<story><title>Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2</title><url>http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/raspberrypi2support</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danieldk</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app&amp;#x2F;language running on the OS. They don&amp;#x27;t need access to the OS source to do that. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;i&gt;even&lt;/i&gt; mentioned libc. There is more to an operating system than a kernel.&lt;p&gt;In fact, this was an important part of my early computer education: when I was 12 (1994) I bought a copy of Slackware Linux because it had a free compiler (even Turbo Pascal was expensive for a 12 year-old).&lt;p&gt;At the beginning I just typed some small C snippets that I could find in books in the library. Then I started reading shell scripts and found out that a lot of the system is controlled through shell scripts and started writing my own. Then I started reading through the source code of libraries to find out how things were implemented.&lt;p&gt;At some point I got a Minix book (I was probably 16) at a discount at a book store. I started comparing the theory I read there and tried to find out how e.g. the Linux VMM differed from Minix.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t underestimate how important it is for a kid to have access to such information. Only a small subset dive deeply into the system, but they will be the hackers of the future. But you have to awaken the interest by making easy to dive in.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;They will be using some app&amp;#x2F;language running on the OS. They don&amp;#x27;t need access to the OS source to do that.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think you underestimate how important access to the OS (in the widest sense) has been to the success of everyone from Google, Dropbox, and Facebook to the newest of startups.</text></item><item><author>nmeofthestate</author><text>&amp;quot;Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Windows is closed as ever&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app&amp;#x2F;language running on the OS. They don&amp;#x27;t need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for tinkering and learning about computers.</text></item><item><author>danieldk</author><text>I am usually not the one to blow the free software horn (being a staunch believer of non-copyleft licenses such as the Apache License) and the geek in me likes this announcement. I also don&amp;#x27;t hold a grudge against Windows, I think it is a fine system for most people.&lt;p&gt;However, Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves. Although .NET is slowly opening up, Windows is closed as ever. So, it does not actually let you check out how stuff works: looking up that function in the Python standard library, seeing how it calls libc, and then diving into libc to see how it is actually implemented.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s in Microsoft interest to keep kids in their ecosystem, which has been pretty much unproblematic in the nineties and before the smart phone revolution. As the RPi becomes more popular in education, it would be bad for them when kids see that there is something else that not only works well, but also allows them to do more.&lt;p&gt;My fear is that teachers will now choose for Windows on the RPi, since that is what they know. And we are back to where we started: a fundamentally unhackable system.&lt;p&gt;Now, if Microsoft would open up the core of Windows. I would be impressed. Now? Not so.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjmlp</author><text>When I started with computers in the mid-80&amp;#x27;s, so open source wasn&amp;#x27;t an option.&lt;p&gt;None of the home computers systems was open source.&lt;p&gt;We had computer magazines, and books to type stuff from.&lt;p&gt;This is what is important, to have information how a given system works.&lt;p&gt;I only jumped into GNU&amp;#x2F;Linux as a cheap way to have UNIX at home.</text></comment>
<story><title>Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2</title><url>http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/raspberrypi2support</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>danieldk</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app&amp;#x2F;language running on the OS. They don&amp;#x27;t need access to the OS source to do that. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I &lt;i&gt;even&lt;/i&gt; mentioned libc. There is more to an operating system than a kernel.&lt;p&gt;In fact, this was an important part of my early computer education: when I was 12 (1994) I bought a copy of Slackware Linux because it had a free compiler (even Turbo Pascal was expensive for a 12 year-old).&lt;p&gt;At the beginning I just typed some small C snippets that I could find in books in the library. Then I started reading shell scripts and found out that a lot of the system is controlled through shell scripts and started writing my own. Then I started reading through the source code of libraries to find out how things were implemented.&lt;p&gt;At some point I got a Minix book (I was probably 16) at a discount at a book store. I started comparing the theory I read there and tried to find out how e.g. the Linux VMM differed from Minix.&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t underestimate how important it is for a kid to have access to such information. Only a small subset dive deeply into the system, but they will be the hackers of the future. But you have to awaken the interest by making easy to dive in.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;They will be using some app&amp;#x2F;language running on the OS. They don&amp;#x27;t need access to the OS source to do that.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think you underestimate how important access to the OS (in the widest sense) has been to the success of everyone from Google, Dropbox, and Facebook to the newest of startups.</text></item><item><author>nmeofthestate</author><text>&amp;quot;Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Windows is closed as ever&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app&amp;#x2F;language running on the OS. They don&amp;#x27;t need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for tinkering and learning about computers.</text></item><item><author>danieldk</author><text>I am usually not the one to blow the free software horn (being a staunch believer of non-copyleft licenses such as the Apache License) and the geek in me likes this announcement. I also don&amp;#x27;t hold a grudge against Windows, I think it is a fine system for most people.&lt;p&gt;However, Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves. Although .NET is slowly opening up, Windows is closed as ever. So, it does not actually let you check out how stuff works: looking up that function in the Python standard library, seeing how it calls libc, and then diving into libc to see how it is actually implemented.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s in Microsoft interest to keep kids in their ecosystem, which has been pretty much unproblematic in the nineties and before the smart phone revolution. As the RPi becomes more popular in education, it would be bad for them when kids see that there is something else that not only works well, but also allows them to do more.&lt;p&gt;My fear is that teachers will now choose for Windows on the RPi, since that is what they know. And we are back to where we started: a fundamentally unhackable system.&lt;p&gt;Now, if Microsoft would open up the core of Windows. I would be impressed. Now? Not so.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nmeofthestate</author><text>For hardcore nerds like yourself there will still be Linux. I don&amp;#x27;t see it as an ominous development. And for old stick-in-the-mud people who never got into Linux like me, this could make doing stuff with a RPi much easier. (Edit: btw I&amp;#x27;m using &amp;quot;hardcore nerd&amp;quot; as a compliment).</text></comment>