7 ms·

The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Companies change leadership, direction and style and it see

The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Companies change leadership, direction and style and it seems odd to suggest that there's some underlying quality which means that, regardless of that, you can never trust them (or in reverse that you should always trust a company you once trusted) There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same company they were in the 90's, but the senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. Is that to say that the Github acquisition will be an unalloyed good, no. but I would say that people shouldn't automatically assume that it'll be a disaster...

TimTheTinker 8y ago
> but the senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. Not disagreeing with your overall point, but culture can persist through employee and leadership turnover.
- disiplus 8y ago
  not only that but i would be more willing to accept the change as hones if it did not came out of the previous failed attempt at "Embrace, extend, and extinguish", but to me this honestly feels just as another attempt with different strategy, they are taking a play from googles book.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  And the people who reached the top now are the ones who lived and worked happily in Toxic Microsoft of the past 20 years. I dont buy in their change of nature either.
RyanZAG 8y ago
Windows 10 is really recent though. That said, since I like controversy: I'm happier to see Microsoft buy Github than I would be to see Google or Facebook buy it. And also! A big shoutout to Linus for helping to make source control distributed and open, which means swapping between git providers (for the code at least) is simple, easy and impossible to block. The amount of good Linus has done for the world is incredible.
- mpartel 8y ago
  Another recent example: lockdown of ARM-based Windows machines, preventing the installation of other operating systems.
  - badsectoracula 8y ago
    I really dislike how you get downvoted (your message is faded out) here. Do people really applaud removal of control of their own devices?
    - Wurdan 8y ago
      I think it's because Microsoft's reason for doing this is plausible and not as anti-competitive as that comment makes it seem - locking down the boot process has serious security benefits.
      - mpartel 8y ago
        I admit I may be ignorant, but could you spell out the security benefits of going from "locked down but user-openable" to "not user-openable"? (edit: specifically benefits that couldn't be effectively addressed by making it a little difficult and scary to open that lockdown?)
        nailer 8y ago
        If it's openable it's not locked down. If I can't trust the kernel then every level above it is tainted (this is assuming you can trust the CPU and firmware, but at least ARM is better than Intel here).
        mpartel 8y ago
        OK, let me be more accurate: "user-openable" in the sense that the user is free to choose to trust any OS vendor they want. What's the unmitigatable harm?
NullPrefix 8y ago
>The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Are companies people?
cecja 8y ago
Tainted for the past? Did you see what happened with windows 10 or that they are not able to fix skype? To be honest there are screens popping up every day from one stupid mistake after another from ms. They have more dead products in their portfolio than anyone else they embraced change on the xbox to do a 360 afterwards. NO ONE and I mean NO ONE should put any hope into MS doing the right thing or be a reliable partner for a business. They just burned way to many bridges. Don't get me wrong if you are going for core business stuff like windows ltsb or azure you gonna be fine but never jump on anything new and hype from ms.
- raesene9 8y ago
  So a company that has a bad product launch or problems should be avoided? Would you avoid all google products (and indeed most other tech. companies) on that basis as well? they've had their fair share of things gone wrong, products killed etc. I don't see that as a strong argument against an MS acquisition of GH. Microsoft have had quite a good story in recent times in the developer tools arena (e.g. Code)
  - cecja 8y ago
    Well, google is in the same boat as ms with their 8 messaging apps killing of services left and right. As I said if you use to core products you are fine. MS and google left to many shit stains on the carpet to be trusted anymore. You have to be kidding me with the developer tools arena just because you are one of the hipsters falling for wsl and vscode doesn't mean they have done good for the general programming platform. Look at the UWP/win32 dilemma or the PWA "integration" or even .NET. If they don't fix their stack I am not gonna praise them for some gimmicks like you are.
  - executesorder66 8y ago
    > a bad product launch So are you telling me that windows 10 has stopped forced updates (and the forced restarts that go along with that), stopped all OS-level advertisements, and made it easy to permanently turn off all telemetry on one settings page? Or is their product still a flaming pile of shit?
Nullabillity 8y ago
Anyone with any morals would never want to be associated with the Microsoft name, so anyone who does is untrustworthy by default. And besides, the current CEO was the one who went from Scroogled to mandatory telemetry, while focusing on renting out servers at a ridiculous markups. Don't forget the new focus on the Windows Store either. Or the locked-down ARM laptops. So it's not like the current management is innocent either.
- btschaegg 8y ago
  Anyone with any morals would never want to be associated with the Microsoft name, so anyone who does is untrustworthy by default. I'm not in the pro MS camp in this debate, but that sounds like a "no true scotsman" to me.
  - OrderlyTiamat 8y ago
    It's modus ponens, no logical fallacy here.
    - btschaegg 8y ago
