But neither Apple nor Canonical has ever gone to the lengths Microsoft is going to in Windows 10 in terms of phone-home and automatically applied updates, even on iOS mobile devices.
Citation please. This seems like an opinion rather than a fact, as Apple's had at least 3 major privacy scandals involving iOS that I can name offhand.
Remember when Apple was like, "We do not currently/We no longer put that spyware on your phone?"
> and automatically applied updates
I agree here, but this is a muddier issue. You _could_ adopt Apple's "we create an upgrade for older hardware but it's actually a shit upgrade that not only doesn't give you new functionality but makes your device slower since it's not our primary performance target but btw Apps will force you to upgrade" modality. Obviously, I take a dim view of that, as it's not really "not" forced.
As for forced upgrades on Canonical. They won't force your computer to upgrade, but if you don't you'll end up in a situation where you have no choice but to totally reinstall your OS, they'll discontinue hosting the bridge patches. So unless you were very careful setting up your OS (and no, the Ubuntu installer doesn't do that automatically), you can end up in an ugly situation where you need to backup your data and reinstall like it's 2003.
Or you could take MS's tack which is, "You NEED to upgrade. Now. Infosec and our product roadmap won't wait for you to feel comfortable with this."
All of these approaches have downsides.
How is this Win10 "dicking" with you? ISVs gotta ISV. It's not like your software providers haven't heard the news.
I'm not advocating that people should be forced to upgrade. I'm advocating that upgrading is good for 99% of people and for the majority, they won't do so unless told to.
All I see is a tribally applied double-standard.
And yes, I totally agree. Linux and BSD are good. Even OSX.
But if you need Windows for whatever reason, you do what's necessary.
The problem with Linux is that unless you are trying to do something really really basic, you will be facing a command prompt, and then you have to RTFM. No time or appetite for that (and the perspective to have to "compile my own drivers" gives me the chills).
I wish their was a cheap/free alternative with a decent UI.
And this is why it pings the mothership endlessly even when explicitly told not to? Even on Enterprise SKUs?
W10, for me, represents an new, scary era of the OS working against my desires and interests, rather than for. When I say "telemetry off", I fucking mean OFF. I don't care what Microsoft says they're gathering or for what reason or for how much of my own good it is, that is a level of control that as the owner of the computer, I should have.