4 ms·

You know that Microsoft are the largest corporate contributor to open source projects on Github right?

by raesene9 8y ago

dingo_bat 8y ago
Microsoft is probably one of the largest contributors to Linux itself.
- nyandaber 8y ago
  Not at all, they're not even in the list of the contributors, as you can see on the 4.16 kernel statistics : https://lwn.net/Articles/750054/ https://lwn.net/Articles/750054/ The list doesn't vary too much with the versions, so either they're working under the radar as "Unknown", or they barely contribute to the kernel.
- clhodapp 8y ago
  Microsoft contributes a bunch of money to The Linux Foundation now but they really don't contribute very much code. Their main concern seems to be keeping Hyper-V working well so that Linux VMs are performant on Windows server. They don't register as a top code contributor in the last Linux Kernel Development Report: https://storage.pardot.com/6342/188781/Publication_LinuxKernelReport_2017.pdf https://storage.pardot.com/6342/188781/Publication_LinuxKern...
roadbeats 8y ago
I care about how much they respect freedom instead of how many lines of public code they shared. Technology can be bought or bruteforced, freedom can not.
- lwhalen 8y ago
  Minor nit to pick, freedom can absolutely be both bought and brute-forced. We call them (less-relevant example in modern times) "buying yourself out of slavery" and (slightly more relevant) "war".
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
They are the biggest software company, so when they decided they want to embrace and extend open source, it's not surprising the quantity of released code is higher than of smaller companies. The argument here is different: we don't really believe MS changed much from the time they called Linux and GPL "cancer" and used all possible means, some of them quite grey, to completely annihilate all significant competition.
hobofan 8y ago
What are you basing this off? This article?[0] If so, then it only supports my shared belief with roadbeats that Microsoft out of most of those companies has had little impact on my life as an open source user. [0]: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-top-contributors-to-github-2017-be98ab854e87 https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-top-contributors-to-gith...
- fapjacks 8y ago
  Little positive impact. Microsoft has shit on open source for years and had a negative impact on your life as an open source user. I know that you know this, just saying it for the sake of saying it.
Grue3 8y ago
Imagine there are two cities in a country, city A and city B. The president lives in city A and is very popular there, but not so much in city B. Person from city B: I hate the president. He never did anything good for our people. Person from city A: On the contrary, this is the best president we had in forever. In fact he built 5 hospitals and 10 schools in our city alone! How can you possibly hate him? Like, maybe Microsoft has contributed to some open source projects, but are these open source projects something everyone benefits from? I'm not even sure what their open source projects are. Also, isn't it a big conflict of interest then? When the largest user of a platform also owns this platform, it kind of puts other projects at a huge disadvantage.
- btschaegg 8y ago
  I don't think the issue is where MS has contributed in terms of open source. For me, it doesn't matter: It's great that they do it, but their history of aquiring companies and driving their products into walls (like Skype and so many others) hasn't changed. So, when I see "MS acquires open source hosting platform", I'm thinking about that, not how many lines of code they've opensourced. Of course, if MS wanted to dampen that reaction, they could distribute the whole code for GitHub as a platform under an open source license - I just can't imagine them doing that.
- bausshf 8y ago
  > I'm not even sure what their open source projects are. .NET ?

You know that Microsoft are the largest corporate contributor to open source projects on Github right?

dingo_bat 8y ago

Microsoft is probably one of the largest contributors to Linux itself.

nyandaber 8y ago
Not at all, they're not even in the list of the contributors, as you can see on the 4.16 kernel statistics : https://lwn.net/Articles/750054/ https://lwn.net/Articles/750054/ The list doesn't vary too much with the versions, so either they're working under the radar as "Unknown", or they barely contribute to the kernel.
clhodapp 8y ago
Microsoft contributes a bunch of money to The Linux Foundation now but they really don't contribute very much code. Their main concern seems to be keeping Hyper-V working well so that Linux VMs are performant on Windows server. They don't register as a top code contributor in the last Linux Kernel Development Report: https://storage.pardot.com/6342/188781/Publication_LinuxKernelReport_2017.pdf https://storage.pardot.com/6342/188781/Publication_LinuxKern...

roadbeats 8y ago

I care about how much they respect freedom instead of how many lines of public code they shared. Technology can be bought or bruteforced, freedom can not.

lwhalen 8y ago
Minor nit to pick, freedom can absolutely be both bought and brute-forced. We call them (less-relevant example in modern times) "buying yourself out of slavery" and (slightly more relevant) "war".

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago

They are the biggest software company, so when they decided they want to embrace and extend open source, it's not surprising the quantity of released code is higher than of smaller companies. The argument here is different: we don't really believe MS changed much from the time they called Linux and GPL "cancer" and used all possible means, some of them quite grey, to completely annihilate all significant competition.

hobofan 8y ago

What are you basing this off? This article?[0] If so, then it only supports my shared belief with roadbeats that Microsoft out of most of those companies has had little impact on my life as an open source user. [0]: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-top-contributors-to-github-2017-be98ab854e87 https://medium.freecodecamp.org/the-top-contributors-to-gith...

fapjacks 8y ago
Little positive impact. Microsoft has shit on open source for years and had a negative impact on your life as an open source user. I know that you know this, just saying it for the sake of saying it.

Grue3 8y ago

Imagine there are two cities in a country, city A and city B. The president lives in city A and is very popular there, but not so much in city B. Person from city B: I hate the president. He never did anything good for our people. Person from city A: On the contrary, this is the best president we had in forever. In fact he built 5 hospitals and 10 schools in our city alone! How can you possibly hate him? Like, maybe Microsoft has contributed to some open source projects, but are these open source projects something everyone benefits from? I'm not even sure what their open source projects are. Also, isn't it a big conflict of interest then? When the largest user of a platform also owns this platform, it kind of puts other projects at a huge disadvantage.

btschaegg 8y ago
I don't think the issue is where MS has contributed in terms of open source. For me, it doesn't matter: It's great that they do it, but their history of aquiring companies and driving their products into walls (like Skype and so many others) hasn't changed. So, when I see "MS acquires open source hosting platform", I'm thinking about that, not how many lines of code they've opensourced. Of course, if MS wanted to dampen that reaction, they could distribute the whole code for GitHub as a platform under an open source license - I just can't imagine them doing that.
bausshf 8y ago
> I'm not even sure what their open source projects are. .NET ?