      I disagree with you there. "Modus ponens" implies sound reasoning on the implication part, not ad-hoc claims and hyperbole. As a thought experiment: Replace "Microsoft" with your favorite open source project and see if the argumentation still holds.
latch 8y ago
What you say is worth considering, but I think you implicitly overstate two points: 1) their shenanigans aren't as old as you imply 2) these crimes happen over the course of years. You talk about the 90s, but it was in 2004 that the EU ruled against them, and 2008 that they were fined for ignoring that ruling. It was in 2011 that Ireland and Spain started to investigate them for additional anticompetitive practices (though I can't seem to find what cam from this). Much more recently, they've been rather litigious with respect to patents (Microsoft uses patents offensively). Then there's the telemetry stuff in windows and Skype centralization, and probably more that I don't know because... What _has_ changed, is Microsoft's relevance. They're still huge in some markets, but many business' and individuals barely interact directly with the Microsoft platform/ecosystem.
scbrg 8y ago
> There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same company they were in the 90's, but the senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. Their senior leadership consists of people who were obviously OK with working for Microsoft when it was performing all those misdeeds. They may have changed as people perhaps, but at some point the very same people who are making the strategic decisions now decided that working for the 90's incarnation of Microsoft was a morally acceptable choice. I'm not sure why I should suddenly start trusting these people now?
amelius 8y ago
Also don't forget that Microsoft Research has published an enormous amount of papers, whereas Apple Research ... (does it even exist?)
- oldcynic 8y ago
  I can appreciate some of MS Research's papers and former personalities whilst still having zero trust in MS Corp.
  - amelius 8y ago
    Perhaps the whole concept of having trust in a company is flawed, as board members come and go, and shareholders keep pushing the company to the boundaries of what is desired/acceptable from a societal perspective.
oldcynic 8y ago
I see no evidence that they are a better company. They are currently embracing open source and Linux, very visibly. Phases two and three will be along soon enough. (Extend, Extinguish)
Aaargh20318 8y ago
The biggest problem with the acquisition is that it's yet another core piece of infrastructure gobbled up by one of the big players. Do we really want to move towards a world where there will be just one huge tech company that owns everything ? Because that's where we're heading.
setquk 8y ago
Personally I believe that the only difference is the marketing. There is little two way communication going which is the same old Microsoft. Are they listening to their customers complain about telemetry, enterprise licensing, support and product stability and dependability? No. They're blinding everyone in an attempt to cover up the decrease in privacy, data collection ramping, gouging of enterprises to force them into the cloud, the declining quality of support and declining product quality. Even targeting the platform is like hitting a moving target that is on fire. But it's ok because someone said they're a new company and they have a new figurehead. I don't buy it. I'd be an idiot to buy it. I've been around a long time and this is a typical corporate cycle. They run like the sunspot cycle. We're at a solar minima at the moment.
sametmax 8y ago
First, MS hasn't stop its bad behavior. When did you think it stopped ? They became better at PR (their teams even pop in HN, Reddit or ...Imgur, they are very good), and they can get away with less BS because they have better competition. They did not get better. Secondly, with your point of view, as a society, you just promote abusing entities. Politicians, companies, anything with power really. They make a lot of bad things, on a lot of years, then benefit from it, and now boom, what ? Stairway to heaven, along with the loot they got from the misdeeds ? This is how you end up with corrupted systems and unfair societies. You don't have to punish them again and again for the crimes of yesterday. But yes, it's perfectly fair, and actually sane, to remember, and say you don't want to have more relationship with them now.
merinowool 8y ago
Microsoft is pure evil - they wanted to access my computer after I upgraded cpu and motherboard as Windows 10 deactivated. That is despite I have full retail version. It took three days so that they acknowledged they won't get remote access. They required me to run some weird binaries to activate Windows again. That was super creepy. - Soon after I bought VS2015 pro, VS2017 was released. They didn't want to give me a refund so I would get VS2017 or didn't offer upgrade price. Consultants were rude. Windows is a spy machine. I only run it for software that doesn't work on Linux. I hope Microsoft dies. I am in the process of moving my stuff off of GitHub.
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > - they wanted to access my computer after I upgraded cpu and motherboard as Windows 10 deactivated. That is despite I have full retail version. It took three days so that they acknowledged they won't get remote access. They required me to run some weird binaries to activate Windows again. That was super creepy. Are you sure that you were not scammed?
  - merinowool 8y ago
    I am sure. That was via Microsoft Support chat and email.
diffeomorphism 8y ago
> The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. That sounds odd because pretty much nobody has that idea. The alternative to looking too much at history is not to ignore history completely.
rbanffy 8y ago
> senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. This is largely irrelevant. Saying Microsoft makes a lot of money from hosting Linux workloads on Linux machines does not change the fact they'd make even more profit if Google and AWS were unable to compete. In that regard, open source is a tool to lure workloads into an environment Microsoft can control and shape to its will. Microsoft's incentives are still aligned with harming the parts of the open-source ecosystem that don't run on Windows. That has not changed (and won't, as long as they make and sell proprietary software platforms).
