9 ms·
I kind of feel sorry for the MS chaps here. They admit it's wrong, say they will try to fix it but it'll take time because of bureaucracy. But then they get att
by LTheobald 10y ago
I kind of feel sorry for the MS chaps here. They admit it's wrong, say they will try to fix it but it'll take time because of bureaucracy. But then they get attacked in the thread because they are Microsoft. It's sad to see when they are generally trying.
- kohanz 10y agoAgreed. That thread is a mixture of some useful and constructive dialogue and others just "piling on" offering problems without solutions. Those type of commenters would frustrate me to no end.
- jclulow 10y agoThat's basically what happens in open source, once you get enough people in and around your project.
- 2close4comfort 10y agoVery true! When those decisions were made PowerShell was never planned to be run on anything that ran those cmds natively. Now that they have changed the rules this should be expected as they move to a more neutral ground. I would be the 1st to call M$ on being jerks, but in this case give them a break the ship just did a 180 if you setup your furniture a certain why I guess you will have to set it up again...deal with it.
- warfangle 10y agoOn the other hand, curl.exe has been available for five years.
- doikor 10y agoPowerShell was originally designed so that you would mostly just run CmdLets with it so colliding with an actual program wasn't considered an issue. And these aliases haven been available since 2007. They even admitted it them self that it was stupid and needs to be fixed though so just wait I guess? edit: As a separate note I really would like to have versions of curl and wget that actually have all the params working but return the correct PowerShell objects (so the web request result thingie) instead of a String object. Or maybe have it do that with a flag or something.
- protomyth 10y agoI get the feeling there are a lot of commands that are going to need to be customized for actual typed output. It would be an interesting project to do a usr-bin for PowerShell.
- laurent123456 10y agocurl on Windows existed many years before PowerShell.
- shmel 10y ago>>PowerShell was never planned to be run on anything that ran those cmds natively. Really? I thought that windows versions (native versions, not even cygwin) of wget and curl existed for more than a decade. I am not very good at googling old stuff, but I remember using curl natively in 2004 or so.
- MandieD 10y ago"Native" for Windows means comes out of the box or as an official release from Microsoft, according to many enterprise security teams. PowerShell was not allowed on stuff here until Microsoft started including it with the OS, even though Microsoft fully supported it on downlevel OSes.
- Aissen 10y agowget has been on windows for 15 years: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/wget.htm http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net... PowerShell first appeared 9 years ago. Edit: curl has been on windows for at least 14 years according to this: https://curl.haxx.se/mail/archive-2002-06/0114.html https://curl.haxx.se/mail/archive-2002-06/0114.html Edit 2: 17 years: http://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/www/utilities/curl/ http://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/www/util...
- wangchow 10y agoThey have been on there, but not as standard Windows components. Perhaps they had lofty goals to replace the tools with a "better" version and changed direction.
- exo762 10y agoReplacing something with "better" version is step #2 of EEE.
- oldmanjay 10y agoReplacing something with a better version is also the basis of the success of life. It's all in how you approach things.
- eitland 10y agoIf you are going to argue that Microsoft is out on a new EEE trip you are going to have a hard time now that it releases everything as Open Source.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> now that it releases everything as Open Source. Windows? Office? SQL Server? Seems to me, that Microsoft now releases "everything" as open source only by the most ridiculously limited definition of "everything".
- erlehmann_ 10y agoTo me it seems they only try to fix it because they got caught (and now publicly shamed).
- unmei 10y agoAgreed. The first post from a PS team member was essentially "no, we don't want to do that, if you have a problem with it open an RFC" ... only later when it was plainly obvious that they were wrong did they agree to do the RFC themselves
- wangchow 10y agoHow is it wrong to put an alias when wget and curl are not standard Windows applications? Sure a lot of people use them but it's easy enough to create a new alias. Don't people have better things to do than bitch about an alias?? Perhaps MS had goals on their inception to make the commandlets behave more like the true applications then changed directions.
- JustUhThought 10y ago"Don't people have better things to do than bitch about an alias??" Now that's a cordial and produtive tone.
- MertsA 10y agoI think the outrage is over the fact that MS broke any use of the command wget or curl and also, it doesn't even provide a compatible alternative to what they were aliasing ala busybox.
- sumedh 10y ago> How is it wrong to put an alias when wget and curl are not standard Windows applications? Isn't that a trademark violation when a Big Corp is doing it officially in their software?
- Jtsummers 10y ago
- kyberias 10y agoYeah, I don't understand what that gevaerts guy tries to accomplish.
- tylerritchie 10y agoI think he's trying to accomplish being an asshole, he's succeeding. The whole thread is terribly saddening. It's a breaking change, they have a process for making breaking changes and the creator of PowerShell specifically says, "We need to fix this, let's get that process rolling. If you're on Windows here's how to work around it." Then a bunch of jerks pile on about how it was a bad decision and all the Microsoft developers should feel bad. The whole PR went from something pretty awesome to a great example of why we can't have nice things.
