As of today, Microsoft won’t allow manufacturers to install XP on new netbooks,” says blogger Kevin Fogarty. “That doesn’t mean corporate customers who special-order hardware with XP won’t be able to get it, or even that its market share ( 60 percent!) will drop any time soon…. It just means XP has taken the first babystep toward obsolescence and the long (really long, considering its market share) slide down toward the pit of minor operating systems like the MacOS X (4.39 percent) , Java ME (.95 percent) and “Other” (which I think is an alternative spelling for “Linux” (.85 percent).
Is it still illegal to pirate software if the company making it stops selling and supporting it?
Yes, it is.
If the place where you live has laws against software piracy, then yes. I’ve not heard of anywhere with anti-piracy laws that also has an exception for this case. That being said, I doubt most companies would go after anyone for pirating what isn’t even sold to them anymore, but that doesn’t make it any less illegal.
In Romania a company was fined because they had some old computers running pirated windblows 98. And yes, in 2010
windblows?
Let me guess. It’s made by Micro$oft?
This is exactly one of the problems people support the ideas behind free software, when you don’t have the source and rights to take the software you use to someone else whenever you need to, then you depend on their wimps and thus are helpless.
Microsoft maybe a really big company and a lot of companies think, they will stay in business for as long as we need this software. But they forgot they depend on what the management of this company (or others) want.
It doesn’t even matter if you have half a million dollars, if they don’t want what you want, they won’t deliver.
One of many examples, Microsoft Office (Microsoft was the first that came to mind). In Israel they wanted a Hebrew version of Office and Microsoft said no. Market to small they say.
On the other side of the equation we have Ubuntu, available in 85 languages.
Edited 2010-10-22 22:16 UTC
It’s interesting that this comes on the same day as Windows 7 turns 1-year-old!
The netbook/netpad market which has been emerging over the last couple of years is a very different beast than the corporate market. The non-availability of Windows XP on new devices for end-users will be a blessing.
Apple has already taken a sizeable lead on this path for the next generation of user-devices with the iPad (netpad format) and the Air (netbook format). The user experience on these devices is polished and keeps the complexities of the OS out of the user’s view. The funnelling of the Apps through the Apple iStore may become a blessing or a frustration depending on how attentive Apple will be to the wishes of its developer and user bases.
Having frequented OSNews for a while, I have come to the observation that, with the exception of the One-Laptop-Per-Child initiative, none of the major Linux distributions currently available have been conceived primarly for netbook/netpad devices. Even then, the OLPC native user-interface was received by many with mixed blessings mostly because it appeared so different than what has been the norm on a desktop. Maybe, there should have been a “One-Cell-Phone-Per-Child” initiative which would have introduced us to the user-interface in an indirect fashion.
By dis-allowing the Windows XP option for new netbook/netpad devices, Microsoft may actually help the development and viral dissemination of a Linux-based netbook/netpad focused user experience. This is my hope.
I doubt this will help with Linux adoption on netbooks, given that Windows 7 runs fine on recent netbook hardware. Now if the OEMs would get some sense into their heads and ship netbooks with at least Home Premium instead of Starter…
If Linux is going to be adopted on devices like this, it’ll come through Android or other highly custom oses, and that comes with one major flaw… on a netbook, most users expect to be able to run their customary apps. This isn’t much of an issue on a tablet, since the different interface seems to open peoples’ eyes up to the fact that it’s a different kind of device, but netbooks are close enough to laptops that many people have the same expectations on what they need to run and how it should operate. Perhaps we’ll see more Android or other Linux tablets coming out (I’m eagerly awaiting the day I can get my hands on a Samsung Galaxy Tab) but I suspect netbooks will remain pretty much as they are, especially seeing as how the promised ARM-based netbooks are so much vaporware. Netbooks will go to Windows 7 (this is already happening) while tablets will branch out.
A big part of that has to do with Flash being delayed for ARM. The ARM cpus of the last few years have also been overhyped. The Cortex A9 is the real deal though.
I think it is interesting that MS is betting on ARM for WP7. The mobile world is certainly a weird one given that Intel plans on using a Linux distro to push their Atom cpus.
i have only seen windows 7 starter edition on netbooks
darknexus posted…
Except those are no longer rightfully considered “netbooks” and are in fact tiny laptops. Go back and consider the specs of the first and second generation netbooks, as typified by the eeepc and compare them with what often gets released with Windows seven. Not even close is it?
