Microsoft Confirms It Won't Offer Free Windows 10 Upgrades To Pirates 214
An anonymous reader writes: If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. All that talk about pirates getting free Windows 10 upgrades? Not happening. For genuine users, the free upgrade to Windows 10 means receiving "ongoing Windows innovation and security updates for free, for the supported lifetime of that device." Terry Myerson, Microsoft's executive vice president of operating systems, has clarified the company's plans were not changing for non-genuine users: "Microsoft and our OEM partners know that many consumers are unwitting victims of piracy, and with Windows 10, we would like all of our customers to move forward with us together. While our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to Non-Genuine Windows devices, and as we've always done, we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a Non-Genuine state."
how about the Buccaneers? (Score:3, Funny)
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He's in Austrailia right now to do a Pirates movie. He violated quarantine rules by bringing his dogs with him without following proper protocol and can you tell my preferred radio station needs to sort out its priorities?
Clean install possible? (Score:2)
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You will probably do it like you can with windows 8.1. download an app from MS that will generate an ISO and do a fresh install.
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Since when rewarding pirates is "good"? (Score:3, Interesting)
If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. All that talk about pirates getting free Windows 10 upgrades? Not happening.
Since when it is "good" to reward pirates, and to who (other than pirates!) it sounded "good"?
Re:Since when rewarding pirates is "good"? (Score:5, Informative)
If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. All that talk about pirates getting free Windows 10 upgrades? Not happening.
Since when it is "good" to reward pirates, and to who (other than pirates!) it sounded "good"?
The Security community, maybe... Not all Pirates are smart Pirates. Some end up getting scurvy (trojans, spyware, etc) as a result of their pirating ways.
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Maybe pirates could modify their theme to a bright green or orange?
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The differece of course being that nobody has ever been directly hurt by software piracy - at worst someone has been deprived of potential profits. And even that assumes that the infringer would have otherwise resorted to buying the software, which is rarely the case.
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The differece of course being that nobody has ever been directly hurt by software piracy - at worst someone has been deprived of potential profits.
And of course i can use that "of course nobady has ever been directly hurt by stealing [insert product] - at worst someone has been deprived of potential profits. And even that assumes that the infringer would have otherwise resorted to buying the software, which is rarely the case." reasoning for justification if i "help myself" with few things i want/need, provided i don't use violent.
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No. If you "help yourself" to my car, I am directly hurt because I cannot get to my job, and I have to spend a lot of money to get a new car.
I don't pirate music and movies, but I agree with Immerman about the exaggeration of the results of others doing so.
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No. If you "help yourself" to my car, I am directly hurt because I cannot get to my job, and I have to spend a lot of money to get a new car.
But if i "help myself" to some software, its developers would not have cars and jobs... so i guess problem solved!?
I don't pirate music and movies, but I agree with Immerman about the exaggeration of the results of others doing so.
So... you have ethics [slashdot.org].
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More apt example would be the Medical Professionals would prefer that rapists use condoms to prevent the spread of diseases.
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The more people (even pirates) who use Windows, the better off Microsoft is.
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The fact is that piracy helps Microsoft. Those pirates were never going to be customers of Microsoft. They are looking for a free OS and the easiest solution is to pirate windows since that is drop dead easy and the defacto standard. If they could not pirate windows then they'd simply install Linux and use that. While there would no doubt be occasional hiccups those can be worked around. This would cause the Linux install base to swell which would mean that companies would start to market hardware as
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As you can understand from my comments, i dislike piracy. And because i agree with you that switching to free software is an option, with many benefits (even if i don't dislike proprietary software), i dislike piracy even more.
and i dislike the bullshit in equating use of software without a license to piracy. so what? do you have something interesting to say about the topic or not?
i don't. but that's just because i don't give a crap about windows and its licenses. i have non-genuine w7 to run games, i would't personally use it for anything else, nor do i want it, so why should i pay any license? and no doubt i will have a non-genuine w-whatever as soon as games ask for it. that's a deal between game developers and microsoft, they
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words have meaning, meaning is important. you even spout that proudly on your own sig.
http://www.merriam-webster.com... [merriam-webster.com]
Full Definition of THEFT
1a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it
so since i'm not depriving anyone of anything, not even 'loss of rightful revenue" because there never was any to begin with, what i do can harldy be theft, no matter how much you want to put it in bold letters and ... well, twist the meaning of words to misrepresent it. catch the irony, troll.
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Except that unauthorized software copying costs the source company nothing - unlike the Mercedes factory that faces considerable per-unit costs. Meanwhile in the *specific case* of OS, office, and a few other genres of software, vendor lock-in is achieved largely via network effects. Get enough people using illegitimate software on their personal PCs, and companies will tend to use the same thing. And *they* run the risk of license audits, so will tend to buy legal software. If most individuals were acc
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Not entirely true, it costs Microsoft bandwidth for security patches.
