load Windows if three updates are selected, and there have been many threads in the past about updates causing issues upon first release. I had an issue in 7 last year where I couldn't upgrade to Microsoft update until I downgraded my IE version, then had to re-install the new version to get on the upgrade for 10. I don't see the need for this at all.

 

[Raduque]

Debian qualifies the term free...





https://www.debian.org/social_contract

Crystal clear. Why would anyone choose something else?

Quit threadcrapping.

 

[mikeymikec]

I don't care for this part:

In fact, there is a thread going right now where a member cannot properly load Windows if three updates are selected, and there have been many threads in the past about updates causing issues upon first release. I had an issue in 7 last year where I couldn't upgrade to Microsoft update until I downgraded my IE version, then had to re-install the new version to get on the upgrade for 10. I don't see the need for this at all.

I'm also wondering what MS have been smoking. The funny thing is that I hadn't seen issues with particular Windows updates for years, then in the last twelve months I've encountered something like five occasions through my work... not a promising trend.

 

[ninaholic37]

Quit threadcrapping.

When I think of MS I instinctively think of Bill Gates drowning in his own money with a giant grin on his face. I applaud lxskllr for putting this thread (that was crap to begin) back to reality. Obviously MS are a "for profit" company and a legitimate thread about "free" would need to be about the noble and respectable 24 years of experience and trust Linux has pioneered and achieved for us, not about a guy who dreamed of swimming in cash and a company that is only bending it's income strategy because times have changed and they have to do so to survive (and would rather be charging $500 for their OS if they could get away with it)...