Some of the latest news regarding the radioactive trash that Windows 10 is, is that Microsoft is adding a new option for letting users decide whether installation from elsewhere than the Windows store is allowed.

Of course what matters is the default value for this option, and whether this stays the same over time. If history says anything, this option will change often, and for the worst. Worst for who you ask? Well, worst for all of us software vendors who started a business on what was known as an open platform and is now a walled garden.

A walled garden means that Microsoft has a say when your software is about to be installed on someone's computer. Note that the install step is just one step in converting a user as a customer, so Microsoft is creating additional obstacles for matters related to their bottom line.

Microsoft could have chosen, a decade ago, to add a OS-installed wizard that could sort out good apps from bad apps. It simply chose not to. Windows defender is a complete joke for instance. And it took the wrong choice at every new step.

For instance, when Windows 8 got introduced, their "smart screen" filtering already was created to throw shit at software vendors out there. Indeed, smart screen tells you that the application you are about to install may damage your computer, and you really have as a user to go hard at it to find out how to install the application anyway. This with Microsoft not even saying how this discrimination is built at some point and over time. Smart screen discriminates and makes it hard to install any WIN32 application, except Microsoft's own such as the Office suite. In other words, if you are a software vendor, you are simply on the wrong end of the knife, courtesy of Microsoft.

Questionable isn't it? Isn't Windows an open platform? By choosing to create a walled garden, what's left of Windows?

Apparently Microsoft does not remember what happened when they took this walled garden to another dimension with computer systems running Windows on ARM. This system made it so it was technically impossible to install any third-party WIN32 software. So a smart screen with no option, if you will. Guess what happened? Fiasco! those computer systems are no longer being sold.

Well perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps calling Windows such a thing betrayed the very definition of an open platform. Just like a scam.

So, back to latest news, this new option then. Microsoft wants software vendors to start shipping applications from Microsoft's own Windows store, meaning that no longer a software vendor would be allowed to make their own software available for download on their website. This, in addition, to the gazillion rules that a software vendor must adhere to in order to pass the validation process. This, in addition to taking a 30% cut if you dare to make your software not entirely free. This with Microsoft owning every bit of update schedules and so on.

This my friends isn't Windows anymore.

It's time to choose wisely what you want your future to be.

Now that you know that the Google play store and the Apple app store are filled with scamware and malware, perhaps you can hold your breath, take a minute or two, and think whether those walled gardens are really in your benefit.

Of course, for a locked down scenario such as a kiosque, I don't mind Windows being locked down. But I guess there were tools already for that in place to enforce it. And if all you want is a locked down operating system, corporations out there should perhaps consider a Linux variant after all. There is no reason to pay a Windows license to own a locked down operating system, when there is a competent alternative for this scenario. Just common sense.

Last but not least, while Microsoft actions against software vendors should be sued up their ass in court by governments out there, I don't want to end my post without mentioning the incredibly bad job done by anti-virus software vendors for a number of years. And if you ask what that means, let me explain. Anti-virus software is a piece of software that flags some piece of software as good or bad depending on their own choosing. If the anti-virus software is deployed on many Windows computers out there (McAfee, Norton, ...), this has deep implications on your business because overnight your software may be blacked out, marked as suspicious or even worse. It goes without saying that no one out there would buy software pictured like this, along with red flashing lights. In other words, you are out of business. But as it turns out, the anti-virus vendor may have incorrectly flagged your software. And, to add insult to injury, when it does so, it does not send you an email to let you know they just did ! Only a curious customer may sometimes in the future let you know that there is something going on. Sales are lost in the meantime. Reputation perhaps forever. And then guess what, you as a software vendor must on your own get in touch with such anti-virus vendor, good luck with that!, let them know to reconsider, go through their whiting process, if they have one. And if you are lucky, they'll stop black listing your software for some time. This clearly isn't a safe place for someone trying to run a business. Especially small vendors (individuals). Because obviously if you have the money to sue the anti-virus vendor in question, perhaps they would pay more attention to their own crappy software and practices.

I am never, as a software vendor, going to start writing, porting or migrating my applications to a walled garden unless someone PAYS ME to do so. Until then, this is simple domination over individuals, real globalization in other words, not survival to the fittest because in this unregulated world we are living in, it's big player takes all.