Antifeatures evolve

Found circulating in JoinDiaspora

Summary: The operating system which introduced hardware tie-in is doing so badly that Microsoft will release it again under a different name with minor changes

MICROSOFT'S COMMON CARRIER will soon die unless Microsoft does something major. Vista 8 is doing so badly that Microsoft plans to re-release it under a different number (not much has been changed)later this year.

Microsoft will unleash Windows 8.1 for world+dog to download in October, it's claimed, a year after it released the touchscreen-friendly, tile-tastic Windows 8.

Vista 8 was partly to blame for Microsoft's hardware woes too. This has been worse than many people imagined it would be. As one blog put it:

Microsoft’s Surface RT is an “Unmitigated Disaster.” What’s wrong with that?

After Microsoft successfully used Restricted Boot to make dual-booting Linux distributions and Windows 8 on newer desktop and notebook computers a painful adventure.

And after the company successfully locked out Linux distributions from ARM tablets running Windows RT, any bad news streaming from Steve Ballmer’s office is sweet music to my ears.

UEFI people, including some managers, continue to contact me as they are concerned that their work is getting a bad name. Freedom should no longer evade their minds, it's the users who should be in charge; Microsoft-OEMs collusion prevents this. As long as they are complicit in Microsoft's antitrust abuses, they get what they deserve. ⬆