

Minecraft creator attacks Microsoft's Windows 8 plan - bootload
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19760977

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SquareWheel
This is the most overdone news story in recent months. It was two _tweets_ ,
and yet entire articles are being written analyzing a small quip.

Now how many times do we have to go over the argument? x86, for the moment, is
just as open as Windows 7. ARM is not, it's very locked down. Windows 8 as a
whole consists of both versions, in that respect it's considered less open.
The fear is that we're going to see ARM become the major OS (for various
reasons, mostly tablets/phones/mobiles becoming more popular) and at that
point there won't be an open Windows. That's the concern. Yes, it's a slippery
slope argument, but it looks to be the direction we're headed in.

And please, stop with the "then why did he release on iOS/Xbox" argument ad
nauseam, it's an ecosystem which was locked down from the beginning, nothing
is being "lost".

This story has really embittered me, so I apologize if this is brash. But all
the personal attacks I see on various websites against Notch are incredibly
disheartening.

~~~
rbanffy
My worry is that openness may die with this move, not to ARM per se, but to
locked down ARM devices. Ubuntu and Android run just fine on the hardware
Microsoft demands their OEMs to cripple (and yes, none of my Android devices
is locked down). Microsoft is pushing towards a world they can enjoy without
having to compete as much as they do now - they don't want to make software
people love: they'd rather live with people having no option.

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citricsquid
Not related to the point at hand, but why don't people mention the millions of
copies sold on other platforms?

    
    
        More than 7.5 million copies of the title have been sold
    

Minecraft has sold 7.5 Million (+) of the PC version, it has _also_ sold
millions of copies of the iOS version, the Android version and the Xbox
version which just recently broke 5 (edit: sorry, 4) million sales. Seems
strange not to say something like:

    
    
        More than 14 million copies of the game have been sold across all platforms, {relevant figure for relevant platform here}.
    

Although maybe with the article being about the PC version it's assumed
readers will understand the figures are for the PC version alone.

~~~
ido
It's really surprising (to me) that 10k people per day are still buying pc
minecraft. I'd think pretty much everyone that was interested in a game like
that would have gotten it by now? How can there still be 10k new people _per
day_ (over what, 3 years now?) that have just found out about minecraft?

~~~
bayes
Currently (I'm in London UK) Minecraft has a huge folllowing among boys aged
(roughly) 8-14. As long as that demographic remains obsessed there'll be a
constant new market.

~~~
Vivtek
Yeah, my 13yo just latched onto it recently.

~~~
citricsquid
I have a question for you if you've got a moment: what part of Minecraft is
your son most involved in (eg: playing with his friends, creating
modifications, building cool things alone)? And if he's involving in playing
online, do you know if he has any involve with Minecraft communities?

I'm getting the feeling more and more recently that Minecraft may eventually
become what BBSes were to the 90s: a way for "new" to the internet people to
get involved in the community side of the internet (vs. just being a
"consumer") and by extension the technical side. We (the Minecraft forum) have
10s of thousands of teenagers that are now programmers contributing code and
creating things just because of Minecraft, people that _probably_ wouldn't
have got involved in programming this early in life otherwise.

I'm curious if that sort of effect extends beyond those actively involved in
the official Minecraft communities, but I have no real way to find out as my
reach only covers the Minecraft forum.

~~~
CodeCube
My 8yo son, 11yo daughter, 10yo niece, and 14yo nephew all recently got into
it. I set up a server for them.

My nephew I think might become an architect, he loves making real-world
looking buildings, complete with furniture, rooms, bathrooms.

The daughter and niece make houses where they live with each other. My
daughter in particular takes her room, and adds a panic room (for when the
mobs attack).

And my son has recently taken to building redstone gadgets. He took a room and
put a switch on the wall, then ran redstone on the outside up to the attic to
power glowstone blocks that he recessed into the ceiling. That way he can turn
the lights on and off.

