The end of closed source software?

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Mar 25, 2015, 10:07:28 PM3/25/15

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Microsoft is now not only giving away windows 10 to legal owners of previous additions of windows,

and buyers of windows tablets and smart phones, but also to any one who owns a pirated

copy of previous versions of windows in China. In other words if you live in China you

are allowed to make and use pirated copies of Windows.

The main marketing strategy of Windows 10 appears to be to migrate users to use of

the cloud based Windows 365, and to use that cloud platform across all of the users devices:

MS is calling this 'the universal app platform.' In combination with similar existing technology from Apple,

this means that ambient computing and the internet of things will be the primary development platform

of the future.

In the future the average tech user will have a google glass like device, a smart phone, a smart watch,

a smart dashboard in his car, a smart tv, a tablet, a desktop computer, smart home appliances,

a drone, and maybe a robot. He will also interact with a large number and variety of other sensors

and computing devices as he goes about his business at work, home and other locations.

He will expect his apps and data to work across all these devices in an integrated seamless way,

otherwise it would be a confusing mess.

The Maker/OSS words have a huge opportunity to get out in front of this, because our technologies

are already well suited to an ambient computing environment. Arduino and R-Pi are ideal as iot devices,

and we have an array of possibilities for networking them. I think this is pretty interesting: (need ism for commercial use though)

The opportunity level for new software,hardware and networks right now is astounding. Smart phones

and even smart watches are only just the very beginning. We need an OSS version of MS's universal app platform.

Something like Android + a cloud system to integrate data and apps across devices. Google already

offers something like that in it's app store and profile management services, but those aren't open source.

Android is also too big to run on Arduino, an entirely new system is needed for Arduino.

It's truly astounding that MS has been forced into a retreat on licensed software.