It was just last week that Windows 7 crossed into the afterlife. While we can't say we've been in mourning, we have spent that time thinking back on Windows 7's legacy of abusing users, and reflecting on Microsoft's change in tone over the last few years. For one, they now state clearly that Microsoft "loves open source" (sic).

But things were not always this way, and we can thank software activists around the world for making the message of software freedom too loud to ignore. In the headlines we've seen many stories of people feeling burned by the support cutoff, and justifiably angry by being forced to upgrade. Microsoft is leaving its users high and dry, but they don't have to. There is another option.

Microsoft has taken a few steps in the right direction, such as releasing some small but important components of Windows as free software. We want to push them to go further. We need Microsoft to prove to the world that their "love" of free software isn't just an ad campaign, and that they aren't just reaping the benefits of free software in order to exploit users.

The Free Software Foundation this week announced that it has established a petition demanding that Microsoft release its proprietary Windows 7 code as free software.

The foundation aims to get 7,777 signatures to that effect. By "free," the organization means that "the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software," according to its definition. The organization claims that free software is different from open source software in terms of "values."

Windows 7 reached its end-of-life stage on Jan. 14, meaning that Microsoft no longer distributes free software patches for it, although a paid Extended Security Updates program is available. The operating system is considered to be "unsupported" software by Microsoft, and it's thought to be potentially insecure to use it, since Microsoft won't patch software vulnerabilities, even if they are publicly known.

WTF?! The Free Software Foundation (FSF), the same group behind the 2009-era Windows 7 "sins" campaign that encouraged users to throw Windows 7 in the trash, has now started another initiative -- one that demands Windows 7 be opened up as free software.

The FSF has launched the "Upcycle Windows 7" petition, and if the opening paragraph doesn't persuade Microsoft to open source Windows 7, then I don't know what will.

"On January 14th, Windows 7 reached its official 'end-of-life,' bringing an end to its updates as well as its ten years of poisoning education, invading privacy, and threatening user security. The end of Windows 7's lifecycle gives Microsoft the perfect opportunity to undo past wrongs, and to upcycle it instead," the petition reads.

Yikes. At any rate, most users probably agree that Windows 7 already undid Microsoft's past wrongs, being absolved for the sins of Windows Vista. Hey, maybe the FSF should ask for Windows Vista instead. You know, shoot for the moon and land in the stars kind of thing. Something's better than nothing.

[...]

Then there's the not insignificant fact that much of the codebase in Windows 7 lives on in Windows 10. In other words, the chance of seeing Windows 7 in a GitHub repo anytime soon is unlikely, to say the least.

Windows 7 reached its “end-of-life” on January 14, 2020, as Microsoft stopped releasing any free security updates for the operating system. However, on January 23, 2020, the Free Software Foundation filed a petition urging Microsoft to open-source Windows 7 and upcycle the OS.

“Microsoft’s support of Windows 7 is over, but its life doesn’t have to end. We call on Microsoft to upcycle it instead,” said the foundation.

The representatives of the Free Software Foundation, an organization promoting the idea of free software was published online petition in support of the proposal to enable independent programmers to improve Windows 7. For the implementation of this idea requires access to the OS code. Fund SPO offers Microsoft to allow third-party developers to modify and distribute the software to respect the users, not to force them to move to other operating systems because of the lack of choice. In the organization plan to receive from the Corporation of evidence of user support. The Fund SPO 7777 intend to collect signatures to petition Upcycle Windows 7 and he set the example of the production of utilities of the OS in the form of freely available programs, which is practiced now.

After all, Microsoft is huge on everything open source these days, right? It’s all about open source, listening to user feedback, and acting on it.

The feedback from FSF might raise a few hackles at Microsoft, though, as the wording of the petition is, shall we say, on the strong and blunt side.

It reads: “On January 14th, Windows 7 reached its official ‘end-of-life,’ bringing an end to its updates as well as its ten years of poisoning education, invading privacy, and threatening user security. The end of Windows 7’s lifecycle gives Microsoft the perfect opportunity to undo past wrongs, and to upcycle it instead.

