* Posts by hewbass

82 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Feb 2011

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Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, off you go: Snout of UK space forcibly removed from EU satellite trough

hewbass

Re: The Swiss are in it

But we are leaving the treaties that put us in it.

The Swiss have negotiated to join. We're leaving.

Japan's Brexit warning casts shadow over Softbank ARM promises

hewbass

If we don't find a way to resolve the issues we face from Brexit then we are well and truly fooked anyway. More worrying it seems from my reading of the Telegraph, the comments section of the Guardian and The Independent that those who are truly invested in Brexit actually see these issues, their non-resolution and being fooked as a good thing.

hewbass

Not so much as you might think. The EU single market is for the Goods, Capital, Services and Labour. IP licencing either counts as an intangible good or a service depending on how you package it. Providing IP requires labour, a significant fraction of the current ARM labour force is sourced from Europe.

If you you were softbank, I suspect considering a move to an EU country where they already have the required treaties/regulations and there are going to be no surprises would be top of your agenda for ARM.

hewbass

Re: Does ARM export to Europe?

"I don't think..."

There. You've clearly identified your ignorance in this matter, so we can all ignore the rest of what you say.

ARM license worldwide, including to a lot of European design houses or to countries that already have trade deals with the EU (including both services and IP protection)

We are leaving the EU and don't yet have any trade deals independent of the EU, and the EU and the rest of the world have no concrete idea of what our new relationships will be like (or how our various regulatory regimes will interact with the rest of the world). We are now a risk for such companies.

hewbass

Re: Meanwhile

"Isn't it amazing that poor uneducated oiks tup north think democracy is more important than money - unlike so many wealthy toss pots sitting in their metropolitan echo chambers."

A democratic vote would be one where the Demos was fully informed and thus able to have some chance of actually making a correct decision. Not only were the benefits and penalties of our EU membership so complex that ensuring that everyone was sufficiently informed was an impossible task, the electorate were also lied to about nearly every aspect of our EU membership.

Irrespective of whether leaving the EU turns out to be a good decision or not, the actual referendum can in no way he considered a meaningful exercise in democracy.

Email proves UK boffins axed from EU research in Brexit aftermath

hewbass

Re: From the number of downvotes

Do you even have the faintest understanding of what article 50 means or just how much our economy and regulations are tightly integrated into Europe? Untangling all of that is going to be a huge and incredibly expensive undertaking. For all the was wailing about a "sclerotic bureaucracy in Brussels" we are going to have to build a huge one in the UK to take back all the civil service functions that are currently handled in the EU. There is going to be a huge recruitment drive for civil servants coming up (we need a huge number just to handle the untangling).

Similarly depending on the nature of Brexit companies are going to have to put into place people to handle the new trade rules that are going to appear- being a pan European company in the UK is currently very easy because there is next to no extra paper work involved. Untangling our economic dependencies also means adding bureaucracy to our companies to add for the extra complexities that we currently need only for countries external to the EU.

For all the complaints about "unnecessary" EU regulations, just compare it to the complexities and extra work you have to go through to trade (or even collaborate, even within the same company) with the US or Japan. I have bitter and frustrating experiences with US and Japanese export regulations for combined use goods (and these apply for intangibles such as email and telephone conversations!), Get these wrong and it can mean gaol time- which if you are unlucky can be in the US as certain UK business men have found.

hewbass

"failing paternal European superstate" which is largely a fictional invention of the Eurosceptic press and politicians.

The EU is by no means perfect, but it is neither failing nor a superstate (and actually has no means to become one without significant political changes that would require unanimity from member states, some of whom would veto such changes).

It is continually evolving union that is changing to suit the needs of its member states as it goes forward to meet new challenges, it is impossible for it to be perfect (for nothing is) but it is continually improving (and will always have to be as the needs of its population changes).

You might say it is a super state. With that I might agree.

hewbass

Re: No suprise....

If by paying off the deficit you actually mean building up huge debts by increased government borrowing to avoid austerity 2.0 and another recession then yes I agree with you.

If you actually mean reducing our national debt, then that is what we were doing before Brexit. At the moment we are building up debt to avoid creating the economy.

hewbass

Re: Thank you Mr.Farage

We are still paying our fees, and eligible to apply for grants, and the same will be true until the finalisation of article 50.

