4 ms·

You're mistaking Microsoft's purely reactive strategy to something like real planning and commitment to open source. MSFT has been pushing into that area (sort

You're mistaking Microsoft's purely reactive strategy to something like real planning and commitment to open source. MSFT has been pushing into that area (sort of) recently because they kept getting their lunch stolen by all of the open source technologies out there. Do you think it was anything but the most incredible terror and desperation that drove them to add a Linux subsystem to Windows? To open source their "crown jewel" of .NET? To support Linux on Azure? To make Visual Studio almost entirely free? To adopt Electron as the base for VS Code? To ditch TFS for GitHub? Edit: Corrected to be more precise Chromium vs. Electron.

pjmlp 9y ago
As much as I like .NET, the truth is that they are loosing mindshare among new generations. "Microsoft’s Open Source Developer Journey" https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Live-2017/Keynote https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Live-2017/Key...
- holydude 9y ago
  They are but they are trying to adapt. .NET core is an extremely aggressive way for them to attract the new generation. It's funny because the new generations still use Windows to develop on and Linux to deploy to and no one is denying this. But Microsoft somehow is accepting this shift and is trying to bring its stack on Linux and also Linux on Windows. I think Microsoft is smart,they really realized unlike Oracle and others that sometimes you cannot people force to use or do whatever you think is the best (looking at you Oracle,IBM,Apple) and literally giving people what they want is the best thing you can do to turn the tides.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Yes, Microsoft is pulling an IBM, because they are fully aware that if they don't change, long term it will make them suffer really bad.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  Interestingly, I'm seeing VS Code alot these days amongst "new generation" developers.
  - watwut 9y ago
    I have tried all free js ides and some paid. VS Code was the best and is free.
vertex-four 9y ago
> To adopt Chromium as the base for VS Code? Ehh, using Electron to write a relatively lightweight wrapper for Monaco (the editor component that was developed for an entirely different product) was an obvious technical choice if you were no longer restricted to only using Microsoft technologies. There's not a reasonable/supported alternative to Electron within Microsoft.
stupidcar 9y ago
It's funny how software developers have no problem whatsoever dealing with complexity, except when it comes to corporate behaviour, when they are unable to conceive of a company as anything other than a single, gestalt entity, with a single opinion and purpose, whose actions are driven by the most basic emotions and can be classified as good or evil with absolutely no grey-area. In the real world, companies are made up of lots of individuals, all with strong, differing opinions. Some people at Microsoft undoubtedly hate open source. Some of them undoubtedly love it. Many of them are probably, like most developers, somewhere in-between. They have no ideological investment, they just make use of it when it's useful. Having actually worked in the Microsoft ecosystem in past, I know that there have been people there for years who like open source, and who have pushed to make Microsoft a more open company. There's no doubt that competitive concerns have driven some of Microsoft's embrace of particular open source technologies, but to characterise their entire approach to open source as being: 1) entirely recent, and 2) completely fearful and reactive, has no basis in recorded fact, and does an appalling disservice to the many people who have spent many years (successfully) trying to change Microsoft's internal culture and make it more friendly to open source.
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  Well, maybe he is not talking about those people, but about the decision makers. And those strategic decision makers (a rather small community) dont love open source. Yes, even the new generation. Nobody does risky moves out of the sheer joy of doing them, especially if you have shareholders holding the Damocles sword of share-value over your neck. You do them, when you run out of options.
- munificent 9y ago
  I think a lot of people get into software because they dislike complexity and code gives them the opportunity to tackle it. You can't "solve" the complexity of humans and human interaction.
- gmiller123456 9y ago
  >they are unable to conceive of a company as anything other >than a single, gestalt entity, with a single opinion and >purpose, whose actions are driven by the most basic >emotions and can be classified as good or evil with >absolutely no grey-area. Seems like quite a straw man argument, there probably isn't a single person that actually fits your description. And it certainly does not describe a typical developer. As infamously documented in "The Windows Shutdown Crapfest" [1], in order for anything to be publicly observed outside of most large bureaucracies, a large number of people are involved, and their only common interest comes from very high up in the bureaucracy. So you usually do end up with a single, simple ideology presented to the public, even though there are a lot of people internally fighting for different things. [1] http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-c...
erikbye 9y ago
For all of Microsoft's attacks on open source, although not altruistically, their embrace of open source is not that recent. People seem to forget they launched a successful open source hub (CodePlex) two years before GitHub, which enjoyed popularity for years. F#'s compiler and tools has been Apache licensed since, what, 2005?
- g051051 9y ago
  CodePlex was created because they didn't want to use the (at the time) standard for Open Source, SourceForge. They abandoned it when GitHub rose to prominence. This was pretty much exactly what Google did as well, with Google Code.

