4 ms·

These recent moves aren't making me trust Microsoft anymore than before. It's fantastic that they're open sourcing some stuff these days, but the things they'r

by avar 10y ago

These recent moves aren't making me trust Microsoft anymore than before. It's fantastic that they're open sourcing some stuff these days, but the things they're open sourcing and external projects they're contributing to are all either cost centers (nobody makes money on browser engines these days), or areas where they've lost the battle for cloud hosting, and are hoping to get a leg in on Linux-based hosting. Now if they were to open source something like MSSQL, Exchange server, truly open up the office format, or pretty much anything where they haven't utterly been defeated by existing open source products I'd be impressed and might think their company culture is truly changing. As it stands I don't see any reason to think that this isn't just all part of an experimental marketing strategy to bring already lost markets back under the Microsoft umbrella, and once they can achieve lock-in again; goodbye open source.

edgyswingset 10y ago
With .NET Core, all .NET languages, and ASP.NET Core being open source I'd say they've made that jump. It's literally millions of developers who use .NET and pay for Visual Studio (not to mention, this is what an incredible amount of Microsoft's products are built with), which last I checked is a billon-dollar business for MSFT. The open source stuff is where they're taking that business strategically, or at least it certainly seems that way.
- avar 10y ago
  All the things you've listed fall squarely in the category of "we've lost the hosting war, and nobody's going to ship proprietary .NET binaries on Linux distros". The further you go from that sort of thing where they've already lost the market and either have nothing to lose or the writing is on the wall (how long can paid-for languages truly compete with free ones?), the less they have open sourced. E.g. even Visual Studio which would be the next logical step is still for sale starting at $500 on their website[1], maybe that'll be fully open one day. After all how long can the paid-for editor wars persist? What I was pointing out is that there's no sign of them opening up anything that would truly make them an open source company. I.e. things they make real money on, or would threaten their established lock-in. 1. https://www.visualstudio.com/products/how-to-buy-vs https://www.visualstudio.com/products/how-to-buy-vs
  - oblio 10y ago
    Both Visual Studio and the Jetbrains IDEs are commercial and they're considered some of the best tools available on the market. Quality tools can still command a decent price. To put things into perspective, IntelliJ has been battling both Eclipse and Netbeans for ages and it is (slowly) winning.
    - avar 10y ago
      Yes it makes perfect sense that they're selling it. I'm not saying it doesn't. What I'm saying is that the comments here to the effect of "Microsoft has changed their stance" don't seem to be in touch with reality. Microsoft has just realized relatively late that there's certain things that they can't make money on yet are still strategically important, such as core .NET technology, or JS engines. That doesn't mean that they'll keep open sourcing stuff, or that they're not likely to pull back the second they think it services their commercial aims.
      - oblio 10y ago
        You're probably right. The thing is, Microsoft is right now in existential danger, at least if it wants to grow, and I think it has to grow, because it's a public company. Their core market (desktop/enterprise desktop) is basically saturated. Almost their secondary efforts have failed from a financial standpoint or are only second in their niche (Bing, Edge, Azure, Xbox, etc.). Unless they pull off some sort of a miraculous switch: * they'll continue to be perennial underdogs * they'll opening things up in order to gain allies, through genuine community building From my point of view, in a sort of twisted way, that basically means that they're safe from a open source point of view. They'll have to develop communities in almost every area they want to compete in (which means that there will be stewards available if they back down) and they'll invest quite heavily in their open source contribution. It might not be done for the purest reasons, but I think that their new contributions will be here with us for the long term.
      - pyre 10y ago
        > "Microsoft has changed their stance" don't seem to be in touch with reality I would say that porting MSSQL to Linux, open-sourcing .NET and ChakraCore (amongst other things) is definitely a change from the "Linux / OpenSource is a cancer" days, no? Microsoft is in no way going to become the next Red Hat in running a service-only model onto of Open Source products. It doesn't make sense for them to do that. But the fact that they have accepted Open Source as a possibility for some of their products, and put that into action is a step in the right direction.

by avar 10y ago

edgyswingset 10y ago

With .NET Core, all .NET languages, and ASP.NET Core being open source I'd say they've made that jump. It's literally millions of developers who use .NET and pay for Visual Studio (not to mention, this is what an incredible amount of Microsoft's products are built with), which last I checked is a billon-dollar business for MSFT. The open source stuff is where they're taking that business strategically, or at least it certainly seems that way.

avar 10y ago
All the things you've listed fall squarely in the category of "we've lost the hosting war, and nobody's going to ship proprietary .NET binaries on Linux distros". The further you go from that sort of thing where they've already lost the market and either have nothing to lose or the writing is on the wall (how long can paid-for languages truly compete with free ones?), the less they have open sourced. E.g. even Visual Studio which would be the next logical step is still for sale starting at $500 on their website[1], maybe that'll be fully open one day. After all how long can the paid-for editor wars persist? What I was pointing out is that there's no sign of them opening up anything that would truly make them an open source company. I.e. things they make real money on, or would threaten their established lock-in. 1. https://www.visualstudio.com/products/how-to-buy-vs https://www.visualstudio.com/products/how-to-buy-vs
- oblio 10y ago
  Both Visual Studio and the Jetbrains IDEs are commercial and they're considered some of the best tools available on the market. Quality tools can still command a decent price. To put things into perspective, IntelliJ has been battling both Eclipse and Netbeans for ages and it is (slowly) winning.
  - avar 10y ago
    Yes it makes perfect sense that they're selling it. I'm not saying it doesn't. What I'm saying is that the comments here to the effect of "Microsoft has changed their stance" don't seem to be in touch with reality. Microsoft has just realized relatively late that there's certain things that they can't make money on yet are still strategically important, such as core .NET technology, or JS engines. That doesn't mean that they'll keep open sourcing stuff, or that they're not likely to pull back the second they think it services their commercial aims.
    - oblio 10y ago
      You're probably right. The thing is, Microsoft is right now in existential danger, at least if it wants to grow, and I think it has to grow, because it's a public company. Their core market (desktop/enterprise desktop) is basically saturated. Almost their secondary efforts have failed from a financial standpoint or are only second in their niche (Bing, Edge, Azure, Xbox, etc.). Unless they pull off some sort of a miraculous switch: * they'll continue to be perennial underdogs * they'll opening things up in order to gain allies, through genuine community building From my point of view, in a sort of twisted way, that basically means that they're safe from a open source point of view. They'll have to develop communities in almost every area they want to compete in (which means that there will be stewards available if they back down) and they'll invest quite heavily in their open source contribution. It might not be done for the purest reasons, but I think that their new contributions will be here with us for the long term.
    - pyre 10y ago
      > "Microsoft has changed their stance" don't seem to be in touch with reality I would say that porting MSSQL to Linux, open-sourcing .NET and ChakraCore (amongst other things) is definitely a change from the "Linux / OpenSource is a cancer" days, no? Microsoft is in no way going to become the next Red Hat in running a service-only model onto of Open Source products. It doesn't make sense for them to do that. But the fact that they have accepted Open Source as a possibility for some of their products, and put that into action is a step in the right direction.