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There's tons of extant hardware from the late Core 2 era which would still be perfectly serviceable were they not loaded with XP (obsolete) or Vista (slow and obsolete). Microsoft charges so much for standalone licenses that you might as well buy a new PC these days.
I don't have much sympathy for pirates either, but this also means millions of potential PCs for elderly/low income/third world families will now be just that much e-waste.
And yes, I know Linux is still free, but I've yet to find a distro that t
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I am glad that you don't have much sympathy for pirates either: and you already gave the solution to yourself (in bold by me, not that you need my help!) - others (even Slashdoters - althrough sometimes i am afraid that some of them don't like people like us...) may help you choose an appropriate distro.
The problem with that is the answer changes, depending on both who you ask and what day of the week it is :-)
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Re: Since when rewarding pirates is "good"? (Score:3)
No Hairys point is that linux lacks an abi based on theological arguments from RMS. I posted similar sentiments on neowin.net which is windows fanboy land and still saw the foaming of the mouths on how they had it all so much better than 98 the last ones these users used.
Windows Vista and later have a driver model that makes it harder to crash and be as buggy compared to XP too. Fail backs and other features.
Add forks to X with Xorg using a different config file than xfree86. SystemD replacing init scriprs
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And now for a real question (Score:5, Interesting)
What is "the supported lifetime of that device" supposed to mean, in particular as regards to VMs? Being forced to buy a new windows version very two-three years?
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It means you can't transfer the license to another machine. And the WAAS model they are showing here is not what corporations will use anyway so VDI deployment will still be based on yearly license fees as it has always been.
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mmm...I had Win8.1 running in VirtualBox on a computer whose X58 motherboard failed. Couldn't replace the mobo, so I built a Z97 machine with (obviously) completely different specs. I reinstalled WIn8.1 in a VM on that box, and it's been running without complaint for over a year now.
Of course, this is not a corporate environment, but MS doesn't seem to mind what I've done with transferring between VMs on different machines.
(this was done using an OEM version of Windows BTW)
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I have transferred my license in 8.1 but we were talking about what they said for Windows 10 and "Supported life of the device"
Re:And now for a real question (Score:5, Insightful)
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That was a phrase that also stood out to me. Why does Microsoft get to determine the lifetime of *MY* hardware? Don't they realize that I can increase the useful lifetime of my PC by upgrading the CPU?
At least in one case they've changed hardware requirements to benefit Intel [gizmodo.com]. So yes, they realize it, and don't particularly care as long as you get Windows.
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You're a consumer and they don't give a shit about you. They don't have to because you're going to keep using their software because you're their bitch. Pay up bitch.
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They're not determining the lifetime of your hardware. You're free to continue using Windows 7 or 8 on that hardware as long as you like (or at least until they stop supporting it - 2020 for Win 7, 2023 for Win 8).
They're just setting limits on who they'll give a copy of Windows 10 to for free. They're the ones giving the stuff away for free, they get to decide the rules for who qualifies to get it for free. If you don't qualify, you
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The lifetime of your computer is, and always will be, your motherboard. Once it becomes old, outdated, and time for a replacement*, then you also must purchase a new Windows license. That is how it already works today with OEM copies of Windows.
* If it fails, then that's a different story. MS allows motherboard swaps, but it's basically an honor system and they'll stop approving non-human activations if you start abusing it
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I was the first poster in this thread & you seem to have overlooked an essential part of it: Virtualisation.
The lifetime of a VM is not limited by the motherboard, so what the hell is "the supported lifetime of that device" supposed to mean?
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Buy any off the shelf Dell / HP business workstation for under $1000 and then double the ram and put in a 500gb SSD, I'd be surprised if you got LESS than 7 years out of the machine for word processing, youtube, email, browsing etc. :/ MS definitely best not be dictating the lifespan of machines.
Re: And now for a real question (Score:2)
Microsoft has no plans to ever leave Windows 10. It is like macosx with minor annual updates. MS makes no promises but states no Windows 11 team nor plans for one unless a need arises.
This is the best of both worlds as post XP world has split comouting. One hates change and if ain't broke don't fix it etc. Other wants mobile and cloud features added.
So MS will make money by app store, azure, office 365, onedrive, and other add ons via a service model.
So I see no problems.
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Sorry, been burned too often by Microsoft's guarantees that they go back on.
A VM has no upper limit on lifespan so why use "the supported lifetime of that device" unless they are planning on obsolescence.
Too bad (Score:4, Funny)
Pirates are just going to have to suck it up and totally go without Windows 10 now no matter how badly they want it.
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Just like they went without windows 3.1, windows 95, windows 98, windows ME (actually most of them skipped that abortion) windows XP, Vista, windows 7, windows 8?