saintPirelli 8y ago
Considering your point, what has Microsoft done since the 90's to make you believe they had a change of heart/culture/orientation?
- raesene9 8y ago
  They're the largest corporate contributor to open source projects on GitHub :)
  - saintPirelli 8y ago
    Taht means little to me. Is Facebook excused for their scandals because they open-sourced and maintain React?
    - raesene9 8y ago
      It may mean little to you but you asked me what I saw, not what you saw :)
Nursie 8y ago
Their pattern of bad behaviour extended far beyond the 90s, and all the stuff that happened with Nokia gives me pause as well. As was their OOXML, ISO-stacking shenanigans. Microsoft have a history of bad behaviour, and repeatedly abusing monopoly positions. How many chances at goodwill should I give them?
gurkendoktor 8y ago
> the senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. And what about their clients/cash flows? Microsoft still sells to enterprises and governments, so their incentives are to keep adding backdoors and Orwellian telemetry to everything. At least in the late nineties I felt that Microsoft was merely unfair to their competitors. Now they're openly hostile to their end-users as well.
ekianjo 8y ago
But companies dont change shareholders much. They are the real bosses in the end of the day.
jgaa 8y ago
I have been around since Microsoft's core product was Basic under CP/M. It was not so bad. Later, Microsoft had one of the best debuggers for Unix. I used it every day for years. Then Microsoft became bigger and bigger and they did that by becoming increasingly Evil. The problem with Microsoft today is not that all their technology is bad, sluggish and annoying. They still have some competent developers working there. The problem is that although they put on a lot of lipstick - they are still dead Evil. They want your data. They want to do all the bad things Amazon, Facebook and Google (data mining) Apple (exclusive sales of Windows applications trough their store - and forcing you to have their music, xbox and other crap installed on your computer). The only reason Microsoft is not generally regarded as Evil today is share incompetence. They don't know how to make an instant messenger - so Skype is useless and people use other programs. They don't know how to make a large website - so Linkedin is just as useless as Skype. People leave. Nokia is the best example of Microsoft's incompetence. They buy the most successful phone brand in the history of the world - and in just a few years it's over. The employees are fired, nobody wants the phones, and their appstore is a wasteland of useless crap nobody wants (that's what happens when quantity (number of 'apps') is the only measurement for 'success'). Microsoft wants your data. They want video-cameras in your home. They want to listen in to what you talk about in your bedroom. They want to sell that data to 'Partners', advertisers and law enforcement. They want to be Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook - but they have no idea about how to make anything that people actually wants. So they buy successful enterprises, redeploy their army of managers from hell there, and turns it into dirt. That happened to Nokia. That happened to Skype. I think that was what happened to Linkedin (I don't know the inside story, just that it quickly became useless). Now they want to do the same to github. So sad. For developers, it's not a question about to leave or not to leave. It's just a question about when. No matter how much you love or hate Microsoft - they will for sure turn github into dirt - like everything they touch - and then at some point you will leave. Eventually you'll have to leave in 2 years when the shut it down.
- mortdeus 8y ago
  "They still have some competent developers working there. The problem is that although they put on a lot of lipstick - they are still dead Evil." The problem is that they have some competent developers working there, when realistically they need badass talent like Google and Apple has. Whether or not a company is evil is subject to opinion on what you think a company is meant to do. A company is meant to be profitable. The only thing I see in this acquisition is that Microsoft want's to improve it hiring abilities and to gain control on a few open source projects like Electron and Atom. Projects that they use for example in VS Code. Like I wouldn't be surprised if Electron was their only interest because of Web Assembly being on the horizon and the fact that Windows is still the dominant desktop OS, but their web store doesn't deliver like Google or Apple stores because developers attention is already split between Android, IOS, and Web development. Long story short, Microsoft has a lot to gain by integrating Electron into Windows because to develop for Web is essentially the same as developing for Windows. (in this regard they gain the same edge that ChromeOS has) Plus the more Microsoft embraces open source the closer we get to a Linux based Windows OS. Which sounds horrifying until you consider that Linux shipping on every computer in the world means all these projects developed for Linux will get to actually see the light of day.
IanSanders 8y ago
>but I would say that people shouldn't automatically assume that it'll be a disaster... Are you saying the purpose of this acquisition is to make GitHub better? If not, why would Microsoft be interested in buying it?
ringbugger 8y ago
Take a look at recent technologies they tried to push. UWP for example. I don't see any change in direction here, to be honest. They try to lock-in developers on every step. Many devs are looking elsewhere, so they paint themselves as having changed. And they did, to an extend. But you if they ever get in a position where they could reign in developers, you can count on it that they will try.

