Always good not to rely on a technology controlled by a foreign entity :)

Add in the increasing tie-in to MS servers/cloud for Win10 and what fallows it is a no brainer to take steps to avoid a locked in system

The ultimate question becomes, will Microsoft or as I always much preferred - M$ - find itself open to all kinds of competing challenges over time?

To switch to a subscription model suggests M$ figure there is more net revenue to be gained there than from standard OEM installations and the [I assume] smaller numbers of retail sales of their future OS's.

Lot of software editors are switching to subscription models. It looks like it cheaper, and gives more freedom to users, but since you have to keep the subscription forever, at the end it's expensive and locking you :)

M$ is looking for a monthly income ... billable by node installs into their increasingly big iron (cloud) where each subscription is merely a "terminal" into their systems. Cable TV has had this ... Bell AT&T had it for nearly 100 years (still do!) ... in 1983 the PC broke all that ... putting full computing in the hands of Tom, Dick and Harry (Thomasina, Dixie, and Harriett) for several decades while the original tech giants wondered where the heck all their billable hours went.

M$ is trying to put the genie back in the bottle and having full control over computing ... as in the Old Daze (sic). G and FB are doing the same, slightly different methods, but still the same. And if folks don't pay attention, all will be BILLED for playing AND at the same time PAYING just to connect! Nickles and Dimes will become chump change when Lincolns and Jeffersons will be the daily bill(s)... And you don't have control over your own data ... it will reside ELSEWHERE ... in the cloud ...

Think I'm kidding/conspiracy/tinfoil? Bwahahahaha!

Win7 forever! (not! ... but Win10 locked down every time it wants to connect to One Drive, etc for storage). Linux is where responsible folks will go ... and I don't mean versions from apple or g...

</diatribe done>

but Win10 locked down every time it wants to connect to One Drive, etc for storage)

I just knew there was a good reason why I killed off One Drive nagging with a nifty 879 byte .cmd script

On Windows Insiders - links to that script [not mine] were always deleted by the M$ mafia.

Linux is where responsible folks will go

For the most part an OS for me just has to do basic housekeeping, as well as support a sensible browser. Where there is a need? Someone will fulfil it.

And thus the move by CERN away from MS makes perfect sense (cents)! :)