“We call on them to release it as free software, and give it to the community to study and improve. As there is already a precedent for releasing some core Windows utilities as free software, Microsoft has nothing to lose by liberating a version of their operating system that they themselves say has ‘reached its end.’”

And FSF further directly addresses Microsoft executives to “demand that Windows 7 be released as free software”, and urges them “to respect the freedom and privacy of your users – not simply strongarm them into the newest Windows version.”

The organization claims that by open-sourcing Windows 7, Microsoft can allow the community to “study, modify, and share” code in the operating system. This would also allow the company to “respect the freedom and privacy” of users, FSF continues.

“We call on them to release it as free software, and give it to the community to study and improve. As there is already a precedent for releasing some core Windows utilities as free software, Microsoft has nothing to lose by liberating a version of their operating system that they themselves say has ‘reached its end,’” the Free Software Foundation adds.

At the time of writing, the petition has nearly 5,000 supporters.

Of course, Microsoft hasn’t responded to the petition, but it goes without saying that you shouldn’t expect the company to open-source Windows 7. There are many reasons the company won’t do this, including the fact that Windows 7 shares much of the code with Windows 10, and open-sourcing the 2009 OS would obviously expose its successors.

But Microsoft is unlikely to cave into the Windows 7 demands that FSF outlined in a petition launched last week, asking Microsoft to "give it to the community to study and improve".

FSF argues that Microsoft has "nothing to lose by liberating a version of their operating system that they themselves say has reached its end.

The petition was aiming to gather at least 7,777 supporters and today has exceeded that by 1,000.

[...]

Also, as The Register points out, there are still portions of Windows 7 code in Windows 10, so it's probably not in the company's best interests to release a free version of Windows 7.

A free Windows has been a consistent demand of Stallman, who retired from FSF last year. He gave a speech at Microsoft Research last year outlining 10 demands, including that Microsoft "publicly take back Microsoft's attacks on copyleft made in the 2000s" and to release the source code of Windows under the GNU GPL.

The Free Software Foundation wants Microsoft to keep Windows 7 alive as a free operating system. Microsoft stopped providing free security patches and support for Windows 7 earlier this month.

Although the popular operating system reached its 10th birthday last fall, some 200 million PCs around the globe still run it, according to industry estimates. Users include small business owners, some larger companies, government agencies, and hordes of consumers worldwide.

Microsoft expects most Windows 7 users to migrate to Windows 10, but it continues to provide patches and support for Windows 7 Pro and Enterprise, which are eligible for extended security update support for three years, for a fee. Windows 7 Home editions and Ultimate editions are not included in the options to purchase extended support.

The FSF this week launched the "Upcycle Windows 7" petition. The organization is still collecting signatures, though it has surpassed its goal of getting 7,777 people to sign on to make Windows 7 available for free. The current tally is approaching 10,000.

Making the OS free would allow users "the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software," according to the foundation.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is asking Microsoft to 'upcycle' Windows 7 and allow the community to continue to improve it after its end of life.

"On January 14th, Windows 7 reached its official 'end-of-life,' bringing an end to its updates as well as its ten years of poisoning education, invading privacy, and threatening user security," says the FSF in a petition published on its website.

The end of Windows 7's lifecycle gives Microsoft the perfect opportunity to undo past wrongs, and to upcycle it instead."

The non-profit organization, founded by Richard Stallman in 1985 to support and promote the free software movement, wants Redmond to give its EoL OS to the community, to be studied and improved upon.

In support of this demand, the FSF uses the release of the Microsoft Calculator app as open-source on GitHub under MIT license.

Good news everybody! The Free Software Foundation has blown through its self-imposed target of 7,777 signatories in its efforts to persuade Microsoft to make Windows 7 open source.