The problem is that to apply for a grant you need to collaborate with teams in other EU states, and none of them want to join us in collaboration any more because of Brexit (because they don't know whether their collaboration with us will be affected by Brexit)

hewbass

Re: Article 50

My MP is Therese May.

She's notorious for not changing her mind, also for stating Brexit means Brexit, which is a nice tautology that does not define anything.

Perhaps Brexit means Brexit means wool over eyes. Or possibly claim we executed Brexit whilst we actually do something less suicidal for the country. The Tories certainly have little enough respect for the people of this country in order to actually try and convince then that they have done one thing whilst they actually do another, instead of really outlining what they can do and offering it to the country...

hewbass

Re: From the number of downvotes

You realise that actually a lot of these "EU laws" originated from our contribution to the EU?

Also leaving the EU is not going to do any benefit to us for our fishing grounds- basically those are still going to be managed in the same way, although we are now going to be dealing with the EU as a block and not participating with the individual relevant countries within that block.

If that gurning gargoyle fat head Farage had actually turned up to and voted in more than 5% of the Fisheries commission meetings that he was supposed to then maybe our fishing grounds might be in a better position.

hewbass

Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

No Brexit actually is exactly to blame.

Once Brexit is executed then things may be able to go back to normal (depending on the nature of Brexit) if we still qualify to apply to Horizon2020 (which you note you can be accessed even if you are not an EU member), but until we know what the hell we are doing with Brexit this won't be known and we will not be able to be reliable research partners for collaboration groups applying for Horizon2020 funding.

It may also be that we will not qualify to apply to Horizo2020.

So: you are exactly wrong. Brexit is causing problems right now, and whilst the in the future these problems might go away once Brexit is finally executed... they might not.

One of the many risks that was previously highlighted. Doubtful if every single risks highlighted will actually be realised as a real issue, but there are enough of them, and they are of enough impact that we will be badly effected by them. On the other side the potential benefits of Brexit are few enough, vague enough and face enough risks of not being realisable that although some benefits will actually be realised, not enough of them will to compensate for all the issues that we will actually face. Unless your objective was to make the UK only into an impoverished history theme park, with tourism as it's only industry (and I'm not even going to say growth here because we have to compete with places with more spectacular landscapes and longer histories)

hewbass

Re: Thank you Mr.Farage

Bollocks

This is perfectly foreseeable outcome.

If you were to employ a building company to construct your house and you happen to know that one of them is likely to go out of business halfway through the works, would you employ that one or one of their competitors?

The EU scientists don't want to partner with our scientists because they don't know whether we will able to be reliable partners.

Also although we pay more nor to the EU bureaucracy than it pays us bag, our EU membership let's us lever far more economic growth and trade benefits than we would otherwise have, and pays us back many times over the money we pay in- this is the whole point of EU membership.

What's Brexit? How Tech UK tore up its plans after June 23

hewbass

Re: @ Doctor Syntax

@codejunky so if during negotiations it becomes clear that if Brexit will wreck the country without being able to realise any of the benefits that the electorate voted Exit for and staying in the EU would be a much better idea, then you would still want us to leave?

if we had voted to remain, I would expect that if it became clear that our EU membership was a big problem we would want an opportunity to review that situation again.

hewbass

Re: All it will take is one big company

"> This indirectly subsidises the rest of the country.

Citation needed? It might feel anecdotally true, but would love to see evidence, outside of newspapers and blogs."

The statistics are relatively easy to come by. London pays (IIRC) around 20-25% of the entire tax burden of the country, yet consumes only 11% of total government spend (welfare, etc.)

hewbass

Re: German car industry...

You've totally missed the point in this article. All the British workers with the right qualifications and skills are already employed.

hewbass

Also the EU labour market is a key economic driver for us. Everyone looking for some kind of immigration reform is missing the point that we are incredibly short if junior/mid level engineers - just getting these to apply through a points based immigration system is going to be a nightmare. They are going to go to places that are attractive and easy to get into, like the uk was until 23rd June.

Quick note: Brexit consequences for IT

hewbass

Re: What a shambles already ..

Yes they did, and the mendacious twats just didn't give a shit.

Parliament takes axe to 2nd EU referendum petition

hewbass

I keep hearing people saying the Remain camp lost or that they are sore losers.

This shows a deep lack of understanding of the impact of the result (assuming parliament acts on it): regardless of how we voted in the referendum we are either *all* losers or we are *all* winners.