–bornagainpenguin
Actually, I have an Eee PC… and Eee PC 1005PE to be prcise. So what’s that again about the specs of the Eee not allowing 7? Look, I like Linux as much as you obviously do, but these kinds of comparisons don’t help. I still think that Linux failed not because of any inherent deficiencies in the experience of the major desktops, but due to serious deficiencies in what the OEMs like Asus provided. Had they gone with something better, something like Ubuntu or Debian or Mandriva that was still supported by its own developers and would have worked, the outcome might have been very different. Now however, we might as well face facts. Windows 7 runs fine on current netbooks (and I consider anything with a low power processor such as an Atom to be a netbook). New netbook buyers will be buying current, not older, models. Windows has won in this space because the OEMs fscked up their Linux installations even worse than they usually fsck up their windows installations. Just be glad you can install Linux, or any other os, on your netbook if you want to. Let’s hope the OEMs don’t follow Apple’s example.
darknexus responded…
As do I, a second generation eeepc 901 with Linux to be exact.
Let’s do a bit of a minor comparison shall we? My eeepc 901 came with two SSDs, a 4GB system disk and a 16GB disk for misc mp3s, movies and pictures. While you could conceivably install Windows on it with the help of tools like nLite it was difficult to do so and an incredibly slow experience despite all sorts of tweaks.
Your Eee PC 1005PE comes with a 250GB SATA Hard Drive according to reviews and the Intel N450 Atom is 64bit. Do you not see the difference here?
darknexus responded…
On this we can both agree. The vendor supplied Linuxes on most netbooks was a joke. Then again the Unity and the “netbook remix” desktops many distros ship with for netbooks seems awfully familiar…
I’d say the biggest issues with Linux on these things was A) lack of easy upgrades and application installation, and B) advertising and interface choices that made the operating system installed look like something it wasn’t. Lost of these things shipped with ads and GUIs that made people think they were getting Windows. Of course people would return the devices when it didn’t work the way they were expecting them to work!
darknexus responded…
And I’m saying that you are not comparing apples to apples here. The devices that are being offered with Windows Seven are not the same sorts of devices being offered with Linux in the past. The category has shifted to be more supportive of Windows’ shortcomings to the point it can no longer be considered the same category any longer.
The processor is different, the hard disks are different, the screen sizes are different and they ship not with Windows but with Windows Starter Edition.
No, this not an apples to apples comparison at all.
–bornagainpenguin
What about Ubuntu Netbook Remix ? I’ve seen it at work, it’s not bad for a netbook with limited screen estate… In my opinion, the problem is more of an application problem.
*shivers* No, just no. Especially considering that childs’ brains are much more sensitive to microwave than us. Not to mention the psychological aspects of the thing. Childs owning cellphones should not be encouraged in any way.
The transmitters on cell phones are far, far to weak to affect soft tissues.
Microwaves are non-ionizing radiation. They are not powerful enough to remove electrons from atoms. This means that they do not change the structure of molecules. All they can do is add a little bit of heat, which is quickly removed by blood circulation.
There is no science that supports the idea that cell phones are at all dangerous (unless you’re on the phone while driving, but then, you deserve to crash in to a pole), only ignorance of science and fear or new technologies, which is far more damaging to a child’s mind.
Ultraviolet rays are not ionizing either, theoretically speaking, and still they are proven to cause skin cancer. Physically, I suppose it works by breaking molecules, which have lower binding energies that the ones involved in atoms.
Or, if “ionizing” is defined by getting an electron from the ground state to outside of the atom, the problem may be that a powerful flux of low-energy photons could make electrons successively jump in states of higher and higher energy. Need a precise definition of the term.
Until recently, there was no trustworthy analysis of cellphone dangerosity either, if you go this way (all of those had a phone carrier or manufacturer in their sources of funding). This statu quo has been lasting for some time.
On the other hand, recently, some Israeli researchers seem to have found some statistical evidence :
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080214144349.htm
Could not find the article I originally read about that, which was more detailed, but if I remember well the exposure times involved were rather heavy (45min calling/day). On the other hand, since childs’ skulls are a less efficient barrier against electromagnetic waves (seen that on news brodcast, but I suppose finding a source wouldn’t be too hard), they are more vulnerable, so the dangerosity level for them is unknown.
Edited 2010-10-23 10:26 UTC
Dangerosity?
“Danger” alone, maybe ? “Danger level” just sounded weird in my head, but I might well be wrong.
Edited 2010-10-23 13:19 UTC
Neolander sounded out…
Maybe “level of risk” would sound better? Or perhaps “potential harm” (or damage) would work?
–bornagainpenguin
I observed that my mention of a “One-Cell-Phone-Per-Child” concept forked into a discussion of the hazards (imaginary or real) of microwave radiation on mamals.
My comment was in an analogy of the approach taken by Apple with the iPad interface being essentially derived from the earlier introduced iPhone one. Essentially, had the OLPC initiative introduced the interface via a non-computing device, this could have lead to more positive acceptance. Familiarity with the interface would have been gained without a background of all the pre-conceptions we now have about using a computing device.