They mostly use the tekkit mod, and I've been trying to get them into
programming by showing the how the computercraft turtles work ... it's a work
in progress :P

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kleiba
From the article:

 _Mr Persson revealed his views in two tweets._

From twitter:

 _Got an email from microsoft, wanting to help "certify" minecraft for win 8.
I told them to stop trying to ruin the pc as an open platform._

 _I'd rather have minecraft not run on win 8 at all than to play along. Maybe
we can convince a few people not to switch to win 8 that way.._

~~~
ZoFreX
But certification isn't new, and is still optional... I don't understand why
developers are up in arms over it?

Also, is it intrinsically bad? It's proving that the software you installed is
from a particular publisher and hasn't been tampered with, isn't that a good
thing?

~~~
k-mcgrady
I think it's a minority of developers that are up in arms against in. As a
user and developer I've welcomed it on the Mac. Developers can easily certify
their apps and it gives customers confidence. If you choose not to certify
your app you don't lose out, your software will still run. It will be pretty
much the same on Windows (although I find their policies a bit more
restrictive). If you don't want to certify, it doesn't prevent your software
from working.

~~~
morsch
But if you certify and offer a shop for certified apps where the shop owner
gets a cut this creates a huge incentive for the owner to do everything in its
power to get more apps into the shop.

~~~
k-mcgrady
There will always be apps people need that don't fit in the store. e.g. 18+
games won't be available but lots of PC users want to play them. If Microsoft
made it so only certified apps could be installed they would lose a lot of
users to alternative platforms. People are looking at this like it is a
slippery slope. It could be but it's highly unlikely as it would hurt
consumers and the barriers to switching OS aren't that high for most people.

~~~
morsch
There's no need to completely prevent non-certified content from being
accessed, you just make it a second class citizen, e.g. by making installation
more difficult or restricting the access to native interfaces. E.g. you can
increasingly fall back to distributing stuff that's incompatible with Apple's
morals using HTML5, so customers don't need to switch devices to access some
version of it.

Barriers to switching are falling as more people are using cross-platform
stuff (first and foremost, web content and apps) but at the same time they are
increasing as people get a large portfolio of content that is either not
available or that they haven't bought for other platforms. E.g. switch from
iOS to Android and lose access to game X that's not available on Android, app
Y that's available but you only bought an iOS license and, of course,
convenient access to your collection of iTunes music and videos.

Contrast this to a waning desktop era where most casual users seemingly only
used and paid for three pieces of software (office, browser, something else)
and had much of their other content in cross-platform containers (CD/DVD, MP3,
Xvid, office files).

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eckyptang
I still think he's being a sensationalist. Even the BBC are less biased here.
There is no requirement to get it certified and you can just use minecraft how
it is now without having to go near an app store.

This is all hot air.

~~~
Toshio
The BBC has _always_ been biased toward microsoft.

~~~
eckyptang
It definitely hasn't. They've been terribly critical over the years.

I think the issue is that they are not as biased against them as the rest of
the industry who know how to get clicks for Microsoft bashing.

~~~
cormullion
Some think so.

<http://www.slated.org/bbc_microsoft_bias_summary>

But I think they're biased against everybody. At heart, journalists tend
toward cynicism...

~~~
eckyptang
I've seen that before. To be honest, most of it is crap. It's cherry picking.
They're always splurging over Ubuntu and raspberry pi.

the only bias I see is pro war and pro current government And the occasional
shoddy piece of journalism.

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k-mcgrady
>> ""Microsoft owns the Xbox. Apple owns the iOS. The charm of the PC is that
nobody owns it... "

Yes, but Microsoft owns Windows. The certification change doesn't affect the
PC it affects Windows users. His final comment is a lot more balanced:

>> "Microsoft is free to do whatever they want with their OS. I won't support
all of what they do, however"

His comment about Microsoft trying to ruin the PC as an open platform is
nonsense. Obviously Windows runs on the majority of PC's but no matter what
Microsoft does they can't ruin the PC as an open platform. Linux is available.
Build Minecraft for Linux and actively promote Linux. Refuse to build the game
for any closed platform and make it clear people can only use your game on
open platforms.

The whole thing seems to be misuse of 'PC' and 'Windows'.

~~~
willvarfar
You haven't been following the trusted computing for windows 8 row then?

you won't be able to run linux on these machines.