Looking at the state of sterling, the FTSE250, the FTSE100, the increased cost of government borrowing due to our credit rating down grades, the sudden realisation that not only were the leave campaign lying about this mythical £350 million/week, but also what they planned to spend it it on, the back pedaling on immigration/free movement, and the fact that the remaining goverment leadership wants us to remain members of the single market with no longer any influence over its rules (what's that I hear you say about regaining sovereignty? Sorry not even that!) (not that actually we'd lost it in the first place, so it's actually very easy to argue that Brexit reduces our sovereignty), it looks increasingly like we *all* lost.

I'd also suggest the validity of the original referendum should be called into question since there was so many bald faced lies told (by both sides), that the electorate had no way to make an informed decision.

Due these reasons alone I think that something should be done, possibly a 2nd referendum, or a general election with one of the parties running a manifesto of ignoring the referendum result.

Ireland's tech sector fears fallout of Brexit 'Yes' vote

hewbass

Re: Corporation Tax

Yes, life in jolly old blighty will continue much as it has or even improve.

At least for the 1% of wealth capturers.

The rest of us will toil under ever increasing inequality wishing that we had the foresight to take degrees in corporate law or finance (instead of engineering or the physical sciences) so that we could also have the opportunity to skim off the wealth created by other people's labour.

hewbass

Re: Ireland, they know what they're doing

One qualifier to your statements:

Negotiations over TTIP will succeed or fail independently of whether we are in the EU or not. Us not being party to TTIP, if we exit the EU, will not protect us from its bad effects, if we wish to have any trade with its signatories.

Sysadmin's £100,000 revenge after sudden sacking

hewbass

Re: James is a dick...

Except at the time we are talking about, most people's only email account was the one they had at the office.

He'd just been escorted out of the office with no opportunity to talk to anyone, or indeed read or send any emails.

Mars water discovery is a liberal-muslim plot, cry moist conspiracy theorists

hewbass

Re: So water on Mars = Muslim outreach ?

Surely it's not too late to abort Trump?

Vanished global warming may not return – UK Met Office

hewbass

I have a comment regarding how people seem to judge the motivations of climate scientists, particularly how some people assume that their results are suspect because they the climatologists have a financial motivation for justifying global warming.

This seems rather stupid to me, since the climate is something that is going to be interesting to study regardless of whether it is warming, cooling, or staying roughly the same for all sorts of reasons. Climate science is not just about average temperatures. Being able to understand the historical climate supports other sciences (paleantology, anthropology, etc) and helps make other predictions, both near and far future, for other things than just temperature. Global temperatures predictions are just one output out of a useful set. Being accurate is more important than supporting warming as an ideology, if you want to continue to paid to do actual research.

In fact if you look at who funds the studies, then you will find it is much easier to make money working for fossil fuel interests (expense accounts and paid to appear on TV), vs grants from the government (minimal funding!)

This does then lead you to wonder why their are so few climate scientists following the filthy lucre...

Brace yourself, planet Earth, says Nokia CEO – our phones ARE coming back from mid-2016

hewbass

Re: Philips

The same way USians can pretend they are buying local with their iPhones?

Ubuntu desktop is so 2013... All hail 2014 Ubuntu mobile

hewbass

Re: Microsoft's failure is Canonical's failure.

Actually I find this view of "smart users don't want Unity / Gnome3 / whatever" to be held by people who think they are smart because they don't want Unity / Gnome3 / whatever.

Neither Unity nor (as I understand it) Gnome3 are that great if you want to spend all your time tweaking the micro behaviour of your window manager; getting your window translucency just so; making sure that your animations of windows opening and closing exactly fit whatever obsessive criteria you have set; and that you have programmed in and memorised 30 different key combinations that do such pointless things as minimising all windows whose name matches the regular expression "/.*o.*c.*d/".

On the other hand they are great if you actually have difficult and demanding work to do that actually requires you to spend minimal time actually farting around with your window manager, but getting on with doing some insanely difficult signal processing algorithm, stats, simulation problem or something.

That is they are excellent as immediately useful and productive systems for smart people, who don't want to spend all day fiddling with the settings.

Having said that, I don't like the design choices in Unity that require click to follow focus (I prefer focus follows mouse), but for the rest of it I prefer having a sensible UI that makes tweaking for usability obsolete.