We noted last week the GNU-gang's attempt to coax the born-again open-sourcerer formerly known as "The Beast Of Redmond" into making a surprise deposit into GitHub.

The thinking was that since Windows 7 has now come to the end of the road, as far as free security updates are concerned, then perhaps Microsoft might release it as open software?

We put it to the Free Software Foundation that it might be more complicated than that – after all, Windows 7 contains all manner of codecs and the like licensed from third parties, as well as code licensed back to those same customers.

The FSF's Greg Farough told us: "We want all software to be free software." The clue, after all, is in the name. "But Microsoft freeing just the operating system itself would satisfy our demand here."

But what of those enterprises that have already paid for support? Should Microsoft start lobbing out refunds or fork the freshly open-sourced code base?

When Windows 7 was first released Microsoft and open-source software appeared to be at diametric opposites of the spectrum, but since then Microsoft has actively adopted free software development principles internally, and contribute to numerous open-source software projects, including famously the Chromium rendering engine.

It may have been this change of heart which encouraged Greg Farough, Campaigns Manager at the Free Software Foundation to pen a petition demanding Microsoft open-source Windows 7, now that the software has reached End of Life.

Windows 7 reached its end of life on January 14, which means Microsoft will only be sending updates to paying customers. Users have been advised to upgrade to Windows 10 to avoid security issues. But, there are some who believe Microsoft should open source the operating system.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has said that users can continue receiving updates if Microsoft open sources the operating system enabling the community to maintain it.

The foundation hopes that if Windows 7 is open sourced, it will give the community the opportunity to study, modify, and share it. It also stated two other demands of Microsoft: “We urge you to respect the freedom and privacy of your users – not simply strongarm them into the newest Windows version. We want more proof that you really respect users and user freedom, and aren’t just using those concepts as marketing when convenient.”

To support their goals, the FSF started a petition with a goal of 7,777 signatures. At the time of this writing, it has 9,600 signers.

A year ago, Microsoft announced that Windows 7 would not be receiving any more support, starting from the 14th of January 2020. Based on the official termination of the support to the OS, FSF (Free Software Foundation) has created a petition calling for Microsoft to make Windows 7 open-source.

The petition asks for 7777 signatures so that Microsoft ‘upcycles’ Windows 7, turning it free for everyone to use, study and improve. The petition already surpassed its objective, with 10574 signatures at the time of writing.

As written in the petition’s official webpage, by turning Windows 7 into an open-source application, Microsoft would “undo past wrongs”, such as “poisoning education, invading privacy, and threatening user security”.

The Free Software Foundation is petitioning Microsoft to open-source Windows 7. That sounds crazy. Until you really think about it.

When it comes to the latter, the Linux world has long been recommended as a possible destination for Windows 7 users, with many anticipating an influx of Linux adopters once the 2009 Microsoft operating system is retired.

Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu, obviously wants to benefit from this potential en-masse migration, so in the last few weeks, the company has been publishing several articles to explain “why you should upgrade Windows 7 to Ubuntu” and to highlight the hardware and software considerations when planning to switch to Ubuntu.

Since its launch on January 24th, we've had an overwhelming amount of support in our call to "upcycle" Windows 7. Truthfully, the signature count flew far faster than we ever expected it to, even despite our conservative (if aptly numbered) goal of 7,777 signatures. We have seen the campaign called quixotic and even "completely delusional," but in every case, people have recognized the "pragmatic idealism" that is at the core of the FSF's message. Even where this campaign has been attacked, it's nevertheless been understood that the FSF really does want all software to be free software. We recommend every fully free operating system that we are aware of, and want to be able to expand that list to include every operating system. So long as any remain proprietary, we will always work to free them.

Over the last few weeks, we have been carefully watching the press coverage, and are glad to see the message of software freedom popping up in so many places at once. We received a lot of support, and have responded to dozens of comments expressing support, concern, and even outrage over why the FSF would think that upcycling Windows 7 was a good idea, and why it was something we would want to demand.

