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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 ev
by 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.
- Corrado 8y agoYou know, I completely forgot about GitHub owning Electron. And I'm sure there are other GitHub projects that I've overlooked. Maybe MS didn't purchase GitHub for the repositories but for the support programs. Hmmm...