If you don't like these UIs or agree with their choices, then fine, but don't call a whole load of smart people stupid for preferring to use a system that does not require them to spend hours of potentially useful time fiddling with settings and customisations that hold no interest to them just in order to be able to start working...

hewbass

Re: Mint and Mageia bypassed Ubuntu as the most used Linux desktop distros

You clearly don't "compute" for a living.

There's around 500 computers in our company, not counting thin clients.

Lots of people have laptops and desktops (generally running Windows 7), but by far the largest share of computers are in the compute cluster, which exclusively runs ("Ta-da"): Linux (except for the thin client servers running Solaris).

We "compute".

The rest of you use computers as glorified typewriters to send electronic memos to each other, and to search for inane clips of One Direction, the Beiber (whatever that is), celebrity upskirts (not a pretty sight if you accidentally get Brian Blessed I am told), obscure train model kits, and to argue about trivia on Wikipedia. So basically any old operating system with a web browser will do for you, even crappy ones like Windows and MacOS.

The fact is the vast majority of people don't use computers to "compute", and therefore their use of so called computers is misnamed and largely irrelevant to those who actually "compute".

Penguins, prepare to get SPACED OUT: Ubuntu 13.10's Mir has docked

hewbass

Re: Ooo Look

It's exactly the opposite of Windows 8: which is actually a family of completely different operating systems, but that all have exactly the same user interface which is therefore not optimised particularly well for any use case.

Ubuntu is a single operating system that presents a different optimised user interface for each use case.

Firefox OS: Go away fanbois, fandroids - you wouldn't understand

hewbass
Facepalm

Re: What could possibly go wrong..

So I take it you run only apps that you have authored yourself, or for which you have run a full audit of the source code, on your phone?

To paraphrase: "What could possibly go wrong? Giving APPs complete control of the handset? Oh right.. complete pwnage, that's what."

This is what the security models for privileged access are for. It makes no difference if we are talking about a Web APP or just an APP...

(... and in fact, if have you have an Apple or Android handset, you can consider the phone to be "pre-pwned")

Review: Renault Zoe electric car

hewbass
Boffin

Re: Aaand we have the obligatory idiot

Losses in transmission and storage?

Microsoft exec: No 'Plan B' despite mobile stumbles

hewbass
WTF?

Re: Their entire future depends on this

It seems your idea of a data centre is something that runs exchange and serves up files to Windows clients. Other people's experience may differ... When the Windows client machines go away (replaced by tablets and phones and alternative desktops that suddenly make sense now that you have to cater for tablets and phones anyway), then there is not going to be much call for such places.

If it's actually computing (as in carrying out calculations, like super computers do) we are referring to, then it's not being done (very much) on Windows.

And by "not very much" I mean less than 1%...

Render, compute and simulation farms run nearly exclusively on Linux or Unix.

Standalone desktops running Matlab or some finite element analysis sometimes do run Windows-- but the big jobs go to a compute farm or a super computer.

Microsoft's Dell billions have Windows 8 strings attached

hewbass
Thumb Up

Re: Party's Over

I think they'd be daft if they weren't already considering it.

What's holding most people back from purchasing a machine with Linux pre-installed? It's certainly no harder to use than Windows, so the answer is presumably a mixture of familiarity, the availability of Office and, well the fact no oems do Linux pre installed.

MS already broke familiarity with Windows 8, a replacement for Office seems an ideal niche for a new start-up, and maybe the oems will fix the availability issue...

hewbass
Facepalm

Re: Elop

No what upsets most people is that Elop solved the wrong problems.

However good you think Symbian/Meego/Meltemi were/could have been, the main problem Nokia had was structural: their management structure left them built to fail on execution - too many managers who could strangle a project, and no one who would take it through to successful conclusion. They had plenty of talented engineers, but more managers than healthy.

Elop's solution was to get rid of the engineers, and keep the managers.

Symbian might have been a sinking ship, but at a least at was still afloat. A platform from which they could launch a new strategy to replace Symbian from, if you like. The shift to Windows Phone set fire to the boat, broke its back, and sent the pieces rapidly to the bottom - Nokia sales volume in Smart Phones is around 10% of what it was 2 years ago before Elop announced his "Windows or bust" strategy (and no you don't get to fiddle the numbers by pretending the series 40 feature phone is suddenly a smartphone because you've called it Asha). Market share has declined even faster because market growth accelerated.

In addition he abandoned his largest key market to focus on Windows Phone. It's not even as if this is with the blessing of hindsight; Meego was a design in for China Mobile, and Windows Phone was never going to be accepted there, so it was obvious that he was abandoning huge sales volumes in pursuit of his "bust' strategy.