Probably not that many are familiar with the name of Mark Shuttleworth; more may be aware of his accomplishments. In the mid-1990s he founded Thawte Consulting. The company, specialized in digital certificates and internet security, was later acquired by VeriSign, earning Shuttleworth a substantial amount of money. From 2004, Shuttleworth invested in developing Ubuntu Linux.

For a long time, the public perception of Linux software has been that is only something IT professionals are able to use, requiring a lot of additional coding and fine-tuning. While this is true for a specific part of the Linux ecosystem, there are many projects designed to bring Linux as close as possible to everyday users. Ubuntu is one of them. So what are the pros and cons of considering Ubuntu Linux as a replacement for Windows 7.

The Free Software Foundation is giving Microsoft’s move away from proprietary software a helpful hug.

Can opening Windows 7 to open-source developers, which the foundation promotes, advance Microsoft’s digital transformation?

The alliance, which is committed to user control of the software that runs electronic devices, is circulating a petition that calls on Microsoft to put the retired operating system into the public domain.

The Redmond, Washington, tech giant stopped supporting Windows 7 for most users at mid-month.
Programmers Push Microsoft to Open Windows

The Free Software Foundation publicly requested Microsoft to open-source Windows 7 shortly after the 2009 operating system reached the end of support on January 14, and now the group is ready for the next move.

Last week, the FSF mailed Microsoft a blank hard drive which the company should use for copying Windows 7 source code and then sending it back to the organization.

Just when Microsoft ended the support for Windows 7, Free Software Foundation filed a petition demanding Windows 7 to be open source. Now, the open-source community went a little further by making another bold move.

Reportedly, the FSF mailed a blank upcycled hard drive to Microsoft. The foundation wants Microsoft to send back the hard drive, but after copying Windows 7 source code in it, along with license notice.

Windows 7 hit its end of service deadline on January 14 and things have since got interesting. From free Windows 10 upgrade offer that was supposed to have expired back in 2016 to people demanding Microsoft to open source the operating system, who knew pulling the plug would end up giving Windows 7 even more life.

We reported a few weeks back that the Free Software Foundation along with some other groups were asking Microsoft to open source Windows 7 to "undo past wrongs." The Foundation has now delivered a hard drive to Microsoft asking the company to copy the source code and give it a license note to prove that "they really do love free software."

On January 14, Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows 7 closing the chapter on what was one of the most popular Operating Systems in the world. Even though Windows 7 has reached the end-of-life, the OS is still used by millions around the world.

Ever since Microsoft decided to end the support for Windows 7, several groups have been asking the company to release the source code of Windows 7 to allow to independent developers to work and provide support to the existing users. A couple of weeks back, we reported about an online petition demanding Microsoft open-source Windows 7. The petition was penned by Greg Farough, Campaigns Manager at the Free Software Foundation. The petition gained a lot of traction from Windows 7 fans and it had more than 13,000 signatures. Now that the petition has closed, Free Software Foundation has sent the signatures along with an empty hard drive. The foundation wants Microsoft to copy the source code of Windows 7 along with the license notice on to the drive and send it back. Not only that, but the foundation has also offered Microsoft to help with the transfer of the code.

Windows 7 crossed its End of Life Support date about a month ago. Since then, 0Patch has come forth with a micro-patch for a security vulnerability. In fact, even Microsoft sent out a patch to address an issue the company caused through the last official security update. However, with the operating system still currently running on millions of computers, there has been an increasingly vocal demand about making Windows 7 Source Code as Open Source. This would allow third-party software vendors and security companies to better develop solutions for the now obsolete operating system.

Even though Windows 7 has reached the end-of-life, the OS is still used by millions around the world. While the actual numbers vary, about 12 to 14 percent of computers are still actively running Windows 7. This is despite the fact that Microsoft has confirmed that it won’t send out any security patches even if new vulnerabilities are discovered. Hence, independent developers and several groups have now begun to ask Microsoft to make Windows 7 Source Code as Open Source.