5 ms·

Google should learn from old Microsoft's mistakes and voluntarily become more partner-centric before they are forced down that road by the Government.

by nugget 9y ago

jayd16 9y ago
In what way is Microsoft more partner friendly than Google?
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  You can install Linux distributions and run them in Windows from Microsoft's own store. The bulk of .NET is open source. VSCode is pretty good. No one seems worried Microsoft will suddenly shut Azure down or lock non-Windows operating systems out. They did a lot of work to make git work on huge, complicated projects (for Windows) and shared it. (https://github.com/Microsoft/git https://github.com/Microsoft/git) Meanwhile, Google is...well, where are they? They never did give us that Linux Google Drive client they promised. They announce products then shut them down, so no one can really trust their products. Even the ones we had before Google lost its way (I miss Reader's trends feature). Aside from whoever's on the Takeout team, Google seems to have stopped caring about sharing and working with others.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    There's plenty to criticize in Google, but this idea that MS is suddenly so much better is absurd, in my opinion. Microsoft open sourced .NET. Meanwhile, Google... open sourced Android, Chromium (including V8), Tensorflow, Go, Dart, Angular, Kubernetes, and literally hundreds of other projects. They also fund Let's Encrypt and contributions to third-party OSS projects on their annual Summer of Code. And Microsoft was discontinued plenty of products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Microsoft_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Microsof... Finally, MS still uses patents as attack weapons, which AFAIK Google has never done.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      Android is a very bad example in that list. Most of the rest makes sense, but Android doesn’t. Android is a project where nowadays not even the dialing app is open source anymore, nor the calendar, email, home screen, nor camera. Android is a project where OEMs are banned from shipping competing forks of Android as long as they ship a single device with Google’s Android.
      - spacemanmatt 9y ago
        Sounds like a complaint that Google has open-sourced the OS they derive their product from, rather than open-sourcing their proprietary product.
        kuschku 9y ago
        Google had open sourced all of Android, until 7 years ago. In 2010, even the Google Search and Google Talk apps were open source. But Google is moving every year more of these features into the proprietary apps. Nowadays you can’t even use the OpenGL ES drivers anymore without going through the proprietary Play Services.
      - icebraining 9y ago
        And yet thanks to it we have Replicant, LineageOS, CopperheadOS and even - Microsoft-funded Cyanogen OS. It may not be great, but where the Windows Phone equivalent?
  - spacemanmatt 9y ago
    > You can install Linux distributions and then run them in Windows Ooook, sounds like you weren't around for the bad old days of Microsoft playing dirty tricks with their OS to sabotage application competitors. This friendly new open Microsoft is the result of decades of market pressure.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      Yes, Novell, Netscape, WordPerfect, Lotus 123, Lotus Notes, Spyglass, Borland, CP/M, OS/2, ColdFusion: all dead or a shell of their former selves. There were many, many more I can't even recall. Most were superior products and didn't lose because they weren't good. Hell, they nearly killed Apple. Spyglass was a particularly nasty stab in the back: The deal stipulated that Spyglass would receive a base quarterly fee for the Mosaic license plus a royalty from Microsoft's Internet Explorer revenue.[6] Microsoft subsequently bundled Internet Explorer with Windows, and thus (making no direct revenues on IE) paid only the minimum quarterly fee. Ouch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.
  - jayd16 9y ago
    >You can install Linux distributions and run them in Windows from Microsoft's own store. ...And both Chromium OS and Android are open source. How is MS more open because they let you install someone code on their closed OS?
    - candiodari 9y ago
      Neither is open source, sadly. Or you could say they technically are, but not enough is open source to actually ship either a phone or a browser without obvious deficiencies. https://fossbytes.com/difference-google-chrome-vs-chromium-browser/ https://fossbytes.com/difference-google-chrome-vs-chromium-b... https://source.android.com/source/faqs https://source.android.com/source/faqs
      - ktta 9y ago
        'Obvious deficiencies'? What do you mean? There forks of both Chromium OS and Android which are successfully running for a while now.
        candiodari 9y ago
        Chromium - the codec restrictions mean you can't get WebRTC working correctly. Android - nothing works in AOSP. And I mean nothing. You'd think a Phone OS, for instance, would be able to dial a phone number.
        ktta 9y ago
        Are you talking about Chromium or Chromium OS? They are very different things. Both of them have working OSS forks, or just work out of the box. Chromium (Browser) - Just chromium. Works without changes (except for Widewine EME). WebRTC is an open standard, and Google primarily uses open codecs like VP9 and Opus. Can you point to something you think says about restrictions? Chromium OS - Neverware sells a fork ('support' technically) to schools. You can download it for free. Android - Dial a phone number? Are you talking about the modem firmware? That's the phone manufacturer's fault, not AOSP's. There are obviously differences between closed source versions and what you get by immediately compiling. This is true when you have a real permissive license (non-copyleft) like Apache or BSD. You can't expect a company to release little thing, especially when that involves divulging info about other products they don't want to.