TimTheTinker 8y ago

> but the senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. Not disagreeing with your overall point, but culture can persist through employee and leadership turnover.

disiplus 8y ago
not only that but i would be more willing to accept the change as hones if it did not came out of the previous failed attempt at "Embrace, extend, and extinguish", but to me this honestly feels just as another attempt with different strategy, they are taking a play from googles book.
ekianjo 8y ago
And the people who reached the top now are the ones who lived and worked happily in Toxic Microsoft of the past 20 years. I dont buy in their change of nature either.

RyanZAG 8y ago

Windows 10 is really recent though. That said, since I like controversy: I'm happier to see Microsoft buy Github than I would be to see Google or Facebook buy it. And also! A big shoutout to Linus for helping to make source control distributed and open, which means swapping between git providers (for the code at least) is simple, easy and impossible to block. The amount of good Linus has done for the world is incredible.

mpartel 8y ago
Another recent example: lockdown of ARM-based Windows machines, preventing the installation of other operating systems.
- badsectoracula 8y ago
  I really dislike how you get downvoted (your message is faded out) here. Do people really applaud removal of control of their own devices?
  - Wurdan 8y ago
    I think it's because Microsoft's reason for doing this is plausible and not as anti-competitive as that comment makes it seem - locking down the boot process has serious security benefits.
    - mpartel 8y ago
      I admit I may be ignorant, but could you spell out the security benefits of going from "locked down but user-openable" to "not user-openable"? (edit: specifically benefits that couldn't be effectively addressed by making it a little difficult and scary to open that lockdown?)
      - nailer 8y ago
        If it's openable it's not locked down. If I can't trust the kernel then every level above it is tainted (this is assuming you can trust the CPU and firmware, but at least ARM is better than Intel here).
        mpartel 8y ago
        OK, let me be more accurate: "user-openable" in the sense that the user is free to choose to trust any OS vendor they want. What's the unmitigatable harm?

