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In this thread: Microsoft aligns their business interests with open source projects and extends financial support to those projects, therefore they must be tryi

by jgowdy 9y ago

In this thread: Microsoft aligns their business interests with open source projects and extends financial support to those projects, therefore they must be trying to destroy open source, force everyone to run Windows, and have Linus Torvalds assassinated. Have you ever met people who work at Microsoft? The Microsoft engineers are just engineers like you and I. Some of them are some of the best and brightest in the industry. Microsoft has made major contributions to technology that some people just aren’t aware of or don’t seem to care about. The “evil” that existed at Microsoft was largely an upper management issue. There has been significant change in upper management. But here’s what’s important. Ask yourself where Microsoft’s interests lie today. Their goal is to get people on Azure. They don’t give a damn if you run Linux or Windows Server. They aren’t stupid enough to fail to realize that ship has already sailed. They’ll keep developing and selling Windows Server to the people who depend on it and collect that revenue, but the future for them is Azure. And that doesn’t require that they extinguish or destroy anything. I would also like to say that members of the open source community have taken jobs at Microsoft, obviously convinced that Microsoft’s private plans match their ideals and principles moving forward. TL;DR If Microsoft’s profit motive in Azure aligns with open source, why do so many people continue to need to infer sinister motives?

whatshisface 9y ago
Because history repeats itself - especially when the same groups are approaching the same situation with the same motives. >The “evil” that existed at Microsoft was largely an upper management issue. There has been significant change in upper management. Recent anti-consumer actions indicate that this may not be the case. Come on, ads on the start menu? Today's MS has done things even Gates' MS didn't. >They aren’t stupid enough to fail to realize that ship has already sailed. That doesn't stop them from wanting to go out and turn that ship around. >They’ll keep developing and selling Windows Server to the people who depend on it and collect that revenue, but the future for them is Azure. Cloud compute is a commodity, even one of the major things sold by internet Wal-Mart. Is that really where Microsoft wants to go? It's almost implicit that they're going to want to "differentiate" their service, which means developing lock-in but only once you've got people into the fold. >TL;DR If Microsoft’s profit motive in Azure aligns with open source, why do so many people continue to need to infer sinister motives? This isn't the first time Microsoft's profit motives have appeared to allign with an open technology. This wouldn't be the first time they moved to capture it, ruining it for everybody, either. Microsoft has realized that nobody is going to sign up for an unhealthy, rent-based ecosystem. So, out comes the carrot, with absolutely no contract with you that they won't replace it with a stick. We're entering an era were large businesses can treat small businesses like large businesses treat consumers - that is, no negotiation, no contract garuntees, just take-it-or-leave-it on slowly worsening terms.
- kazagistar 9y ago
  > It's almost implicit that they're going to want to "differentiate" their service, which means developing lock-in but only once you've got people into the fold. This describes every major cloud computing provider, especially Amazon. They pull you in with generalized computing, and c then try to entice you to their much more specific locked in PaaS offering.
- steego 9y ago
  > Cloud compute is a commodity, even one of the major things sold by internet Wal-Mart. Is that really where Microsoft wants to go? If you think the direction of cloud computing is heading towards commodification, then it's very clear you don't understand Microsoft's strategy or Amazon's strategy. Selling VMs and containers are commodity services that every large cloud provider must sell so they don't disqualify themselves, but the margins suck and the lock-in is minimal. Look at the AWS and Azure catalog. There's a tremendous amount of value added services that go beyond selling commodity systems and they are selling. They're selling for one simple reason: Most people don't want to build their own cloud scalable architectures, they want to solve their problems. If AWS and Azure can make it easy for an intern to set up auto-scaling databases and Kafka messaging system, then their manager is more likely to will be willing to pay a premium of the company's money so they can meet their deadlines.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
arca_vorago 9y ago
" need to infer sinister motives?" As a sysadmin supporting their crap for almost 2 decades now, there is absolutely no need to infer anything at all. Microsoft is not acting in good faith, Windows 10 was the last straw for me, and I've never felt better than since I went completely gnu+linux. The particulars have been hashed out elsewhere, but please, stop trying to pretend "MS is different now". If anything, it's worse.

by jgowdy 9y ago

whatshisface 9y ago

Because history repeats itself - especially when the same groups are approaching the same situation with the same motives. >The “evil” that existed at Microsoft was largely an upper management issue. There has been significant change in upper management. Recent anti-consumer actions indicate that this may not be the case. Come on, ads on the start menu? Today's MS has done things even Gates' MS didn't. >They aren’t stupid enough to fail to realize that ship has already sailed. That doesn't stop them from wanting to go out and turn that ship around. >They’ll keep developing and selling Windows Server to the people who depend on it and collect that revenue, but the future for them is Azure. Cloud compute is a commodity, even one of the major things sold by internet Wal-Mart. Is that really where Microsoft wants to go? It's almost implicit that they're going to want to "differentiate" their service, which means developing lock-in but only once you've got people into the fold. >TL;DR If Microsoft’s profit motive in Azure aligns with open source, why do so many people continue to need to infer sinister motives? This isn't the first time Microsoft's profit motives have appeared to allign with an open technology. This wouldn't be the first time they moved to capture it, ruining it for everybody, either. Microsoft has realized that nobody is going to sign up for an unhealthy, rent-based ecosystem. So, out comes the carrot, with absolutely no contract with you that they won't replace it with a stick. We're entering an era were large businesses can treat small businesses like large businesses treat consumers - that is, no negotiation, no contract garuntees, just take-it-or-leave-it on slowly worsening terms.

kazagistar 9y ago
> It's almost implicit that they're going to want to "differentiate" their service, which means developing lock-in but only once you've got people into the fold. This describes every major cloud computing provider, especially Amazon. They pull you in with generalized computing, and c then try to entice you to their much more specific locked in PaaS offering.
steego 9y ago
> Cloud compute is a commodity, even one of the major things sold by internet Wal-Mart. Is that really where Microsoft wants to go? If you think the direction of cloud computing is heading towards commodification, then it's very clear you don't understand Microsoft's strategy or Amazon's strategy. Selling VMs and containers are commodity services that every large cloud provider must sell so they don't disqualify themselves, but the margins suck and the lock-in is minimal. Look at the AWS and Azure catalog. There's a tremendous amount of value added services that go beyond selling commodity systems and they are selling. They're selling for one simple reason: Most people don't want to build their own cloud scalable architectures, they want to solve their problems. If AWS and Azure can make it easy for an intern to set up auto-scaling databases and Kafka messaging system, then their manager is more likely to will be willing to pay a premium of the company's money so they can meet their deadlines.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

arca_vorago 9y ago

" need to infer sinister motives?" As a sysadmin supporting their crap for almost 2 decades now, there is absolutely no need to infer anything at all. Microsoft is not acting in good faith, Windows 10 was the last straw for me, and I've never felt better than since I went completely gnu+linux. The particulars have been hashed out elsewhere, but please, stop trying to pretend "MS is different now". If anything, it's worse.