pjmlp 9y ago

As much as I like .NET, the truth is that they are loosing mindshare among new generations. "Microsoft’s Open Source Developer Journey" https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Live-2017/Keynote https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Live-2017/Key...

holydude 9y ago
They are but they are trying to adapt. .NET core is an extremely aggressive way for them to attract the new generation. It's funny because the new generations still use Windows to develop on and Linux to deploy to and no one is denying this. But Microsoft somehow is accepting this shift and is trying to bring its stack on Linux and also Linux on Windows. I think Microsoft is smart,they really realized unlike Oracle and others that sometimes you cannot people force to use or do whatever you think is the best (looking at you Oracle,IBM,Apple) and literally giving people what they want is the best thing you can do to turn the tides.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Yes, Microsoft is pulling an IBM, because they are fully aware that if they don't change, long term it will make them suffer really bad.
bdcravens 9y ago
Interestingly, I'm seeing VS Code alot these days amongst "new generation" developers.
- watwut 9y ago
  I have tried all free js ides and some paid. VS Code was the best and is free.

vertex-four 9y ago

> To adopt Chromium as the base for VS Code? Ehh, using Electron to write a relatively lightweight wrapper for Monaco (the editor component that was developed for an entirely different product) was an obvious technical choice if you were no longer restricted to only using Microsoft technologies. There's not a reasonable/supported alternative to Electron within Microsoft.

stupidcar 9y ago

It's funny how software developers have no problem whatsoever dealing with complexity, except when it comes to corporate behaviour, when they are unable to conceive of a company as anything other than a single, gestalt entity, with a single opinion and purpose, whose actions are driven by the most basic emotions and can be classified as good or evil with absolutely no grey-area. In the real world, companies are made up of lots of individuals, all with strong, differing opinions. Some people at Microsoft undoubtedly hate open source. Some of them undoubtedly love it. Many of them are probably, like most developers, somewhere in-between. They have no ideological investment, they just make use of it when it's useful. Having actually worked in the Microsoft ecosystem in past, I know that there have been people there for years who like open source, and who have pushed to make Microsoft a more open company. There's no doubt that competitive concerns have driven some of Microsoft's embrace of particular open source technologies, but to characterise their entire approach to open source as being: 1) entirely recent, and 2) completely fearful and reactive, has no basis in recorded fact, and does an appalling disservice to the many people who have spent many years (successfully) trying to change Microsoft's internal culture and make it more friendly to open source.

Pica_soO 9y ago
Well, maybe he is not talking about those people, but about the decision makers. And those strategic decision makers (a rather small community) dont love open source. Yes, even the new generation. Nobody does risky moves out of the sheer joy of doing them, especially if you have shareholders holding the Damocles sword of share-value over your neck. You do them, when you run out of options.
munificent 9y ago
I think a lot of people get into software because they dislike complexity and code gives them the opportunity to tackle it. You can't "solve" the complexity of humans and human interaction.
gmiller123456 9y ago
>they are unable to conceive of a company as anything other >than a single, gestalt entity, with a single opinion and >purpose, whose actions are driven by the most basic >emotions and can be classified as good or evil with >absolutely no grey-area. Seems like quite a straw man argument, there probably isn't a single person that actually fits your description. And it certainly does not describe a typical developer. As infamously documented in "The Windows Shutdown Crapfest" [1], in order for anything to be publicly observed outside of most large bureaucracies, a large number of people are involved, and their only common interest comes from very high up in the bureaucracy. So you usually do end up with a single, simple ideology presented to the public, even though there are a lot of people internally fighting for different things. [1] http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-c...

erikbye 9y ago

For all of Microsoft's attacks on open source, although not altruistically, their embrace of open source is not that recent. People seem to forget they launched a successful open source hub (CodePlex) two years before GitHub, which enjoyed popularity for years. F#'s compiler and tools has been Apache licensed since, what, 2005?

g051051 9y ago
CodePlex was created because they didn't want to use the (at the time) standard for Open Source, SourceForge. They abandoned it when GitHub rose to prominence. This was pretty much exactly what Google did as well, with Google Code.