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How hard can it be to scrounge up a valid licence key? How many old XP/Vista machines are there at the local dump that you could steal one from? You can buy the stickers on eBay for next to nothing, stuck to an old laptop base and listed as spare parts to avoid breaking the rules.
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Games.
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Most people can barely use windows. You expect them to opt for an OS that has zero support from hardware manufacturers?
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Because it works fine and is a comfortable operating system. Because a huge amount of applications and games are written for Windows. Because some people genuinely feel the same about alternative operating systems.
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cause it doesnt cost 10 grand like a mac, and it actually has software people want to use unlike linux
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Plans *are* changing (Score:5, Informative)
if this article [venturebeat.com] is to be believed.
Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s Windows chief: “We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10. . .anywhere in the world. . .
but now
Terry Myerson, Microsoft's executive vice president of operating systems, has clarified the company's plans were not changing for non-genuine users . . .[but despite the earlier statement] our free offer to upgrade to Windows 10 will not apply to Non-Genuine Windows. . .
A little smelly. And just when I thought MS was working it's way back to cool.
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I just thought they were really desperate to get everybody on the tilke-OS crap in the hope that desktop users would care for crappy "apps" on a big screen.
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Soo.. is this the year of the Linux Desktop?
Sure runs a lot better on older hardware than Windows 10 would anyway.
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And just when I thought MS was working it's way back to cool.
So to be cool a company now needs to give away it's primary product for free?
So by extending that thought there are no cool non-opensource companies out there.
Weird (Score:2)
Tell me again, why do I need Windows 10? (Score:2)
.
The Start menu takes up nearly half the screen with large icons, yet truncates the text for those large icons because the text has not been allocated enough room. Really, really poor UI design.
I lost control of the Windows Update process, there were no options for me to select besides, ~allow Microsoft to brick my computer at any time~.
My versions of Windows 7 are supported with security updates
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The Start menu takes up nearly half the screen with large icons, yet truncates the text for those large icons because the text has not been allocated enough room. Really, really poor UI design.
It's configurable. You can:
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If get rid of the tiles is not an option I'll pass.
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Looks like you're good until 2020. Of course in a couple of years more and more stuff will require it. Some people still use XP in fact I have an old dell laptop that has XP installed. It's only function is to serve the programmer for my Ford as that software only runs on XP. I'd never dream of logging onto the internet with it. Never.
Price? (Score:2)
We still haven't heard about a price for Windows XP users and completely new users.
Is that a summary mistake or is the title BS (Score:2)
from TFS:
we will continue to offer Windows 10 to customers running devices in a Non-Genuine state.
Sounds to me like they just said they WILL offer free upgrades to pirates right there in the summary.
Why not Vista? (Score:2)
I don't quite get why the cut-off is Windows 7 and not Vista? The hardware requirements are basically the same from Vista to 10, and internally that would cover a free upgrade to 10.0 for Windows versions 6.0 to 6.3.
Not to mention getting home users off IE9 would be a big plus for the web in general (assuming you've already just dropped IE8 users like you should have).
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No, why not offer the free upgrade to Vista+ instead of 7+ (for legitimate installs)?
Reading between the lines, now I get it...ahh-ha! (Score:2)
So as an owner of ... quite a lot of Windows 7 Pro CD keys and completely legal / valid machines. I was surprised I was getting Windows 10 for free for myself to use, however I've just read the summary on this article, NOW it makes sense.
Key words in the summary are the following for the supported lifetime of that device.
So, unlike my Windows 7 key, where I can un-install it from the old PC / wipe the machine, then install it on a new machine, call a phone number, follow some prompts and re-activate my
But of course it won't, and nicely played MS PR (Score:2)
Re:Greedy Corporation (Score:5, Insightful)
Add to it: Who needs Windows 10? It's way too early after the release of the decently working Windows 7.
Too frequent OS updates is just causing trouble for users.
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um....it's been 6 years since windows 7 was released.
Re:Greedy Corporation (Score:5, Informative)
um....it's been 6 years since windows 7 was released.
You are part of the problem. You don't care about stability, you just want new, new, new.
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And it's still not showing it's age - the question of having a stable situation is important, a lot of changes and failed software from an OS upgrade costs huge amounts of money.
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The glass looks feel a bit stale indeed. The problem is that the new metro garbage looks 20 years older!
Re: Greedy Corporation (Score:5, Informative)
At this moment of time I am replacing a motherboard. Will Windows 7 even boot off it? NO!
Bullshit.
No efi support or I should say limited and no I do not even mean secure boot.
Bullshit.
I am talking usb 3 which Windows 7 doesn't support.
Bullshit.
USB 2 in efi? No support or very limited. Sata in uefi mode? Nope. Exotic. Need 3rd party driver.
