"Microsoft is effectively giving away Windows 7 free for a year with the launch of the Release Candidate. The Release Candidate is now available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, and will go on unlimited, general release on 5 May. The software will not expire until 1 June 2010, giving testers more than a year's free access to Windows 7. "It's available to as many people who see fit to use it, although we wouldn't recommend it to just your average user," John Curran, director of the Windows Client Group told PC Pro. "We'd very strongly encourage anyone on the beta to move to the Release Candidate.""
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/30/1352249&from=rss
They license software under price to schools, they give it away to students, they will even give it to you for free if it means winning a contract. And now they're handing out Windows 7. All so that you get hooked on it. And once you start working for a company or government they can screw you forever on the license fees and mandatory "upgrades", by making new products deliberately incompatible with old ones.
Having said that, giving out Windows 7 like this might actually be a good way of building something that doesn't suck, with all that user feedback.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/30/1352249&from=rss
They license software under price to schools, they give it away to students, they will even give it to you for free if it means winning a contract. And now they're handing out Windows 7. All so that you get hooked on it. And once you start working for a company or government they can screw you forever on the license fees and mandatory "upgrades", by making new products deliberately incompatible with old ones.
Having said that, giving out Windows 7 like this might actually be a good way of building something that doesn't suck, with all that user feedback.
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