Quote:
I just feel there has got to be a "got ya" here somewhere.


Of course there is; it is Micro$oft after all. Consider the net worth of Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, and now Satya Nadella (working to catch up), and you know there's gonna be some dollars flowing somewhere. They didn't get to where they are by giving things away.

But, there was a statement in the article about once you have it on your computer, there won't be additional charges. But that's no guarantee of what the future brings.

It did also talk about more heavily integrating the cloud. It makes me wonder if they are looking to monetize with cloud subscription fees, as folks look more and more to synchronize their computers and devices. Movies take up a lot of space, and if you want it available on your computer, phone, and tablet, you're probably going to put it in the cloud and stream it, rather than storing it locally. That definitely seems to be the direction things are going.

I personally do have a concern about a subscription concept for an operating system. Were that implemented, it means that if you don't pay, you can't use your computer. Think about all the computers that get donated to charity. Those charities are generally not going to be able to pay subscriptions to keep their computers running (which was the whole point of donation in the first place). I suspect a lot more computers will also end up in the dump, rather than on eBay or Craig's List, as folks will balk at paying a subscription fee to keep it running. You can choose which applications to run (free, paid, or subscription), but you need an operating system to just use your computer for anything.

Or, it could be the shot in the arm that Linux needs.

But I suspect also that if Ubuntu Linux, for example, ever reached the presence of Microsoft Windows, its free days would be numbered. When there's a lot of money to be made, well you know what happens.

But this is all speculation at this point. We'll see what the future holds when it gets here.

John

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