Leaving aside the free software, non-free software argument for a moment, what I was thinking about was the amount of system resources needed to get a good working copy of Windows.
The computer where I'm writing this text file is 10 years old, I bought it for 120 euros and spent 60 to increase the ram, total 180 euros, which to me already seems a lot for a computer.
I guess it was using Windows 7 when this laptop came out, it would be impractical to think of installing non-free software on this machine, too old for today's resource hungry operating systems.
What struck me the most was the use of the word "open", a term that lacks the ethics that is basic with freedom anyway, a term that misled me into thinking that that version of Windows was opensource.
Spoiler alert, it isn't.
I quote a paragraph from the article:
"During the pandemic Microsoft focused on critical tools like Teams and Viva, and now it seems to me that the company is much more willing to walk people toward solving their needs, meeting them wherever they are."
Microsoft is a for-profit company, it has as a peculiarity to pay and get paid, I can only think that a person who so praises a crime against humanity does so because he is totally ignorant that we free software hackers exist.
The first pc I had had a regularly bought copy of Windows, but one of the first terms I looked for on the net was Linux, from there I discovered the GNU project, understood that the correct and respectful term is GNU/Linux and read the license that GNU used. Honestly I have always read the licenses, they are contracts. I remember that in the Windows license of the time the gist was that the operating system was not mine, but was only lent to me for a fee by Microsoft who reserved the right to take away my ability to use it.
Have you ever read a license that starts like this? :
"The licenses of most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and modify the works. In contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to grant you the freedom to share and change all versions of a program, to make sure it remains free software for all its users. We, the Free Software Foundation, use the GNU General Public License for most of our software; it also applies to any other work released in this way by its authors. You can apply it to your own programs as well."
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
I did, over 20 years ago, in English and when I read freedom, to give us users freedom, I decided that would be the license I wanted to use for software.
Going back to the resource-skipping speech, the title of this article, what makes me saddest is to think of all those people, adult and not that can not afford to use the latest version of Windows even if they wanted to. Non-free software costs money, a lot, more than what I pay for a PC, and that's just for the basic operating system. If we add that I imagine it takes more than the 4 gb of ram I use to run the pc, the processor, the graphic card it starts to be a big amount of money.
Let's not forget planned obsolescence, non free software is the cause of it.
It is unethical, in our opinion, to propose paid programs without first giving free alternatives as in free speech not as in free beer.
The article closes like this:
"Even more important, however, is putting users first, not IT managers, so that Windows 11 will make what we love easier, and maybe make it easier to love Microsoft, too."
If someone puts users first at the very least the four freedoms must be guaranteed:
Freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
Freedom to study how the program works and to modify it to suit your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a prerequisite.
Freedom to redistribute copies in a way that helps others (freedom 2).
Freedom to improve the program and publicly distribute the improvements you make (and your modified versions in general), so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a prerequisite.