Google should learn from old Microsoft's mistakes and voluntarily become more partner-centric before they are forced down that road by the Government.

by nugget 9y ago

Google should learn from old Microsoft's mistakes and voluntarily become more partner-centric before they are forced down that road by the Government.

jayd16 9y ago

In what way is Microsoft more partner friendly than Google?

rainbowmverse 9y ago
You can install Linux distributions and run them in Windows from Microsoft's own store. The bulk of .NET is open source. VSCode is pretty good. No one seems worried Microsoft will suddenly shut Azure down or lock non-Windows operating systems out. They did a lot of work to make git work on huge, complicated projects (for Windows) and shared it. (https://github.com/Microsoft/git https://github.com/Microsoft/git) Meanwhile, Google is...well, where are they? They never did give us that Linux Google Drive client they promised. They announce products then shut them down, so no one can really trust their products. Even the ones we had before Google lost its way (I miss Reader's trends feature). Aside from whoever's on the Takeout team, Google seems to have stopped caring about sharing and working with others.
- icebraining 9y ago
  There's plenty to criticize in Google, but this idea that MS is suddenly so much better is absurd, in my opinion. Microsoft open sourced .NET. Meanwhile, Google... open sourced Android, Chromium (including V8), Tensorflow, Go, Dart, Angular, Kubernetes, and literally hundreds of other projects. They also fund Let's Encrypt and contributions to third-party OSS projects on their annual Summer of Code. And Microsoft was discontinued plenty of products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Microsoft_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Microsof... Finally, MS still uses patents as attack weapons, which AFAIK Google has never done.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Android is a very bad example in that list. Most of the rest makes sense, but Android doesn’t. Android is a project where nowadays not even the dialing app is open source anymore, nor the calendar, email, home screen, nor camera. Android is a project where OEMs are banned from shipping competing forks of Android as long as they ship a single device with Google’s Android.
    - spacemanmatt 9y ago
      Sounds like a complaint that Google has open-sourced the OS they derive their product from, rather than open-sourcing their proprietary product.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        Google had open sourced all of Android, until 7 years ago. In 2010, even the Google Search and Google Talk apps were open source. But Google is moving every year more of these features into the proprietary apps. Nowadays you can’t even use the OpenGL ES drivers anymore without going through the proprietary Play Services.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      And yet thanks to it we have Replicant, LineageOS, CopperheadOS and even - Microsoft-funded Cyanogen OS. It may not be great, but where the Windows Phone equivalent?
- spacemanmatt 9y ago
  > You can install Linux distributions and then run them in Windows Ooook, sounds like you weren't around for the bad old days of Microsoft playing dirty tricks with their OS to sabotage application competitors. This friendly new open Microsoft is the result of decades of market pressure.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Yes, Novell, Netscape, WordPerfect, Lotus 123, Lotus Notes, Spyglass, Borland, CP/M, OS/2, ColdFusion: all dead or a shell of their former selves. There were many, many more I can't even recall. Most were superior products and didn't lose because they weren't good. Hell, they nearly killed Apple. Spyglass was a particularly nasty stab in the back: The deal stipulated that Spyglass would receive a base quarterly fee for the Mosaic license plus a royalty from Microsoft's Internet Explorer revenue.[6] Microsoft subsequently bundled Internet Explorer with Windows, and thus (making no direct revenues on IE) paid only the minimum quarterly fee. Ouch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc.
- jayd16 9y ago
  >You can install Linux distributions and run them in Windows from Microsoft's own store. ...And both Chromium OS and Android are open source. How is MS more open because they let you install someone code on their closed OS?
  - candiodari 9y ago
    Neither is open source, sadly. Or you could say they technically are, but not enough is open source to actually ship either a phone or a browser without obvious deficiencies. https://fossbytes.com/difference-google-chrome-vs-chromium-browser/ https://fossbytes.com/difference-google-chrome-vs-chromium-b... https://source.android.com/source/faqs https://source.android.com/source/faqs
    - ktta 9y ago
      'Obvious deficiencies'? What do you mean? There forks of both Chromium OS and Android which are successfully running for a while now.
      - candiodari 9y ago
        Chromium - the codec restrictions mean you can't get WebRTC working correctly. Android - nothing works in AOSP. And I mean nothing. You'd think a Phone OS, for instance, would be able to dial a phone number.
        ktta 9y ago
        Are you talking about Chromium or Chromium OS? They are very different things. Both of them have working OSS forks, or just work out of the box. Chromium (Browser) - Just chromium. Works without changes (except for Widewine EME). WebRTC is an open standard, and Google primarily uses open codecs like VP9 and Opus. Can you point to something you think says about restrictions? Chromium OS - Neverware sells a fork ('support' technically) to schools. You can download it for free. Android - Dial a phone number? Are you talking about the modem firmware? That's the phone manufacturer's fault, not AOSP's. There are obviously differences between closed source versions and what you get by immediately compiling. This is true when you have a real permissive license (non-copyleft) like Apache or BSD. You can't expect a company to release little thing, especially when that involves divulging info about other products they don't want to.