NullPrefix 8y ago

>The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Are companies people?

cecja 8y ago

Tainted for the past? Did you see what happened with windows 10 or that they are not able to fix skype? To be honest there are screens popping up every day from one stupid mistake after another from ms. They have more dead products in their portfolio than anyone else they embraced change on the xbox to do a 360 afterwards. NO ONE and I mean NO ONE should put any hope into MS doing the right thing or be a reliable partner for a business. They just burned way to many bridges. Don't get me wrong if you are going for core business stuff like windows ltsb or azure you gonna be fine but never jump on anything new and hype from ms.

raesene9 8y ago
So a company that has a bad product launch or problems should be avoided? Would you avoid all google products (and indeed most other tech. companies) on that basis as well? they've had their fair share of things gone wrong, products killed etc. I don't see that as a strong argument against an MS acquisition of GH. Microsoft have had quite a good story in recent times in the developer tools arena (e.g. Code)
- cecja 8y ago
  Well, google is in the same boat as ms with their 8 messaging apps killing of services left and right. As I said if you use to core products you are fine. MS and google left to many shit stains on the carpet to be trusted anymore. You have to be kidding me with the developer tools arena just because you are one of the hipsters falling for wsl and vscode doesn't mean they have done good for the general programming platform. Look at the UWP/win32 dilemma or the PWA "integration" or even .NET. If they don't fix their stack I am not gonna praise them for some gimmicks like you are.
- executesorder66 8y ago
  > a bad product launch So are you telling me that windows 10 has stopped forced updates (and the forced restarts that go along with that), stopped all OS-level advertisements, and made it easy to permanently turn off all telemetry on one settings page? Or is their product still a flaming pile of shit?

Nullabillity 8y ago

Anyone with any morals would never want to be associated with the Microsoft name, so anyone who does is untrustworthy by default. And besides, the current CEO was the one who went from Scroogled to mandatory telemetry, while focusing on renting out servers at a ridiculous markups. Don't forget the new focus on the Windows Store either. Or the locked-down ARM laptops. So it's not like the current management is innocent either.

btschaegg 8y ago
Anyone with any morals would never want to be associated with the Microsoft name, so anyone who does is untrustworthy by default. I'm not in the pro MS camp in this debate, but that sounds like a "no true scotsman" to me.
- OrderlyTiamat 8y ago
  It's modus ponens, no logical fallacy here.
  - btschaegg 8y ago
    I disagree with you there. "Modus ponens" implies sound reasoning on the implication part, not ad-hoc claims and hyperbole. As a thought experiment: Replace "Microsoft" with your favorite open source project and see if the argumentation still holds.

latch 8y ago

What you say is worth considering, but I think you implicitly overstate two points: 1) their shenanigans aren't as old as you imply 2) these crimes happen over the course of years. You talk about the 90s, but it was in 2004 that the EU ruled against them, and 2008 that they were fined for ignoring that ruling. It was in 2011 that Ireland and Spain started to investigate them for additional anticompetitive practices (though I can't seem to find what cam from this). Much more recently, they've been rather litigious with respect to patents (Microsoft uses patents offensively). Then there's the telemetry stuff in windows and Skype centralization, and probably more that I don't know because... What _has_ changed, is Microsoft's relevance. They're still huge in some markets, but many business' and individuals barely interact directly with the Microsoft platform/ecosystem.

scbrg 8y ago

> There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same company they were in the 90's, but the senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. Their senior leadership consists of people who were obviously OK with working for Microsoft when it was performing all those misdeeds. They may have changed as people perhaps, but at some point the very same people who are making the strategic decisions now decided that working for the 90's incarnation of Microsoft was a morally acceptable choice. I'm not sure why I should suddenly start trusting these people now?

amelius 8y ago

Also don't forget that Microsoft Research has published an enormous amount of papers, whereas Apple Research ... (does it even exist?)

oldcynic 8y ago
I can appreciate some of MS Research's papers and former personalities whilst still having zero trust in MS Corp.
- amelius 8y ago
  Perhaps the whole concept of having trust in a company is flawed, as board members come and go, and shareholders keep pushing the company to the boundaries of what is desired/acceptable from a societal perspective.