- ygra 10y agoI sometimes have the feeling that a lot of developers don't really know what stability in APIs and breaking changes actually are. They themselves don't really care as long as the change is in their interest, but they can't (or won't) see the impact it has on existing code.
- superswordfish 10y agoBest unintended consequence of GitHub adding comment "reactions" is the redditification of discussions (thumbs up/down brigading). Lovely.
- Karunamon 10y agoUnlike Reddit, no action is taken upon a certain number of "reactions". Your comment isn't censored after receiving an arbitrary amount of :-1: 's
- sethish 10y agoThey added the buttons so brigades would use those instead of commenting.
- eric_h 10y agoYeah, I honestly think it's an improvement. +1 ;)
- superswordfish 10y agoGitHub never would have had that problem in the first place if :+1: were not so easy to do. There's no reason to make emoji part of GitHub flavored markdown or for it to be an autocomplete.
- pimlottc 10y agoPeople have used plaintext "+1"'s for ages, I wasn't even aware there was markup for it now.
- eric_h 10y agoThere is now no longer a reason to make emoji as part of the markdown, as the vast majority of devices can now do it natively. When Github flavored markdown was first created, emojis were most certainly not at all widespread natively.
- ynniv 10y agoIt's okay: this is also an opportunity to show that they can play well with others. Done correctly they can build trust within a community that has traditionally disliked them.
- codesterling 10y agoThat's a "Standing up to the bully adds character" argument. I prefer to foster a culture that didn't have the bullies.
- JustUhThought 10y agoMicrosoft standing up to a bully..? My god, what is this world I'm in.
- codesterling 10y agoThat's not Bill Gates they are messaging, it's developers like you and I just doing their job.
- JustUhThought 10y agoYeahhhh, because developers like you and me are assigned the IP... Nope. We take a home paycheck but relinquish the IP to MS. What you're suggesting is tantamount to Walmart employees taking offense to Kmart for copying "everyday low prices". Sure, a real live human being came up with that tagline, but do you think Kmart or Walmart send them checks every month for the benefit derived for the now famous line? The open source world is different. In many cases individuals do maintain ownership of their IP. And when they don't, often it is held by a trustee for the benefit of the community.
- JustUhThought 10y agoAlso, that whole bit was supposed to be a reply for a diff comment, but this app I'm using sucks so can't correct. My bad.
- wangchow 10y agoWow people are too lazy to simply create a new alias to the Curl/Wget that they want.. What's the world coming to.
- UnoriginalGuy 10y agoThe problem isn't about laziness, it is about defaults. If Microsoft removed them, installing an update to PS could literally break existing scripts. Sure, you can trivially fix it by re-creating the aliases, but only after you realise that an Update broke it.
- wangchow 10y agoExactly, which is why they can't just switch it back. But people are on the attack about something so trivial. For anyone who needs "the de-facto curl or wget" then create a custom alias or re-assign the old one. It's a minor inconvenience, whereas if Microsoft were to patch it and break existing systems that would be more worthy of criticism..
- jessaustin 10y agoOne imagines a sort of "boilerplate" at the top of every script, patiently fixing various P$ mistakes before the script actually gets to work. I've seen similar things in other challenged environments.
- emodendroket 10y agoThat's not exactly what they say and I agree with them that it would kind of suck if you wrote a bunch of scripts using the alias and MS broke them overnight.
- SloopJon 10y agoEach time Microsoft releases free software, there has been discussion about whether they're really participating in a community. When Jason closes a PR, saying that it needs an RFC, and oh, by the way, you aren't allowed to start an RFC, I'm skeptical. When Jeffrey provides a work around, opens an RFC, and is generally diplomatic, I'm more hopeful. One thing I find interesting is Frank's claim that "You have then ignored bug reports about this for years." It seems like users have a better chance of getting problems addressed on Github than the previous feedback mechanism. Edit: after reading Daniel's blog post, which laurent123456 mentioned in another comment, this has indeed been a longstanding nuisance for curl users.
- kohanz 10y ago> One thing I find interesting is Frank's claim that "You have then ignored bug reports about this for years." It seems like users have a better chance of getting problems addressed on Github than the previous feedback mechanism. Maybe, but I see that more as just that the "new MS" is trying to become more open and integrated with the OS community. The change being in the company culture and approach rather than the reporting platform. Ignoring long-standing bugs on many products was just the modus operandi for the old MS.
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoYeah. The whole "new MS" thing is nice. Now if only UWP will either open itself or die, I'll finally say that old MS is gone for good.
- bad_user 10y agoW00t, the new Microsoft is totally not like that old Microsoft that used to fund SCO's lawsuit and spread FUD about competing open-source software and patents violations. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/windows-10-microsoft-blatantly-disregards-user-choice-and-privacy-deep-dive https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/windows-10-microsoft-b... http://www.zdnet.com/article/310-microsoft-patents-used-in-android-licensing-agreements-revealed-by-chinese-gov/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/310-microsoft-patents-used-in-a... http://techrights.org/2015/10/01/microsoft-loves-linux-brainwash/ http://techrights.org/2015/10/01/microsoft-loves-linux-brain... They indeed changed. Back in those days they weren't violating their customers' privacy.