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mtgx
The thing is Windows 8 is radically changing a lot of stuff and that won't sit
well with most businesses in the PC world. Maybe Windows 8 won't give Valve or
Notch a death blow by removing the "desktop mode", but I think it's pretty
obvious that Microsoft wants the future of Windows to be "Metro-only", and
these guys can see that.

So it's not Windows 8 per se that they are mad about. It's the whole direction
Windows is taking. If they and others can get Windows 8 to fail, and get
Microsoft to revert back to the old style Windows, then they win. If not, and
Windows 8 is successful, they lose, because you can bet Windows 9 will be even
more locked into Metro and with fewer options or less access for the desktop
mode.

~~~
freehunter
I'm not sure Microsoft is explicitly wanting this change. It's a reaction to
the shifting computing environment; the iPad showed that the PC isn't the only
platform that people want to use, and that some people only want to use tablet
computers. I feel Microsoft would have been more than happy to keep developing
Windows the way they always have, but they've seen the writing on the wall.
Windows isn't what the users want.

Microsoft didn't start the locked down tablet market. They're just the newest
player. If you want to assign blame, blame the users.

~~~
rbanffy
Microsoft is the only company demanding the ARM devices other companies make
to be locked down. What Apple does to its hardware is their problem, but it's
not Microsoft's business to demand hardware manufacturers to deliberately kill
competition on software (which would, ultimately, benefit both manufacturers
and end-users).

~~~
freehunter
I'm not sure that's an apples to apples (so to speak) comparison. How is it
any different with Apple not only locking down the software but also locking
out any competing hardware versus Microsoft letting multiple partners make
hardware with locked down software? It patently _is_ Microsoft's business to
demand hardware makers follow the rules of their software agreement. If
hardware makers don't like it, they can make Android tablets. Microsoft isn't
the only player in the game, and in fact they are the least successful player
in the game. This isn't the 90s, and Microsoft doesn't control the world
anymore. There's choice.

Let's not forget that Apple's locked down hardware and software combination is
what started this whole craze.

~~~
rbanffy
Microsoft doesn't make its own hardware like Apple does. What Microsoft is
trying to do is to make it difficult for hardware manufacturers to build
devices that can run both Windows or other operating system. When you buy an
ARM device with Windows preinstalled, it'll not be able to run any other OS.
When you buy an ARM device that can run Android (or Ubuntu, or WebOS, or
ChromeOS) you won't be able to install Windows on it. Unlike any x86 PC, you
have to make a choice before you buy the device. You just won't be able to buy
an ARM-based tablet, notebook or desktop computer with Windows (paying for it)
and run something else. Microsoft hopes that, confronted with this choice,
users will opt to lock themselves into a "safe" option.

This is Microsoft leveraging its Windows monopoly to pressure hardware
manufacturers into fragmenting the market in ways that restrict competition.

~~~
freehunter
The problem with ARM is, there's no standardized platform like there is on
x86. You need SoC specific drivers for every chip, and in some cases these are
only available to hardware partners. This is an ARM problem.

Microsoft cannot leverage its Windows monopoly in the ARM tablet market.
Mainly because it doesn't have a Windows monopoly in the ARM tablet market.
And Microsoft _does_ make their own hardware. The only difference is, they
also license their OS out to third party partners. You want to use their
software, you agree to their license. Don't like it? Run Android (most of the
world does).

~~~
rbanffy
> Microsoft cannot leverage its Windows monopoly in the ARM tablet market

Really? So, Windows software won;'t need a recompile to run on ARM?

> The only difference is, they also license their OS out to third party
> partners.

As long as they limit competition and prevent the devices from running
anything but Windows.

> You want to use their software, you agree to their license.

Except that it doesn't work like that when you try to leverage the power one
monopoly affords you to prevent competition in another market.

~~~
freehunter
You're being intentionally dense in order to spread FUD about Windows 8. What
you're saying is demonstrably untrue. Whether you want to accept that or not,
it'd be helpful if you refrained from joining a conversation if you don't have
anything constructive to say.

~~~
rbanffy
> What you're saying is demonstrably untrue.

Citation needed.

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Toshio
BBC is using their platform to issue counter-attacks to legitimate complaints
by independent developers. Nothing new here people, move along.

