I don't really understand the problem here. Windows is an open plattform. I can install Steam. I can listen to Spotify. Browse the web with Google Chrome.
Except you don't get to do all those things through the windows store. You don't install Chrome through the windows store, only the google app with 1 tab. No firefox on the windows store either. Is steam on the windows store? How long before the windows store becomes the principle method to get apps on your desktop? Sweeny's criticism resonates here: Sweeney then compared UWP to Google's Android, which is "technically open, but practically closed" thanks to how "comically difficult" it is for general users to sideload apps. "This is not merely a technical issue: it has the market impact of Google Play Store dominating over competing stores, despite not being very good," he says.
> Except you don't get to do all those things through the windows store.
It's almost as if there is a War On General Purpose Computation... and the locked down malware "appliances" are winning.
This started with iOS; the people that should have recognized the dangers of a gatekeeper controlling who can develop or install software decided to embrace the shiny iPhone and later Apple's tables. Now, even Microsoft is getting into the "app store" market and stripping away the remnants of their platform that weren't locked down.
> sideload apps
Is that the new euphemism for "install software"? Once everyone is convinced installing software outside of the "official" app store is deviant or unusual, it will be easy to introduce a meme that 3rd party software is risky/harmful/immoral.
> "This is not merely a technical issue ..."
/sigh/
Even with Tim Sweeny's current explanation of the problem and Cory Doctorow's warnings[1][2] several years ago, I doubt many people - even HN readers in this very thread - will actually fight this trend or even change their behavior in any meaningful way. They will continue to give Microsoft money and market share. Instead, I expect down-votes and complaints from apologists that pretend this is for "security", true-believers that pretend this trend to lock everything down doesn't exist, and willfully-blind nerds that think jailbreaking devices is a long-term solution.
It's not my opinion that jailbreaking isn't a long-term solution to the lockdown of the General Purpose Computer. Jailbreaking isn't available in all situations, it may involve legal risk, it often requires technical knowledge, and it can impact the relationship with the manufacture such as voiding a warranty.
As for the term "willfully blind", how would you describe someone who denies facts?
You may not like certain facts, but they still exist.
Reminds me of early Stallman and his travails with the Xerox laser printer :
After briefly introducing himself as a visitor from MIT, Stallman requested a copy of the laser-printer source code so that he could port it to the PDP-11. To his surprise, the professor refused to grant his request.
"It was my first encounter with a nondisclosure agreement, and it immediately taught me that nondisclosure agreements have victims," says Stallman, firmly. "In this case I was the victim. [My lab and I] were victims."
"When somebody invited me to betray all my colleagues in that way, I remembered how angry I was when somebody else had done that to me and my whole lab," Stallman says. "So I said, `Thank you very much for offering me this nice software package, but I can't accept it on the conditions that you're asking for, so I'm going to do without it.'"
Well is there not a bit of an issue currently in that linux is not able to run many programs that people either need or really want and Windows is the most widely supported and also while I may not be correct I believe that OSX is even less open than the current windows OS as long as you have custom settings.
I never said anything about Linux or OSX. Sometimes alternatives don't exist. The lack of an alternative doesn't excuse continued support of a company that is trying to lock away the General Purpose Computer. If you decide that you will stop supporting Windows only if a full replacement exists, then you will never change.
Boycotts usually require sacrifice. Do you want to pay that cost now? Or are you going to signal approval to Microsoft by rewarding them with money or market share?
> as long as you have custom setting
That is going to be a never ending treadmill of fixes whenever Microsoft wants to push out changes. If you wake up tomorrow and discover that a new patch for Windows was installed, do you have the disassembled code and/or packet logs to actually know that your "custom settings" are still intact?
But none of that really matters - using "custom settings" is still telling Microsoft that you're fine with their locked "appliances". They will only change course when they see either their revenue or market share start to decrease.
Do you want to make the sacrifices necessary to send that signal now? Or do you want to wait until the costs are even higher?
> How long before the windows store becomes the principle method to get apps on your desktop?
How long before the [Windows Store] UWP becomes the principle method to get Microsoft Office and Visual Studio, Adobe Photoshop and Premiere, Intuit, iTunes, Lotus Notes,, AutoCAD and roughly 10m more programs?
How long before 100m in-house business programs are only available in UWP versions?
You really think that Microsoft could block the Win32 API when the vast majority of Windows programs -- including its own programs -- depend on it?
Note: don't confuse "Windows Store" with UWP. Windows Store is just a download site, not an API.
> How long before the windows store becomes the principle method to get apps on your desktop?
Never. The attempt to unify across devices probably sounded like a good idea, but doesn't really make a lot of sense for anything that isn't a toy.
Unless Microsoft wants to cut the throats of all the vendors that made its operating system dominant, it's not going to get rid of Win32 applications running on the desktop.
Except you don't get to do all those things through the windows store. You don't install Chrome through the windows store, only the google app with 1 tab. No firefox on the windows store either. Is steam on the windows store? How long before the windows store becomes the principle method to get apps on your desktop? Sweeny's criticism resonates here: Sweeney then compared UWP to Google's Android, which is "technically open, but practically closed" thanks to how "comically difficult" it is for general users to sideload apps. "This is not merely a technical issue: it has the market impact of Google Play Store dominating over competing stores, despite not being very good," he says.