a free Windows version?

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 3:04 am

hi guys!

I was just thinking that just like John Carmack (ID software) has released the source of his not-so-new engines (after taking commercial advantage of them) to be used free for non-commercial projects.... Don't you think Mr. Gates should release an older windows version free to download and for personal use? I can assure you this would highly diminish the amount of pirate copies of windows around, and would also be a major hit of competence to other OS's.

I was thinking of this after reading that MS has started locking out pirates, check link:
http://betas.intercom.net/modules.php?o ... =0&thold=0

honestly, what most of the people want is the chance to have a pc at home to get connected to the net and type some letters and play some games. This os could be free, and it would be compatible with windows software. People should be able to download it and get a special activation key or something. I can guarantee tons of people would get it for home use and would feel the need to buy extra software for it. So it would be agood commercial strategy, and it may reactivate the gaming field and market.

dunno, just a crazy thought. But a GPL Win98 or Win2k would rock!!

hehehe

Even a watermarked WinXP would rock, with a little message on the lower right corner: Only for personal use at home.... but buy MSworks for it... and some MSN games

lol

arras · Post by **arras** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 9:12 am

Yep, that would be good idea ...perhaps you should sent link to this post to mr. Gates?

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 12:47 pm

yup, perhaps if we pick up 2.5 million signatures? lol!!

we could start a petition like the Xbox2 backwards compatibility online petition that picked more than 20.000 signatures!!!!

but I think they lost, hehehehe

bal · Post by **bal** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 1:04 pm

Like M$ cares bout 20k people

.

saigumi · Post by **saigumi** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 2:05 pm

The idea and suggestion has come up quite a few times.

Windows 2000 is sill in MS's support range. However, Windows NT has a true End-Of-Life date as of Jan 1, 2005. This means: No Patches, No Security Updates, No Tech support.

NT is prime for this.

However, there have been some projects out there to replicated NT as a seperate opensource project. http://www.reactos.com

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Fri Nov 12, 2004 10:22 pm

Excellent info Saigumi!

thnx for the link, reading it thoroughly.

Jedive · Post by **Jedive** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 1:43 am

windows NT only supports DirectX 3. If they want to make a free Windows version really usable for the home user, they should make a free version of Windows 98.

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 1:51 am

I had also thought about that. The only thing is that win98 is so freaking unstable!!!

oh yes, and MS extended support for it...after all.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114280,00.asp

and we still gotta wait and see if Mr. Gates would give it out to the world in a humble gesture of hummanity

vermeer · Post by **vermeer** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 9:37 am

there was an strong try, way long ago:

freedows

dunno what happened....

i'm afraid Billy has power enough and several ways to avoid this...inconveniences...

dingo · Post by **dingo** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 12:12 am

ummmm I know of this software called Linux.......................

Seriously Linux is newbie friendly enough these days that you can set up a box to surf the net write a few letter etc pretty easily.

Installing Fedora can be as easy as point and click on normal hardware.

Sure some things are still pretty complicated for newbie but then again so is windows for newbies.

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:15 am

how about for game development, C++ programming, 3d modeling, character animation, audio editing, etc etc etc.

I've been tempted to install Linux and try the Irrlicht engine on it. Any ideas of which Distro would be cool for game development? I was reading about "Gentoo" which is free and seems complete. Any suggestons?

perhaps that's why we still dream of a free windows, in order to use all the software that's already created for it. My only con with Linux is the lack of specialized software created for it such as modeling-rendering apps, otherwise than that I know It's a great and free way of having a home pc for the net and type letters.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 7:51 am

I use RedHat 9 on my machine (but it's a dual-boot with win98).
Once it works (and in my case it wasn't difficult, but it took ages to install),
it's lovely.
You do need to know a bit about where to install user software, though. It's still not up to the ease of use of the Mac or Windows for end-users.
But it makes an excellent development system, and it's pretty secure if you hook it up to the net.

The thing about Microsoft and free Windows versions is that MS is competing with its own older Windows versions.
People who don't upgrade to XP don't upgrade because they figure their current Windows is good enough (even if that is Win98).
Only by cutting support - as planned years ago - can they force people to upgrade their current systems.
If they were to make a free Windows version, they might not sell any OS anymore.
Now before you say they've made enough money already - that's not the point: they have a lot of people who need to make a living, and they can either fire them or develop new software, which costs money.

16777216 · Post by **16777216** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 4:33 am

afecelis wrote: I was reading about "Gentoo" which is free and seems complete. Any suggestons?

I got Gentoo 2004.2 but, use Mandrake 10.0 because I don't have 3 days to compile and install the OS.
Time premitting

I will 'cause I like it better. Oh, Slackware 10.0 is good too.

mispunt · Post by **mispunt** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 8:41 am

There is at least one version of windows released for free. Windows 1.0

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 12:24 am

really?

canI play doom3 on it? .....kidding

If it was released for free then it's an amazing gesture done by M$

Did they release the source as well?