There's lots of talking going around about the free upgrade. I'd like to get myself Windows 8 just to try it and be able to get the free upgrade to Windows 10.
 
Why is it now Windows 10 instead of 9? Because of third party programmers using the wrong code.
 

Microsoft dev here, the internal rumours are that early testing revealed just how many third party products that had code of the form

if(version.StartsWith("Windows 9"))
{ /* 95 and 98 */
} else {

and that this was the pragmatic solution to avoid that.

 

Quote source: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2hwlrk/new_windows_version_will_be_called_windows_10/ckwq83x

 

A huge offender is Java, just take a look at https://searchcode.com/?q=if%28version%2Cstartswith%28%22windows+9%22%29

I did eventually try and get to use Windows 8. I will say, after using them I find Windows 10 to be far superior in comparison.