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http://en.windows7sins.org/
I’ve known about this site for a while, but I decided to write about it. It’s hard to respect FSF when they post FUD. I know you will say that Microsoft and Apple do FUD against FSF, but that doesn’t matter. I expect that from companies, but not from FSF who claim to be fighting for freedom.
“Increasingly, computers are expected to be useful tools in our children’s education. But today, most children whose education involves computers are being taught to use one company’s product: Microsoft’s — Microsoft spends large sums of money on lobbyists and marketing to procure the support of educational departments.”
This is sorta wrong… When I was in school we had Macs and Windows PC. I see other schools that move completely to Macs. As for teaching kids how to use MS Office, it makes sense because a lot of companies use MS Office.
“Microsoft uses software with backward names like Windows Genuine Advantage to inspect the contents of users’ hard drives. The licensing agreement users are required to accept before using Windows warns that Microsoft claims the right to do this without warning.”
Yes because Microsoft is always watching what you have on your hard drive. All WGA look at:
- Computer make and model
- BIOS checksum.
- MAC address.
- A unique number assigned to the user’s computer by the tools (Globally Unique Identifier or GUID)
- Hard drive serial number.
- Region and language settings of the operating system.
- Operating system version.
- PC BIOS information (make, version, date).
- PC manufacturer.
- User locale setting.
- Validation and installation results.
- Windows or Office product key.
- Windows product ID.
They are not scanning your hard drive going “oh look what kind of porn this guy has!”
“Nearly every computer purchased has Windows pre-installed — but not by choice. Microsoft dictates requirements to hardware vendors, who will not offer PCs without Windows installed on them, despite many people asking for them. Even computers available with other operating systems like GNU/Linux pre-installed often had Windows on them first.”
It’s business, the vendors need an OS and they make a deal with Microsoft. It’s not monopoly behavior if they were able to get GNU/Linux machines out there. When they did have GNU/Linux machines, they didn’t sold as well. There were people bringing them back asking for a machine with Windows because they either didn’t know how to use GNU/Linux or they wanted to run software that GNU/Linux couldn’t run.
“Microsoft regularly attempts to force updates on its users, by removing support for older versions of Windows and Office, and by inflating hardware requirements. For many people, this means having to throw away working computers just because they don’t meet the unnecessary requirements for the new Windows versions.”
Again, it’s business. There’s no point in supporting MS Office from 1998 if no one is really using it. It’s not really a lock-in. If they really don’t want to use MS Office, most people know about free alternative like Libre Office.
Software is building up to need stronger machines everyday. My laptop from 1993 will not be able to run the latest Window nor the latest Linux Mint.
Most consumers don’t care about the standards, I don’t see a problem (Legally) with them not freeing up their standards for their document format.
- Enforcing Digital Restrictions Management
They enforce DRM, doesn’t mean you can’t play non-drm songs. I can buy non-drm songs from the Zune Marketplace and play it with the Zune player. The NBC example the site gives is that NBC didn’t want people to record the stuff with their computers so MS prevented them. It’s NBC, if they don’t want you doing it, then just go to someone else.
- Threatening user security
Yes because, MS doesn’t care about security, except for the fact that they’ve made several improvements so Security since XP. MS does care about the User’s security because they want the user’s to be happy. If the user’s are not happy, they will go to someone else.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/174677/five_things_you_should_know_about_windows_7_security.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7#Security