I don’t think that disallowing XP on new netbooks is automatically a boon for Linux. I think this notion presupposes that Win7 is not a good candidate for a netbook, or at least that it isn’t as good as WinXP.
In fact, Win7 runs pretty freakin’ well on netbooks, and in my humble opinion it’s actually much better than XP. I wouldn’t put it on an eee701, but I would definitely opt for it over XP on anything current.
OTOH, I’ve had no end of frustration with getting Ubuntu working on systems that handled Win7 without a hitch. (GMA500 is a PITA).
I’m not an MS fanboy, but I don’t see the market swarming to Linux when they can’t get their XP.
I don’t think that even if Linux was popular on netbooks that it would change the inertia behind Windows. Best case scenario would be that people buy them as secondary devices for surfing and media playing. Even if 5% of the population bought them that would still not encourage ISVs to port over their major applications. Since they are only being bought for light use MS could also offer CE as an option.
What Linux fans need to do is give the desktop a break for a while. Let KDE and QT bake for a few years.
Windows 7 runs pretty good on netbooks, and they are just going to get more powerful as time goes on, and will run 7 even more capably. We’ve already seen this with the debut of the dual core atom.
Linux had a chance in this market, but MS crushed it by keeping XP alive. That allowed them to get past Vista and build something capable of running on a netbook.
Keeping XP alive wasn’t the clincher imho, it was the god awful Linux installations chosen by the major netbook OEMs. They were either horrifically out of date (Acer/Linpus), or completely broken (Asus/Xandros). What customers got as a result was a broken device that wouldn’t do what they wanted it to do. That’s what killed Linux. Dell’s Ubuntu option was just too little, too late and it didn’t help that Dell used the seriously out of date by then 8.04 LTS release that didn’t even have Firefox 3. Linux might have worked if the OEMs hadn’t turned it into a fiasco.
Aiming at the total user experience with quasi-dictatorial control of the final hardware and software appear to be what makes Apple successful in introducing its new devices. The X86 based OEMs have been forced to focus on only the hardware aspect of their devices as the software was handled by Microsoft. Applying the same development model with a minor adaption of a Linux distribution to the device ended-up with the bad results you mentioned.
A few comments about ARM based netbooks (and netpads) have been made.
What I am hoping, as an user, is for a major manufacturer to develop a device based on this platform plus a cleaned-up and modernized Risc OS (please keep the OS in ROMs for warp-speed boot!) and web-related apps along with some sound and video manipulation capabilities.
Oh my, a two-year-old OS. What were they thinking? That can’t possibly be useful!
Perhaps when the Linux world stops living in la-la-land and finally figures out that it’s insane that you can’t upgrade your damn browser unless you also upgrade the whole OS, then Linux might enjoy a bit of success.
As long as the current attitude prevails and there’s always someone else to blame, it’s just going nowhere.
No, a two year old os wasn’t the problem in and of itself. That would have worked, except that the applications you had access to were *also* two years out of date. That’s why it didn’t work. The OEMs could’ve made sure to actually provide updated versions of the apps they wanted to ship, or at least provided an option for users to get them. They did not, and that’s just talking about Dell. Dell would’ve had a chance to make it work had they taken the time to realize that the applications were important, not just the os. What the others like Asus did was far worse, the installations shipped with were actually broken. Busted. Updates did not work at all, the GUI crashed, the Wifi was intermittent, and to install anything at all you had to drop to the CLI. Ridiculous. XP itself *is* out of date, and it shows when you need to maintain it, but at least getting updated versions of apps for it is easy.
As for blame, the real problem here is the way Linux systems handle software installation, but I blame the OEMs in this case because they already knew what they’d have to deal with and rather than dealing with it they shipped something broken or hopelessly outdated that only a geek could’ve updated without screwing it up. They knew what they were getting into, and didn’t go all the way to make it work, so yes they’re to blame in this case for sheer laziness if nothing else. I didn’t expect much else though, given how badly they screw up their windows installs it was inevitable they’d screw up Linux too. That’s why the very first thing I do if I purchase a computer from an OEM is to wipe the crap install they’ve got and put whatever I want on it, because they can’t touch anything without soiling it.
Windows XP feels outdated indeed, once you have Windows 7 on other systems. My netbook (Acer Aspire One D250, which has the two core Atom N270 and 2 GB memory) runs fine. XP was fine too, but W7 is much more usable. Admitted, not as speedy as larger systems and with a limited display resolution, but I do not experience W7 to be slower than XP.