- ElijahLynn 10y agoGoing to work for MS in the first place, you kind of take that risk.
- scott_s 10y agoAgreed. I also think people are not appreciating that even if you agree a part of your interface is bad, it's not a given that you should change it. There's a trade-off between improving your interface, and making breaking changes for your users. Evaluating that trade-off requires discussion and investigation.
- AimHere 10y agoGiven that the Powershell that ships with Windows 7 doesn't have these aliases, whereas the one that ships with Windows 10 does, It seems that that Microsoft was already happy to have made the diametrically opposite breaking change without the corresponding discussion. It seems that the users of faux-curl-on-powershell are now getting more consideration than the users of real curl under Windows a year or three ago, when Windows 8 or 10 made this change. It's maybe a good sign. Opening the source and putting it on github means that curl and wget devs and users now feel empowered to ask Microsoft to change stuff in a way that they didn't before.
- DominikD 10y agoWhy do people call structured governance a bureaucracy? About a month ago there was a well received post on GTK's rotten foundations that boils down to several core points, one of them being: if you keep breaking stuff all the time, there's no point in investing in your API. And here we are with initial OSS release of PS for *nixes. It's broken from the (valid) POV of its target audience and authors want to fix in an orderly fashion. But that's not enough. People at MS are "stupid or malicious", as some commenters put it, and it should be changed ASAP the way community wants, or else. Or else what? How many of the people arguing for immediate change are an actual and/or potential consumers of PS? How many of people thinking it's a simple change (just do it) have actually maintained large piece of software deployed by thousands of users? I bet that with the exception of Daniel who opened the bug - none. I don't envy folks maintaining PS. I used to share an apartment with dude who can't get over the US v MS to this day and anything even tangentially related to MS (or Gates) is definitely, without any doubt evil, devious and is some sort of extortion or at the very least embrace extend extinguish strategy. No matter that US v MS was 15 years ago when he was 10. This attitude is pervasive and turbo-counterproductive in cases like this one.
- noir_lord 10y agoOne of the reasons I haven't open sourced some stuff is because I don't want to deal with parts of the open source community, it's not even about having a thin skin (Which I don't) it's simply I'm not interested in dealing with them.
- emilsedgh 10y agoMicrosoft is being hated because there's a double standard here. If Linux tools used Microsoft utility names, someone would've been sued. Microsoft used wget and curl `aliases` (while native versions were there) and not only the didn't get sued, they are causing problems for original authors. Of course no hate for the engineers doing this. They are just doing their job and this is a tough compatibility issue they are facing now.
- wang_li 10y ago> If Linux tools used Microsoft utility names, someone would've been sued. In a universe where Wine exists, you think someone would be sued if they released an app with a default alias mapping dir to ls?
- emilsedgh 10y agoWine implements a set of API's. curl and wget could be considered trademarks.
- sho_hn 10y agowine also ships a regedit.exe, a notepad.exe, ... you can construe this as implementing API (it's usually the motivation) but it gets mushy. PowerShell has a curl also to "implement an interface", however loosely.
- hulpult 10y agoIt takes them a while to actually admit they are wrong. Also, if you decide to work for Microsoft don't be surprised if you're treated as someone who works for Microsoft and helps them push their agenda.
- bastardoperator 10y agoI feel sorry for the cURL and wget chaps here. They did nothing wrong. When attempting to provide a fix they are met with bureaucracy. Microsoft tries to shut the conversation down, then feels attacked. It is sad that a multi-billion dollar company steals from open source projects.
- thewhitetulip 10y agoApparently a lot of people have this MS hates Open Source idea. A totally different experience you'll get when you follow the dev of VSCode, the team is just amazing, I don't know them, I don't like or hate MS but recent changes to MS has made MS embrace FOSS. Gone are the days when they pushed hard for the windows platform, now everyone runs multiple OSes, says the blog entry announcing PS.
- wineisfine 10y agoLet's not forget MS real motive here, which is indirectly, selling more of their software and bringing in more cash.
- JeffreySnover 10y agoEveryone has a family to feed right? There is no shame in trying to make money. Satya was super clear on this point - he told us to get out of our offices and go talk to customers and find out what they needed to be successful. "Don't worry about the money - if you are making customers successful, we have smart people that can figure out how to make money". To the all the engineers in our company - that was music to our ears! I understand your skepticism but there is a new Microsoft at work here. Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]
- wineisfine 10y agoSure thing, I get that. That's nice to hear from satya btw. It was just the sentiment of now "feeling bad for MS" is also a bridge too far. That said, a healthy, fit, "new" MS would be healthy for the whole ecosystem.