Posted on 01/29/2020 2:30:33 PM PST by dayglored
My favorite quote from the article:
"...Satan is more likely to caught riding a snowplough before that source is made free..."Pretty much sums it up.
Never happen! Open sourcing W-7 means most of W-10 becomes open source as well!
Have they ever made XP or earlier open source?..................
Just curious...I know nothing about PCs but my trust laptop runs wonderfully on W7 and I’m wondering what it would mean for me if this proposal was accepted by Microsoft.
It would continue to run. Potentially it could run better over time.
As things stand, Windows 7 will never get any more regular security updates when vulnerabilities are found. Since many of those vulns are also in Windows 10, which _will_ get the patches, it's relatively easy for a Bad Guy to "reverse-engineer" the Windows 10 patch, discover what vulnerability it fixes, and then test to see if that vulnerability existed in Windows 7 also (very likely it does). Then the Bad Guy crafts a new malware exploit to take advantage of it, knowing that there are a tens of millions of Windows 7 machines still in use that will never get patched.
So.... if Win7 were to be open-sourced, -and- the bright-eyed folks who read the source discover the vulnerability, they can design and release a patch for it. In that way -- if you keep up with those patches -- your Win7 computer would be more secure than otherwise.
However, that's a long shot. I wouldn't bet on it.
Just keep your trusty Windows 7 laptop off the internet, or at least be VERY VERY CAREFUL about what sites you visit and what links you click. Windows 7 is now considered UNSAFE FOR INTERNET USE.
For private, off-line use, it's still pretty safe and will remain so for a long time, IMO.
Nope, and I don't expect them to.
Going all the way back to MS-DOS, Microsoft DID open-source some very early versions of MS-DOS. They're largely useless except for techno-historical study.
If windows 7 is about to be dropped.
Long since the time to allow XP to run with authenication crap. I have two perfectly good XP boxes, expect I am locked out due to hardware change and thus tripped Authenciation issues. Thank you Bill Gates.
I’ve had computers with almost every Microsoft OS except for Win-2000 and Win-Me and Windows 7 was probably the most trouble free and also easy to learn/use.
“As things stand, Windows 7 will never get any more regular security updates when vulnerabilities are found”
How often are security vulnerabilities found that could endanger the home user? Is Microsoft trying to scare us into upgrading?
Even windows 3.1 is not open source as far as I know.
Sadly windows 7 won’t even work with most good CPU’s made in the last few years. Microsoft stated forcing windows 10 around the time the 7th Gen Intel processors came to be. They did the same with AMD.
Opening the source would expose all kinds of stupidness that M$ has been collecting money for for years.
Another thing that surprised me is that current tax software won’t even run on windows 7 starting this year. I would not have expected that for another year.
I would still be happy with windows 98 if it wasn’t for the fact that hardly any non legacy software will still run on it.
Windows 7 was the last good version of Windows, before it became a defacto Indian software company, pushing out pure copy-paste broken code.
7,777 signatures is like pissing in the ocean. Who cares? I’m not a MS fan, but why should they give it away?
Every month that Windows has been out. Every. Month.
Hmmm. I was going to use my W7 desktop next week to do my returns with H & R Block software. Guess I'd better use my W8.1 laptop instead. Thanks for the info.
“Every month that Windows has been out. Every. Month.”
What do Apple and the Unix crowd do about security vulnerabilities?
“Every month that Windows has been out. Every. Month.”
What do Apple and the Unix crowd do about security vulnerabilities?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.