Nokia turns a PROFIT. Sort of

hewbass
Terminator

Re: As predicted last year....

Microsoft must be 30 times Nokia's size now.

hewbass
Trollface

Re: so basically if they hadn't axed symbian

Are they actually making any profit on the Lumia phones at all though? I thought they were sold at a large loss.

My understanding was that profits were from the Asha line of phones...

hewbass
FAIL

Re: Good.

No need.

Samsung have Bada. That easily takes 3rd or 4th place, without Nokia/MS having hoist themselves out of the ditch.

Ubuntu for smartphones aims to replace today's mobes, laptops

hewbass

Re: What are they thinking/smoking?

You don't need an HDMI dock to drop your phone into; just a networked projector-- then push the display from the phone to the projector. All the pieces are already in place (X, etc.) to be able to do this...

Then you can keep the your phone in your hand to use as a remote and for viewing the notes for the presenter.

Nokia's imaging chief makes surprise exit

hewbass
Facepalm

Re: The first lemming leaves

I suspect I know the answer, but who do you think they are stealing from... ?

hewbass
Pint

It's unlikely (unless he's happy to work for beans for a while), but I would laugh myself silly if he was going off to work for Jolla :)

UK's Intellectual Property Obliteration office attacked by Parliament

hewbass
Thumb Down

Re: Rights don't exist in isolation

So you're not entirely clear on what a Patent is then? A Patent is exactly control over an idea. It used to be that you had to present a physical model to demonstrate your Patent that was kept at the Patent office, such that potential licencees could come and see and understand what it was that they were going to Patent. But no longer, all you need to submit now is a document of sufficiently obscure legalise that it obsfucates the fact that there really is nothing new or innovative in what you have submitted (and if you are really clever, no information at all)..

Copyrights and Patents are both potentially useful tools for encouraging the sorts of people who make the sorts of things that get controlled by Copyrights and Patents to make these sorts of things, but it is by no means clear that they are the only way of encouraging such people, and there are definite indications that extending the term of these rights does cause harm.

The proliferation of Patents is a particularly vicious problem-- a companies R&D expenditure can routinely be spent in greater share on patent searches, patent lawyers and avoiding infringement of useless but restricting patents than actually doing real research and development, and particularly in the software world the patents that are available to license are often in no way helpful in getting you to your solution, they are just methods of making sure that you have to pay someone else for your own hard work.

hewbass
Facepalm

Re: Rights don't exist in isolation

Actually copyright is one of the few things related to the oxymoron "Intellectual Property" that can sanely be considered a property. That, and Trademarks and Patents can be considered properties.

The things they are protecting cannot reasonably considered a property (you can't steal an idea, lose them, or permanently give them away: you can have a physical embodiment of a book stolen for instance, but someone taking a copy of your book cannot by any sane definition be stealing it from you, if you keep the original copy).

However, copyrights, trademarks and patents are things that can be taken away (even stolen, if you can get especially creative).

Bear in mind that such so called "IP" rights are implemented as constraints on what other people can do with their own time, energy and materials (as opposed to real property rights, which protect you from losing your stuff).

Linux on ARM breakthrough to take away Torvalds' arse pain

hewbass
Facepalm

Re: But wait

Sorry mate, you've failed a basic comprehension test. You're not just wrong, but also off topic.

Linux is the *most* widely used operating system on the planet. Just not on the desktop-- in fact there's a good chance you own more devices running Linux than any other operating system (your router, your set top box, your distributed music system, your TV, your home security system, your car's infotainment system, your smart washing machine, the smart meter for your home, your GPS system, ... etc. I'm assuming you don't own an Android phone BTW).

For the topic being discussed (ARM based embedded/small device systems such as I listed above) there are a myriad of custom dedicated lightweight OSes, and Linux. The reason why Linux is used is because you can get in and muck around with the Kernel in order to customise and optimise it for the hardware that you are trying to build. Good luck to any hardware manufacturer trying to do that with whatever OS you are a proponent of.

What is the Nokia Secret Plan if Windows 8 isn't Windows gr8?

hewbass
Devil

Re: Obvious to me

Unfortunately it was the Nokia board who decided the WP strategy and appointed Elop to implement it.