oldcynic 8y ago

I see no evidence that they are a better company. They are currently embracing open source and Linux, very visibly. Phases two and three will be along soon enough. (Extend, Extinguish)

Aaargh20318 8y ago

The biggest problem with the acquisition is that it's yet another core piece of infrastructure gobbled up by one of the big players. Do we really want to move towards a world where there will be just one huge tech company that owns everything ? Because that's where we're heading.

setquk 8y ago

Personally I believe that the only difference is the marketing. There is little two way communication going which is the same old Microsoft. Are they listening to their customers complain about telemetry, enterprise licensing, support and product stability and dependability? No. They're blinding everyone in an attempt to cover up the decrease in privacy, data collection ramping, gouging of enterprises to force them into the cloud, the declining quality of support and declining product quality. Even targeting the platform is like hitting a moving target that is on fire. But it's ok because someone said they're a new company and they have a new figurehead. I don't buy it. I'd be an idiot to buy it. I've been around a long time and this is a typical corporate cycle. They run like the sunspot cycle. We're at a solar minima at the moment.

sametmax 8y ago

First, MS hasn't stop its bad behavior. When did you think it stopped ? They became better at PR (their teams even pop in HN, Reddit or ...Imgur, they are very good), and they can get away with less BS because they have better competition. They did not get better. Secondly, with your point of view, as a society, you just promote abusing entities. Politicians, companies, anything with power really. They make a lot of bad things, on a lot of years, then benefit from it, and now boom, what ? Stairway to heaven, along with the loot they got from the misdeeds ? This is how you end up with corrupted systems and unfair societies. You don't have to punish them again and again for the crimes of yesterday. But yes, it's perfectly fair, and actually sane, to remember, and say you don't want to have more relationship with them now.

merinowool 8y ago

Microsoft is pure evil - they wanted to access my computer after I upgraded cpu and motherboard as Windows 10 deactivated. That is despite I have full retail version. It took three days so that they acknowledged they won't get remote access. They required me to run some weird binaries to activate Windows again. That was super creepy. - Soon after I bought VS2015 pro, VS2017 was released. They didn't want to give me a refund so I would get VS2017 or didn't offer upgrade price. Consultants were rude. Windows is a spy machine. I only run it for software that doesn't work on Linux. I hope Microsoft dies. I am in the process of moving my stuff off of GitHub.

wolfgke 8y ago
> - they wanted to access my computer after I upgraded cpu and motherboard as Windows 10 deactivated. That is despite I have full retail version. It took three days so that they acknowledged they won't get remote access. They required me to run some weird binaries to activate Windows again. That was super creepy. Are you sure that you were not scammed?
- merinowool 8y ago
  I am sure. That was via Microsoft Support chat and email.

diffeomorphism 8y ago

> The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. That sounds odd because pretty much nobody has that idea. The alternative to looking too much at history is not to ignore history completely.

rbanffy 8y ago

> senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. This is largely irrelevant. Saying Microsoft makes a lot of money from hosting Linux workloads on Linux machines does not change the fact they'd make even more profit if Google and AWS were unable to compete. In that regard, open source is a tool to lure workloads into an environment Microsoft can control and shape to its will. Microsoft's incentives are still aligned with harming the parts of the open-source ecosystem that don't run on Windows. That has not changed (and won't, as long as they make and sell proprietary software platforms).

saintPirelli 8y ago

Considering your point, what has Microsoft done since the 90's to make you believe they had a change of heart/culture/orientation?

raesene9 8y ago
They're the largest corporate contributor to open source projects on GitHub :)
- saintPirelli 8y ago
  Taht means little to me. Is Facebook excused for their scandals because they open-sourced and maintain React?
  - raesene9 8y ago
    It may mean little to you but you asked me what I saw, not what you saw :)

Nursie 8y ago

Their pattern of bad behaviour extended far beyond the 90s, and all the stuff that happened with Nokia gives me pause as well. As was their OOXML, ISO-stacking shenanigans. Microsoft have a history of bad behaviour, and repeatedly abusing monopoly positions. How many chances at goodwill should I give them?

