> But killing off windows completely hurts everyone.

Who the hell is competing with windows? Linux can’t meet its standards, and its main draws are being cheap and able to run popular software when macs can’t (I’m being reductive, but it doesn’t really matter much for my point). It already has no competitor. Each OS has its niches where it clearly excels, and they aren’t looking to be competing in the future.

Note, I use all three; I’m unsatisfied with all three. If this is personal, it’s not against just Microsoft.

So, Valve + literally anyone but Apple or Microsoft is amazing news in my book. GNU/Linux/whoever else benefits can use all the help they can get.

> Linux can’t meet its standards, and its main draws are being cheap

It's not cheap for personal computing, most people using linux buy windows laptops and run linux on it.

I want Windows dead because it's a proprietary surveillance machine that has stayed alive thanks to really strong lock-in and network effects. I don't trust Google and Valve either, but even if they go full evil empire after after killing Windows, a monopoly built on Linux and Vulkan is a much better place than where we are now.

Google already has a near-monopoly in the smartphone space and it's much better than the Windows monopoly on the desktop. Android being built on tons of GPL software means they have to contribute changes back to the benefit of the FOSS ecosystem. It also means you can easily make/use a custom Android ROM without any proprietary components.

You have drinking too much google-aid. I have no love for windows but I am not sure as hell gonna replace it with something under Google's control. The windows surveillance machine pales in front of Google's monster.

> it's much better than the Windows monopoly on the desktop

Android monopoly on the smartphone is the worst kind of monopoly. At least windows give a damn about your security patches and small things such as being able to run the latest version of the OS without invoking arcane rituals. Making a custom ROM without any proprietary components? Not a chance.

I am all for Linux dominance on the desktop but not with any Google DNA in there.

>You have drinking too much google-aid.

I have no love for Google. I don't even have a Google account.

>Making a custom ROM without any proprietary components? Not a chance.

Lineage, Copperhead, and Replicant exist and work well. And they are all 100% Google-free.

None of the OSes you’ve mentioned work without proprietary blobs if your phone is not supported tough luck.

This is true, but they do completely remove the google spyware from your android device where they work, even with the proprietary blobs.

It's also possible to get an AOSP device de-googled, or to de-google one.

There's no reason not to go half the way rather than nowhere.

> I want Windows dead because it's a proprietary surveillance machine

I hope you are aware that anything Google touches is at least a hundred times worse in that regard?

> Android being built on tons of GPL software means they have to contribute changes back to the benefit of the FOSS ecosystem.

Android is built around a ton of proprietary Google technologies and services, the number of which keeps growing. Alternatives will have to be written without industry support since Google forces phone makers to only sell Android phones with full spyware suite active by default and running at 100%. Any phone maker that tries to provide an alternative to Googles services will be cut off immediately, leaving them with warehouses full of bricks. Google is the new Microsoft.

Sorry I don't mean to poke bears or aid trolls, but how so with "Google touches is at least a hundred times worse"?

Surveillance is Google's entire business model, Microsoft just see it as a nice add-on.

They track absolutely everything they can.

Except that Google might soon ditch Linux for both ChromeOS and Android in favor of Fuchsia, which they have direct control over - probably against the long-term best interest of both the community and (hopefully) Valve.

> you can easily make/use a custom Android ROM without any proprietary components.

Uhm... easily? Most phones and tablets cannot even be unlocked / rooted.

Looking windows would create the same incentives for Valve. There's no reason to believe a monopoly in any sector of IT doesn't create a proprietary surveillance machine. 2+ competitors create a better environment for that than killing the old machine and replacing it with a new one.

I'm not sure why you think Google is better from the proprietary surveillance point of view than Microsoft either. Being that machine is literally how Google makes money.

> Google already has a near-monopoly in the smartphone space and it's much better than the Windows monopoly on the desktop.

Like half the useful apps have problems running without Google Apps being installed. GCM errors, apps refusing to run if the Play Store is not installed, Google making decisions that impact ROM developers. That's what I read about it anyway and discouraged me from trying AOSP without Gapps.

> it's much better than the Windows monopoly on the desktop

Steam is DRM. Gabe bus factor: Microsoft buys Steam and renames it to GFWL Redux

> Steam is DRM

Nitpick: Steam offers DRM to developers who want it, it does not force games to use DRM. Many games installed via Steam run completely without Steam. The DRM-free games are mostly indie games.

microG is indeed a cat and mouse game which you cannot safely rely on. (I'm using it though.)

