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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extingui... Let's see how they'll try the ne

• airesQ 10y ago
  I really don't see how that strategy would work with open source projects. Wouldn't most contributions for the "extend" phase be open source? Once open source, it's much harder to extinguish.
  • ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Mostly just ignore the parent comment, some people are inherently compelled to link a twenty year old business strategy on EVERY Microsoft-related thread.
    • quickben 10y ago
      I can see you aren't reading the current changes in ms db licencing costs, not moving a finger about Kronos to favour directx and the likes. What do you think changed in ms after 20 years? Them providing a cute text editor for Linux and now they are the good guys?
  • nilved 10y ago
    Nope. In fact, that term is almost always applied to open technology. Right now Red Hat is doing it to Linux and Google is doing it to the Web. See the list of examples on the linked article for more.
  • akerro 10y ago
    Open source means nothing and is same easy to extinguish, it's only more visible when someone is trying to. Microsoft, Google, Apple do open source work for publicity, if you as a single developer want a change in a projects, you submit PR... and wait weeks. First you need to write RFC, at some point RFC will be discussed behind closed doors by corporatisation members, you can have your vote in it on GitHub, but nothing else as we saw once already with MS. All you can do is fix documentation and tests for them, means they get free labour to improve their products, you can have an important repo forked on GitHub.
    • edgyswingset 10y ago
      So have you ever contributed to OSS projects by these companies? I ask because what you've described is definitely not the case from what I can see.
  • quickben 10y ago
    It would probably be some proprietary extensions in something like systemD. Increase the complexity to code about 10x to eliminate the small devs, etc. Nothing we haven't seen with the open doc standard, ActiveX, Java portability, etc. You have to think more business like. Why extinguish Linux when every copy running somewhere can give you licencing income. Maybe they'll partner with redhat and provide them something that has to be paid. Unlimited possibilities really.
• jpalomaki 10y ago
  I don't think this strategy would work anymore on these fields. Microsoft does not have dominant market share in cloud, server operating systems, development platforms or databases and it does not look like they could gain it. The dominating position is key for the embrace, extended, extinguish because that's the way to push your own stuff to market. I believe Microsoft is doing these moves, because they have decided that the old business model where all products are required to support the sales of each other is too risky. It served them well, but now there are too many good alternatives on many areas. If Azure does not support Linux, customers are not going to migrate to Windows because of that, they just pick another cloud. The old way was risky, because it meant that if customers moved away from Windows, they also had to move away from .NET and SQL Server.
• lwn 10y ago
  The strategy fits perfectly: Embrace Ubuntu into Windows, let the dev community grow. Then add windows-specific hooks and additions for open-source software to build against. At last destroy the backward compatibility to end linux. This is what they have always done, why should this time be different.
• anonbanker 10y ago
  Extend/extinguish everything that isn't GPLv3, replace whatever is.