gurkendoktor 8y ago

> the senior leadership aren't the same people and I'd imagine neither are the staff. And what about their clients/cash flows? Microsoft still sells to enterprises and governments, so their incentives are to keep adding backdoors and Orwellian telemetry to everything. At least in the late nineties I felt that Microsoft was merely unfair to their competitors. Now they're openly hostile to their end-users as well.

ekianjo 8y ago

But companies dont change shareholders much. They are the real bosses in the end of the day.

jgaa 8y ago

I have been around since Microsoft's core product was Basic under CP/M. It was not so bad. Later, Microsoft had one of the best debuggers for Unix. I used it every day for years. Then Microsoft became bigger and bigger and they did that by becoming increasingly Evil. The problem with Microsoft today is not that all their technology is bad, sluggish and annoying. They still have some competent developers working there. The problem is that although they put on a lot of lipstick - they are still dead Evil. They want your data. They want to do all the bad things Amazon, Facebook and Google (data mining) Apple (exclusive sales of Windows applications trough their store - and forcing you to have their music, xbox and other crap installed on your computer). The only reason Microsoft is not generally regarded as Evil today is share incompetence. They don't know how to make an instant messenger - so Skype is useless and people use other programs. They don't know how to make a large website - so Linkedin is just as useless as Skype. People leave. Nokia is the best example of Microsoft's incompetence. They buy the most successful phone brand in the history of the world - and in just a few years it's over. The employees are fired, nobody wants the phones, and their appstore is a wasteland of useless crap nobody wants (that's what happens when quantity (number of 'apps') is the only measurement for 'success'). Microsoft wants your data. They want video-cameras in your home. They want to listen in to what you talk about in your bedroom. They want to sell that data to 'Partners', advertisers and law enforcement. They want to be Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook - but they have no idea about how to make anything that people actually wants. So they buy successful enterprises, redeploy their army of managers from hell there, and turns it into dirt. That happened to Nokia. That happened to Skype. I think that was what happened to Linkedin (I don't know the inside story, just that it quickly became useless). Now they want to do the same to github. So sad. For developers, it's not a question about to leave or not to leave. It's just a question about when. No matter how much you love or hate Microsoft - they will for sure turn github into dirt - like everything they touch - and then at some point you will leave. Eventually you'll have to leave in 2 years when the shut it down.

mortdeus 8y ago
"They still have some competent developers working there. The problem is that although they put on a lot of lipstick - they are still dead Evil." The problem is that they have some competent developers working there, when realistically they need badass talent like Google and Apple has. Whether or not a company is evil is subject to opinion on what you think a company is meant to do. A company is meant to be profitable. The only thing I see in this acquisition is that Microsoft want's to improve it hiring abilities and to gain control on a few open source projects like Electron and Atom. Projects that they use for example in VS Code. Like I wouldn't be surprised if Electron was their only interest because of Web Assembly being on the horizon and the fact that Windows is still the dominant desktop OS, but their web store doesn't deliver like Google or Apple stores because developers attention is already split between Android, IOS, and Web development. Long story short, Microsoft has a lot to gain by integrating Electron into Windows because to develop for Web is essentially the same as developing for Windows. (in this regard they gain the same edge that ChromeOS has) Plus the more Microsoft embraces open source the closer we get to a Linux based Windows OS. Which sounds horrifying until you consider that Linux shipping on every computer in the world means all these projects developed for Linux will get to actually see the light of day.

IanSanders 8y ago

>but I would say that people shouldn't automatically assume that it'll be a disaster... Are you saying the purpose of this acquisition is to make GitHub better? If not, why would Microsoft be interested in buying it?

ringbugger 8y ago

Take a look at recent technologies they tried to push. UWP for example. I don't see any change in direction here, to be honest. They try to lock-in developers on every step. Many devs are looking elsewhere, so they paint themselves as having changed. And they did, to an extend. But you if they ever get in a position where they could reign in developers, you can count on it that they will try.