It's like LibreOffice all over again: https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-bans-libreoffice-devel...
They won't let you secure your drive the way you want. They won't let you secure your network the way you want (per the top-level comment about Wireguard). In so doing they are demonstrating not just that they can stop you from running these particular programs but that they are very likely going to exert this control on the entire product category going forward, and I see little reason to believe they will stop there. These are not minor issues; these are fundamental to the safety, security, and functionality of your machine. This indicates that Microsoft will continue to compromise the safety, security, and functionality of your machine going forward to their benefit as they see fit. This is intolerable for many, many use cases.
I think it is becoming clear that Microsoft no longer considers Windows users to be their customers any more. Despite the fact that people do in fact pay for Windows, Microsoft has shifted from largely supporting their customers to out-and-out exploiting their customers. (Granted a certain amount of exploitation has been around for a long time, but things like the best backwards compatibility in the industry showed their support, as well.)
I suspect this is the result of a lot of internal changes (not one big one) but I also see no particular reason at the moment to expect this to change. To my eyes both the first and second derivative is heading in the direction of more exploitation. More treating users like a cattle field and less like customers. When new features or work is being proposed at Microsoft, it is clear that it is being analyzed entirely in terms of how it can benefit Microsoft and users are not at the table.
No amount of wishing this wasn't so is going to change anything. No amount of complaining about how hard it is to get off of Windows is going to change anything; indeed at this point you're just signalling to Microsoft that they are correct and they can treat you this way and there's nothing you will do about it for a long time.
Open source developers are doing Microsoft a big favor when they support Windows and publish Windows builds and installers. It's a substantial effort, and apparently that effort isn't appreciated.
If all open source software dropped support for Windows, it wouldn't really affect the open source community that much. It would definitely cause headaches for Microsoft however.
I agree that supporting Windows helps its ecosystem.
But also open source software on Windows is an important gateway to the free world. When you are already used to Firefox, LibreOffice and VLC, you might as well switch to Linux painlessly, but if those didn't run on Windows, switching to Linux would require relearning everything.
A sudden lack of software on windows will increase user migration. If we all keep publishing for windows, users will just stay there because their needs are already met.
No, that's the thing; they ideally would only need to replace the OS. Many long years ago, when I switched from Windows to Ubuntu (this was back when it was good), part of why it was so easy is because I mostly kept the same applications. If you use eg. Firefox, VLC, open/libreoffice, audacity, etc., then you can install a new OS, reinstall the same applications, and barely have to change anything. That's huge.
Look at the Windows start menu. It used to be trivial to switch users. Two clicks, one to open the user list, another to switch - done. Now it's four: user panel, three-dots, switch user, pick user.
Look at the login sequence. They want their Windows Hello and they don't care if it works well or not - no way to get a pin or password prompt instantly, you gotta click three times (one to show a method picker, another to pick PIN entry, and lastly one to focus the goddamn field) despite no reasons to hide this UI.
It's not like they're trying to scam or sell user into something. It looks like some internal decision-makers that don't ever dogfood their decisions losing touch with the common sense.
Apple has that too, and this rot spreads elsewhere. But it's not intently malicious, a lot of things simply don't make sense - just total lack of self-reflection capabilities at the corporate level.
Quite obviously. Look at the out of box new user experience on a Windows 11 Home installation. What you get when you open a new $600 laptop from Best Buy for the first time. The entire thing is designed to drive users towards perpetual monthly recurring subscription billing for various MS services for life (OneDrive, Office, Xbox Live, Xbox game store purchased games, etc). It's a platform which is built atop a rent seeking cloud services ideology that shows no sign of ever letting up.
I've been thinking, and said before, 90s Microsoft was far from perfect, but they at least seemed to care a lot about the quality of Windows. 2020s Microsoft seems to see Windows users as a captive audience they can exploit for whatever the corporate executives fancy at the moment. It seems more like a gradual transition.
In any case, it seems to be getting more clear that Linux is destined to be the best OS for power-users.
Their first big win was when they banned the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court from accessing any of the court's documents, then deleted all of those documents. Now they're going after slightly less important enemies of the state. That bar will continue to drop as long as it's allowed to. And let's not kid ourselves: if you develop or use encryption software that Mossad can't break, you are an enemy of the state.
My advice is don't use a MS account if you can, at least not for anything critical. You don't need it for development, you can use 3rd party CAs for signatures.