Archive for the ‘Free Software’ Category

Giving pirates free Windows 10 is a goddamn good idea

Meet the new Microsoft. Maybe the company really charts a new course under CEO Satya Nadella's leadership. Colleague Mark Wilson reports that even software piratescan upgrade free to Windows 10. Seriously?Reward the thieves who rob revenue from the platform's cradle? Hand robbers sacred possessions at the door? Give them the house keys and ask them to lock up after they take the tellie, silver, and jewelry?

Outstanding! I really am not being sarcastic, just pretending to be. The strategy is simply brilliant and too long coming, assuming nothing changes before Windows 10's summer release or Microsoft clarifies licensing rules to mean something different. Without even stressing a single synapse I can conjureup more good reasons for the upgrade plan than the fingers on my hands. But I'll keep the list a bit shorter for this post.

1.Microsoft is giving away the software anyway. There is little lost revenue, at least from consumers choosing to upgrade during the first year of releaseat no cost. Think about it. Which is better for Microsoft? Being the free software's distributor, or encouraging the grubbing of code from torrent sites? If no-cost is the same, the company should seize control rather than let others bundle God knows what with Windows 10.

2. The generous upgrade policy can convert thievesinto paying customers. In many high-pirate regions, many organizations, not just consumers, are what Microsoft unlovingly call "non-Genuine" users. The year-for-free strategy doesn't apply to businesses, which will pay something. Depending on final Windows as a Service pricing, the company could convert many non-Genuine business users into paying customers. Think about it. They already are loyal users.

3.More Windows 10 machines mean more potential cloud service customers.Microsoft is betting the future on the cloud. Best strategy is to reduce platform fragmentation and to get as many customers on the newest software as possible, with hooks into extended services. Don't forget that the new Spartan web browser will be one of the most important pieces to the cloud puzzle. Windows 10 is the way to get it. Fragmentation has long inhibited Microsoft platform ambitions, and risks are greater for the long-term services strategy.

4. Widespread Windows 10 availability could greatly curb malware's spread.It is no coincidence that a correlation exists between countries where software piracy is high and malware-infections are great. According to PandaLabs'Annual Report 2014, the top-10 most-infected countries are:China, Ecuador, Turkey, Guatemala, Russia, Taiwan, Boliva, Poland, and Brazil. With the exception of Taiwan, piracy rates in all are 50 percent or higher, according to Business Software Alliance. The number exceeds 70 percent for the majority.

In February, BSA published an IDC-commissioned whitepaper that finds a "clear link between unlicensed softwareand cybersecurity threats". Excerpt:

In 2013, the unlicensed software rate for the United States was 18 percent and the malware encounter rate averaged 13 percent per quarter. For Indonesia, the unlicensed software rate was 84 percent and the malware encounter rate averaged 44 percent per quarter. Brazil, with an unlicensed software rate of 50 percent, had a malware encounter rate of 31 percent per quarter. Statistical analysis confirms that the two sets of variables have a strong positive correlation, meaning they move up and down together.

This conclusion jives with PandaLabs research. The 10 countries with the lowest malware-infection ratesBelgium, Denmark, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, United Kingdom, Finland, Norway, and Swedenhave some of the lowest-piracy rates. Typically: 25 percent or less, according to BSA.

Original post:
Giving pirates free Windows 10 is a goddamn good idea

Even pirates will get a free upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft says

Microsoft has already promised that people currently running Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 on their devices will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free when the software is released later this year. Now the company has clarified that that generosity extends even to those running pirated copies of Windows software.

If youre running a recent Windows operating system -- legally or illegally -- youll be able to upgrade to a legitimate copy of Windows 10 for free.

Microsoft is likely making this move in order to bring as many people as possible into the legal-software fold. Its easier for the company to support as many licensed copies of Windows 10 as possible than it is to deal with millions of pirated versions of Microsoft software. Microsoft will try to make up any lost revenue by selling Microsoft Office and other software to newly-licensed Windows 10 users.

The announcement came from Microsoft executive Terry Myerson, who spoke on Wednesday at the Windows Hardware Engineering Community summit in Shenzen, China. Three-quarters of all computer software in China is pirated or not properly licensed, Reuters Bill Rigby reports. Microsoft will partner with hardware maker Lenovo, Chinese security company Qihoo 360, and social networking company Tencent to distribute Windows 10 in China.

Mr. Myerson also gave a better idea of the release date and scope for Windows 10. The software will be available globally sometime this summer, he said at the summit, and will launch in 190 countries.

Windows 10 will be able to run on laptop and desktop computers, tablets, and smart phones -- including some Android devices. Chinese phone giant Xiaomi, which has been making headlines as it considers expanding into American and European markets, will work with Microsoft to offer some users a test version of Windows on smart phones currently running Android. Several popular smart phone systems-on-chips, including some built by Qualcomm, AMD, and Intel, will support Windows 10.

If youre planning to run the new operating system on a computer, youll need at least 1 GB of RAM and 16 GB of hard drive space (or double that if you want to run the 64-bit version of Windows 10). Mobile devices will need at least 512 MB of RAM (or more if you have a high-definition screen) and a minimum of 4 GB of storage space.

Those systems requirements are pretty light -- and in fact, ever since Windows 7, Microsoft has tried to make sure its operating systems dont tax users hardware too much. After all, the more computers that support the new OS, the more people will consider upgrading to Windows 10 and purchasing other software from Microsoft.

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Even pirates will get a free upgrade to Windows 10, Microsoft says

Hardware Designs Should Be Free. Heres How to Do It

We must design free hardware. But the question remains: how?

First, we must understand why we cant make hardware free the same way we make software free. Hardware and software are fundamentally different. A program, even in compiled executable form, is a collection of data which can be interpreted as instruction for a computer. Like any other digital work, it can be copied and changed using a computer. A copy of a program has no inherent physical form or embodiment.

About

Dr. Richard Stallman launched the free software movement in 1983 and started the development of the GNU operating system in 1984. GNU is _free software_: everyone is free to copy it and redistribute it, with or without changes. The GNU/Linux system is used on tens of millions of computers today.

By contrast, hardware is a physical structure and its physicality is crucial. While the hardwares design might be represented as data, in some cases even as a program, the design is not the hardware. A design for a CPU cant execute a program. You wont get very far trying to type on a design for a keyboard or display pixels on a design for a screen.

Furthermore, while you can use a computer to modify or copy the hardware design, a computer cant convert the design into the physical structure it describes. That requires fabrication equipment.

Software has levels of implementation; a package might include libraries, commands and scripts, for instance. But these levels dont make a significant difference for software freedom because it is feasible to make all the levels free. Designing components of a program is the same sort of work as designing the code that combines them; likewise, building the components from source is the same sort of operation as building the combined program from source. To make the whole thing free simply requires continuing the work until we have done the whole job.

Therefore, we insist that a program be free at all levels. For a program to qualify as free, every line of the source code that composes it must be free, so that you can rebuild the program out of free source code alone.

Physical objects, by contrast, are often built out of components that are designed and built in a different kind of factory. For instance, a computer is made from chips, but designing (or fabricating) chips is very different from designing (or fabricating) the computer out of chips.

Thus, we need to distinguish levels in the design of a digital product (and maybe some other kinds of products). The circuit that connects the chips is one level; each chips design is another level. In an FPGA, the interconnection of primitive cells is one level, while the primitive cells themselves are another level. In the ideal future we will want the design be free at all levels. Under present circumstances, just making one level free is a significant advance.

See the article here:
Hardware Designs Should Be Free. Heres How to Do It

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