Campaigners urge EU to mandate 15 years of OS updates

No, Windows 11 added extra, unneeded hardware requirements.

Obsolete in this case actually means obsolete. Windows 11 literally blocks the update because you do not meet requirements, such as not having a TPM.

Technically, there are ways to bypass this, but not for a casual user (and it probably breaks some ToS)

Correct, the “obsolete” PCs can’t update to Windows 11. The Windows 11 update forces certain hardware support that a lot of devices don’t have. The security this hardware provides is mainly in someone physically removing data from your PC. As such it’s very business oriented but affects all versions of Windows 11.

As far as I understand the license doesn’t matter at all for EU regulation, other than “non-free” software is treated even worse.

Generally if you give something away for free, you can’t be claimed to be the owner.

The CRA from what I can tell applies to software given away for free, sadly. I’m not a lawyer, though. But you can perhaps see why people don’t trust the EU.

If it’s proprietary it doesn’t, between proprietary and FOSS it absolutely does for the reasons I already stated.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ%3AL_202402847

Supply in the course of a commercial activity might be characterised not only by charging a price for a product with digital elements, but also by charging a price for technical support services where this does not serve only the recuperation of actual costs, by an intention to monetise, for instance by providing a software platform through which the manufacturer monetises other services, by requiring as a condition for use the processing of personal data for reasons other than exclusively for improving the security, compatibility or interoperability of the software, or by accepting donations exceeding the costs associated with the design, development and provision of a product with digital elements

TL;DR, just donations can already be a problem, apparently. But IANAL.

Please no, just imagine the influx of 0-days

15 years is actually reasonable.

I have a ten year old laptop with an i7 processor, 16 GB RAM, and 1 TB SSD. It still does most things, I bought it for initially just fine. Granted this was one of the best laptops you could buy at the time.

Apple stopped supporting it with a current version of macOS a couple of years ago sadly. It’s still possible to patch newer versions to install and run on the old machine, but it’s a bit of a hassle.

It’s not business oriented, it provides a unique ID attached to the machine, cryptographically proven.

Next step is to use that unique ID to identify you on the internet and digital life. Ending all privacy.

You think this is far fetched? Kernel-level anti-cheat for games already does this and bans the machine from playing that game ever again.

Apparently there’s a way to install Win11 and bypass all these requirements.

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-requirement

Youtube Video

You don’t typically pay to run Linux distros. They’re open-source. I can’t imagine they’d be subject to this.

Yep, exactly this. You can bypass the TPM and Processor requirements, but at some point it will come back to bite someone in the butt.

Microsoft with the 24H2 update broke Windows 11 for older systems (like Core2Duo, which are already ancient) due to a lack of required processor instructions. I’ve seen systems running under QEMU, and also on newer systems like the AMD Ryzen Zen1 platform experience “Unsupported Processor” BSODs preventing the system from booting.

Even outside of that, Microsoft doesn’t deploy the yearly feature roll-ups to systems with unsupported hardware, even if Windows 11 is already installed. I’ve seen many unsupported systems end up stuck 1-2 builds behind, and they never see the update. They have to be manually updated using the same mechanisms that got Windows 11 installed in the first place.

Microsoft I believe, expects Windows 11 to be running on a minimum set of hardware, and that’s all they are qualifying it for. So older systems are going to eat it at some point if they are used in production.

The TPM checks are for security but, certainly not required if someone is willing to drop system security for some reason.

LibreOffice is okay for some stuff, but shows its limitations pretty quickly once you use it for more serious tasks.

• Writer is the best of the suite and has deleted comments for me several times without ability to recover.
• The spreadsheet is a toy compared to Excel spreadsheets used in pretty much any business.
• The presentation software produces ugly results by default.

The only things LibreOffice has going for it, is the price and that the UI doesn’t change. LibreOffice has no good mobile apps.

Better alternatives to Microsoft Office are Google Docs etc. and Apple’s iWork suite. Both have good compatibility with Microsoft’s files and run great on mobile.

Google has ease of use, easy sharing and collaboration. Apple’s iWork has great usability and features and produces beautiful results by default. The suite comes free with every Apple device. Google Docs is free to use as well.

That’s of course ignoring the workhorse called Outlook. You can kind of approach its features with a handful of other applications, but won’t reach the same functionality.

LibreOffice has one unique application in its suite: Base local database. Microsoft Access and FileMaker used to very popular, but faded into the background over the last decade.

But unlike server aided services an OS still keeps working. You can use that PC for 10 more years, if you like.

I think there’s a discrepancy in the understanding of ‘support’ and what it entails in different technology fields.
Demanding to receive NEW features for decades is not feasible in the current economic environment.

but also by charging a price for technical support

Which exactly includes systems like RedHat which I already included, but in no way includes voluntary FOSS work for free.

an intention to monetise

Again it’s very much about the money, and being non free both as in beer and in freedom.

just donations can already be a problem, apparently. But IANAL.

NOPE!!!
Donations are not a charge. A donation is as the word says a donation typically to support a voluntary effort or an organization working for the common good in some way.
A donation does not require anything in return.

Why are you making scaremongering arguments from ignorance?

The biggest issue is security updates and a current internet browser.

Of course I can use a 30 year old computer that still works with the software it can run.

I have no sympathy for anyone using microsoft products.

They made their bed, now they get to sleep in it.

Pretty sure Rocky Linux provides updates for 10 years.

It’s not asking too much for multi-billion dollar corporations to provide 15 years of updates.

They have more than enough resources.

These multi-billion dollar corporations have more than enough resources to provide updates for 15 years.

There’s nothing insane about it, unless you’ve been conditioned to live vicariously through business owners.

Because Linux is free software, we can implement the fixes ourselves.

Doing so with Windows or Crapple would literally be illegal.

Good.

If we’re going to pretend corporations are people, then we should treat them like slaves.