I hear rumours that the shareholders are all American hedge funds, so presumably from their view (where the success of Nokia was invisible to them, since by 2011 it was all in China and India, and not at all considered by US based web pundits) something drastic needed doing to save the company, such as partnering with the obvious safe hands of MS.

Nobody got fired for partnering with MS. Well at least until now, although quite a few people have been made redundant or bankrupt. There's always a chance for someone to be first though, if the Nokia board manage to get their skates on and fire him before they are redundant or bankrupt.

hewbass
FAIL

I have a friend (a former Nokia and Symbian employee) who claims that WP on Lumia is the best mobile phone experience he has ever had.

On the other hand I won't have one because I don't like the idea that MS get to dictate what I can use my device for and what I can attach it to (I have a bunch of other kit and services that adhere to open standards that MS will not support).

hewbass
Trollface

Re: They're doomed!

"Their returns for the next few months are liable to be close to zero"

I think they'll be ecstatic if their returns are good enough to be close to zero!

hewbass
Facepalm

3rd Ecosystem?

A point lots of people seem to conveniently forget is that the top three ecosystems only 18 months ago were:

1. Nokia/Symbian

2. Apple

3. Android

Now the Symbian position was almost certainly not sustainable because it was horrible to develop for, but there was also a nice migration route: Symbian -> Qt (with something else underneath. Like Meego, Maemo, Meltemi or even Symbian, but which nobody but the core OS and toolkit developers needed to worry about).

Nokia themselves destroyed the possibility of there being a 3rd ecosystem that they could participate in.

Windows Phone might one day be the third ecosystem, providing it can get past Bada, and doesn't get clobbered by Tizen, Firefox mobile, or more likely some Android derivative from China, but Nokia will have flushed themselves down the toilet long before then.

There is also the very high risk that Nokia will take Windows Phone down the toilet with them: the other phone manufacturers will look at the experience of the worlds largest phone manufacturer deciding to switch to Windows phone and then imploding within 18 months, and conclude they don't want to touch WP with a barge pole.

Nokia's Great Software Cleansing scrubs off everything since the '90s

hewbass

You obviously missed the news about Samsung now being the largest phone (not just smart-) manufacturer in the world then. Samsung are selling something like double the numbers of Smartphones that Nokia are (or, if you like to discount all the Symbian devices as smartphones, then 10 times the number of smartphones that Nokia are selling).

In other news Nokia have also cut all inovative development for the follow-up to S40, so you can expect their dumb/feature phone sales to also head down the toilet rapidly. Mind you that division is losing money by the bucket as well, so they might as well off that too.

It's instructive to think that 18 months ago Nokia were selling as many Symbian devices as all iPhones and all Androids added together. This year, in a growing market, they will likely sell 10-20% of the total number of Smartphones that they sold in 2010.

Looks like a winning strategy to me, Mr Elop!

hewbass
Facepalm

Re: Leave Elop alone!

"At least with Windows there is something to clasp on to that will sell the world over."

Really? Which world would that be then?

Microsoft 'mulled Nokia buyout, ran away screaming'

hewbass
Trollface

"third ecosystem"

The reality is that there probably is room for a "third ecosystem", but for Windows Phone to get there it has to get past another three incumbents:

* RIM,

* BADA/Tizen,

* and hilariously, Nokia's own walking dead: Symbian

Now Symbian is going down the toilet fast. RIM is not doing well, but possibly not out for the count. But the problem for Nokia/MS: BADA/Tizen is currently bigger than Windows Phone, and growing twice as fast.

So: third ecosystem, yes.

third ecosystem for Nokia/MS: No.

Windows 8: We kick the tyres on Redmond's new tablet wheels

hewbass
Trollface

Re: Iceberg spotted on horizon, captain determined to beat sales records and piling on steam

"This could be a massive disaster for the PC industry. It's already starting to sink under the threat from tablets + mobile. Now microsoft are throwing them a huge pile of bricks instead of a lifeline, because people won't buy a new PC if they don't like the OS on it."

Having held the PC industry back for 20 years, I would have thought that MS finally getting a Design Idea (even if it is one that has some poorly thought out implementation) would be considered a good thing, especially since it might open the door to other challengers being able to compete -- and particularly if they adhere to documented open standards, with some consideration for those people that might have to get something back from archive in 20 years time.

[Watching from the side lines. I actually compute for a living: all the heavy duty computing SW in my Industry is aimed at proper operating systems anyway so, other than documentation, zero impact to me]

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