Bullshit that doesn't even make sense. What does Windows 7 have to do with it? Talk to your mobo and peripheral manufacturers.
Windows 7 will boot if you turn on csm aka compatibility support module which trashes your boot time.
No tablet support.
Also bullshit.
Re: Greedy Corporation (Score:2, Flamebait)
Fine on an asus sabertooth z97 go disable CSM? Windows 7 will load and no keyboard or mouse and no disk. Actually Windows 7 does have efi usb2 but you can't install it.
Put CSM on and windows 8.1 slows boot time and does 1981 bios emulation for Windows 7.
It is legacy now and crusty. Not obsolete yet but with work arounds like XP had which considered SATA exotic with special drivers shows it's age. SOC silcon on a chip where it is designed to interface with firmware and not 1981 based IBM limitations are goin
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And even XP isn't such a bad option, either
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XP is crap. Its driver model and security model are a total joke. Any program can bring the whole system down, and you will not even know which one it was.
I can't believe people can defend XP, call it "stable" and whatnot. I would rather have a Vista with all its beta-ish stuff than touch XP with a ten foot pole.
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Mandatory Linux post: I would rather have Linux than touch Microsoft (insert any version here) with a 10 foot pole.
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Wish I could mod this up. For once an entirely sensible post.
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XP is crap. Its driver model and security model are a total joke.
Please be more specific because the whole NT line shares the same driver model (the most significant changes were actually in win2k with the addition of PnP) and security model. And that includes windows 10... The addition of UAC dialogs instead of runas, isn't a security "model" change so much as a implementation detail. The virtualized HKLM aren't really "security model" changes either and are probably the single largest security change to
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Please be more specific because the whole NT line shares the same driver model (the most significant changes were actually in win2k with the addition of PnP) and security model.
A very large portion of Vista's negative perception was directly related to crashes resulting from Microsoft altering the driver model and requiring hardware manufacturers to produce new drivers to support it; the new drivers were buggy and crashed a lot. They didn't backport DirectX 10 to XP because of the driver model changes (well, probably more for business reasons, but that's the technical excuse they used). Graphics driver crashes don't take out the system as much now, either, as they can be caught an
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Oh, your one of those people that think having 7 of 8 gigs or RAM sitting idle is a good thing.
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Oh, you're one of those people who don't know the difference between "your" and "you're".
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Why settle for an incomplete abomination?
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hello, 2005 called. Maybe you didn't hear it ring.
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You're only losing driver and application support because you're not using Windows 2003 drivers, and applications that would work with Windows 2003.
Re: Windows XP (Score:2)
Yep. I am sure XP will work wonderfully on 4k screens, tablets, uefi sysyems, etc.
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And the funny thing about that is a few minutes with google might give you a few ideas on how to get around the _SOFTWARE LICENSE_ enforced 4GB limit! Because even 32-bit XP is running with PAE enabled! Your out of support, why not invalidate your license and just add more ram?
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Re:Greedy Corporation (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft is a greedy corporation and nobody should use their software, IMHO.
Then you should welcome this policy. Microsoft long had a policy of tolerating illegal copying, especially in the third world, since that helped them become the defacto standard, at expense of truly free software. Now that they are cracking down, it will push people to better alternatives. Greed is good, at least in this case.
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Ha. They will still tolerate illegal copying. He even clearly mentions that they will continue to allow customers to run Windows 10 in a non-genuine state. The only difference is that it won't be a one click upgrade. But then, it probably won't be a one-click upgrade for genuine users.
Look, pragmatically speaking, Windows is not leaving the desktop until every AAA-gaming title ships on Linux. That's it, plain and simple. You and I know both know that there is nothing else motivates people to install Windows
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Alternatives... for doing what.
If you're doing servers or data processing, there you have a plethora of GNU/Linux distributions. You should already be using GNU tools on Windows anyways. Office, entertainment (music/video), web, software development... all of it you can do anywhere.
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What do you mean Linux is "too unreliable"? It won't crash, it won't lose your data, it will keep 100+ day uptimes without a hitch... :-?
Sure the kernel won't crash but the desktops are filled with little glitches.
As for LibreOffice vs. MS Office, both will keep 100% of their formatting once you export to PDF, and keep 100% of their data if you use any open format like ODT, DOCX, or plain text.
Not true...the layout of a DOCX can be corrupted on save or load. Not very nice if your business partner opens your document later and discovers that it's messed up. It makes you look unprofessional and might even lead to a lost sale.
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There are really no better alternatives though.
Enough people have gone full-Linux to show it is viable.......and IMO much better, but there's no accounting for tastes.
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Most people like being someone's bitch. Having someone tell them what to do and how to do it and when. These people would always be miserable on Linux. Even the most microsoftish of Linux distros give people too many choices.
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