I'm truly interested and curious. Can you explain to me why being on the internet where all your actions are being monitored by your ISP is OK, but Windows is bad? I mean, no matter how many precautions you take, someone is watching you some how. Use web-based email? There's a record somewhere with all your past emails and they are making a marketing profile about you, same with search.

And what about smart phones? Android has you locked into Google surveillance and Apple is closed so we have no idea how much they know. Send a text? Your provider had to send that data and the person on the receiving end... well, you never know how secure their systems are.

Just some food for thought, would like to hear why Windows is so bad, I'm a Windows/Apple/Linux user and I don't hate on any of them.

>Can you explain to me why being on the internet where all your actions are being monitored by your ISP is OK

ISP surveillance is not OK, but ISPs only know the domains I access, not what I do on them. I can prevent them from knowing even that by using a VPN, Tor, or any other kind of proxy. I believe encrypted DNS might also become a thing in the future. Also, I'm not locked-in to my ISP.

>no matter how many precautions you take, someone is watching you some how

That's what we're trying to fight.

>There's a record somewhere with all your past emails and they are making a marketing profile about you

A lot of my email accounts are fake-identity and temporary and I try to use encryption whenever I can, but I admit email encryption has a long way to go. There's no lock-in here though.

>Android has you locked into Google surveillance

It doesn't. Custom Google-free Android ROMs are a thing and work well.

>Send a text? Your provider had to send that data

Use encryption. I recommend Matrix/Riot.im for encrypted chat. There is also a program called Silence that can encrypt SMS.

-

If you want to know the point of all this, there's a lot of material online, but you can start by watching the short talk "Why Privacy Matters" by Glenn Greenwald

Windows is "bad" for the same reason all that you listed is. It's a fallacy to excuse anti-user, anti-privacy practices under the argument that "Well, others do it too".

ISPs are many, Microsoft is one. Regardless of how corrupted and corruptible ISPs are, that’s a huge difference - especially in parts of the world where you have choice of ISPS.

> a monopoly built on Linux and Vulkan is a much better place than where we are now.

No, it’s not. There’s nothing infallible or timeless about either. Linux is already showing its age; vulkan is designed around hardware you can find today, around technologies that are already commoditized. It will also show its age soon, if it has not already.

Well, currently there's no much competition with Windows around, right? They managed to get a ~90% share in the desktop market, using debatable practices, which to me looks like a monopoly. It's very difficult to get in there when virtually every PC manufacturer bundles their product.

Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying to avoid that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You are replying to that out of context and without responding to his point. He's saying that no competition is bad, so no matter what OS you are using, it'll be worse due to the lack of competition from Windows.

> it'll be worse due to the lack of competition from Windows.

Okay, let's imagine a world where for some crazy reason Linux is the only OS. It is already it's own competition because it's open source. If someone doesn't like something about it, they can just fork it. You can't do that with proprietary OS's.

So I don't see how losing windows is problem due to lack of competition.

The whole reason Linux Desktop is in the state it is today is trying to compete with Windows.

Just like some of the Linux Desktop's compete with OSX.

It's exactly like Apple creating iOS, before iOS, we didn't have fancy colour touch phones that were visually appealing and usable. We had... Windows Mobile with a stylus that was great for work but sucked for the consumer.

Because of Apple / iOS we /had/ Windows Phone, we have Android, we've had attempts from other companies to try be competitive in this area.

There are features of Linux Desktop they probably would never have existed if they hadn't been created on Windows or OSX. JUST like there are features on Windows that wouldn't have existed if they hadn't been created on Linux or OSX.

Competition is good for all of us, regardless if you use Windows, or Linux, or OSX.

My desktop ran Enlightenment 0.15 around 1999. It was a hundred times more beautiful and usable than anything Windows could offer at the time (including stardock/windowblinds). It was less usable for non technical people, but it was usable and the horrible IE lock-in has not yet happened at that point.

Competition is good, but it is entirely speculation whether windows promoted or stalled progress by virtue of being a monopoly; my vote is “stalled”.

Competition is always good. I agree with that.

But you don't need Windows or OSX for competition.

There are already multiple DE's and WM's for Linux that are already competing with each other.

> There are features of Linux Desktop they probably would never have existed if they hadn't been created on Windows or OSX.

I doubt that. In an alternate universe where windows and OSX never existed, I'm pretty sure someone somewhere would have thought up those features and implemented them.

Because you are the only person in the world, right? Come on, the year is 2018 and bashing MS for the sake of it is not cool anymore.

My point is killing off windows is not going to hurt everybody. And yes, I'm not the only person in the world. There are many others who don't need or use windows. So I just thought that was a bizarre statement to make.