And I do not have any problem with older software once you know how to work around the bad habits of ancient software wanting write access to Program files for example, or install it as XP SP2 or SP3 software. Even some older drivers like DLPORTIO (I need that for parallel port I/O software) can be installed on the 32 bit version of Windows 7.
Windows 7 64 bit, with the exception of 32 bit drivers of course, has very little problems running 32 bit software. Windows 7 seems to run most older software I encounter. And it looks like that took a lot of effort by Microsoft, to fit the better security and features around misbehaving software. Preserving your investments is something Microsoft values.
I do not really like the license model. Hopelessly complicated with too many choice, from the crippled Starter, Home Premium, Professional to Ultimate (and Enterprise for volume licensing custumer.
Edited 2010-10-22 18:25 UTC
World-wide, Linux has 33% of netbook market share.
Just because you are not allowed to buy netbook Linux in your local market at consumer outlet stores does not mean that it does not have a market.
Edited 2010-10-23 02:07 UTC
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2010/10/22/exploring-the-kde-plasma-netbo…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeeGo
Enjoy.
Sure, ’cause they’re gonna be replacing it with Windows 3.1, a system that actually Linux might have a chance to beat.
You obviously have no idea of what you are talking about. 🙁
Obviously. Everyone who has a clue in IT is cheering for Linux all the way. The rest, poor souls, ignorant morons, all of us.
Actually as much as the FOSS crowd would boo, I honestly think Win 3.x would be a good description of why Linux isn’t setting markets on fire. With 3.x what you had was a shell on top of DOS, with Linux what you have is a DE on top of Bash. Just like how we had to drop into DOS to get things unborked, so to in Linux does one often need Bash for waaay too many things.
Just look at Apple: love them or hate them they have made the GUI and user experience job #1, and it shows. Same with Windows 7. In either OS one need NEVER touch the CLI, even for admin tasks, because everything is based on the GUI. With Linux not only were the distros chosen for netbooks lousy, but even if they’d have went with Ubuntu any problems equal crawling some forum and looking for a “fix” that ALWAYS starts with “open up bash and type” this big mess that often needs to be “tweaked” to work.
So I’d say the core problem is Linux is at its heart a server OS, being written by developers that know and love the CLI. This is completely the opposite of the consumer market, where most don’t even know their OS HAS a CLI, much less has ANY desire to interact with it. Ultimately if Linux is to have ANY chance at the mainstream consumer market I believe that a desktop distro like Ubuntu needs to fork the kernel away from Linus and the server devs, institute a “pixel perfect” guideline similar to Apple, and demand CLI DIAF. Make the OS a desktop and desktop ONLY, and then it really has a shot.
But trying to force users to do things the Unix way will only end in fail, which is why the big box retailers and little shops like mine don’t carry Linux.
I wonder why the press keeps hitting the 1% ceiling for Linux usage. I wonder how accurate those statistics are.
Edited 2010-10-22 18:10 UTC
Fairly accurate. Linux seems to always be between .80 and 1.0% in reputable results (such as Net Applications).
“Net Applications”? Who are them? How do someone know their results are true? Do Linux users ever need to connect to “Net Applications” web page?
Net Applications”? Who are them? How do someone know their results are true? Do Linux users ever need to connect to “Net Applications” web page?
Net Application’s clients include Apple, D&B, Opera, the Moz Foundation, the New York Times, Nokia, the WSJ…
The odds are quite good that if click on a Google AdSense client, a general-interest news and entertainment site, or shop an on-line store that you will be counted.
The Net Applications numbers seem to track quite closely with StatCounter – which offers a free breakdown by countries and regions.
The W3Schools stats look better for Linux – if you ignore its snail on a salt lick performance.
It took Linux eight years to inch up from 2% to 5%. Win 7 only a bare 21 months from launch to a 24% share.
Can you prove your writings? Where the Moz Foundation says “Net Applications” know the O.S. of their visitors? The same for Nokia? WSJ?
So the Moz Foundation is a client of “Net Application”? Do they pay them, then? So how is that they are their “clients”?
So much “I’ve heard that…” and nothing real.
If you have to ask about Net Applications, it’s up to you to do some research…
> which I think is an alternative spelling for “Linux” (.85 percent).
So we only have to find someone that believes this Microsoft marketing figures.
For example this statistics are from web developers
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp
of course the global stats for all users would different. but what’s interesting is that linux and osx are growing in a user group that most likely includes more innovators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
recent absolute market share numbers are boring. it’s interesting what innovators (2.5%) are using. i see a bright future for unix 🙂
You think MS, or anyone else for that matter, cares enough about *Desktop* Linux at this point to fudge the numbers every month?
Do Microsoft care about others operating systems? About money in the future?
Microsoft has a lot of people working directly (or indirectly) for them.