8 ms·

Memorandum on Microsoft’s strategy against Linux and Open Source software (1998)

215 points by duncan_bayne 8y ago

dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
That's just a small piece of the history. MS was extremely active in that field. For example, they were asking Gartner to bash Linux, but forgot to remove their small print: http://lwn.net/1999/1021/bigpage.php3 http://lwn.net/1999/1021/bigpage.php3
dm319 8y ago
There's a lot of people on HN and reddit who don't understand the scepticism some people have for microsoft. But actually, I wouldn't even say things have changed that much recently - Windows 10 was born into controversy with both the forced upgrades and spying. Skype didn't happen too long ago, nor did Nokia. I also like this post here[1] from reddit about some of the earlier evils of Microsoft's leadership. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3aicvf/what_villain_lived_long_enough_to_see_themselves/csd2rrl/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3aicvf/what_vill... I know there is an open-source movement going on with MS, but I inherently don't trust them - they've got prior form and still have the power to shift the software landscape even more in their favour.
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
  Holding big companies to high standards is a great idea. But why single out Microsoft? Do you hold Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba to the same sceptical standard? 1998 was 20 years ago. Even if Microsoft somehow hadn't changed, the biggest concentrations of power reside elsewhere now. I don't understand the scepticism some people have for Microsoft and only Microsoft. It seems like living in the past.
  - philliphaydon 8y ago
    Facebook and Google scare me more, Microsoft has desperately being trying to turn a new leaf, but no matter what they do, the same old people are beating drums from the before time.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
      Quite. If you want to talk about "prior form" and "the power to shift the landscape", then there's Facebook over the last few years. It's a bigger danger, and much more recent.
    - pmoriarty 8y ago
      "Microsoft has desperately being trying to turn a new leaf, but no matter what they do, the same old people are beating drums from the before time." What are we supposed to do, pretend their sociopathic history didn't happen? Actions have consequences, and one of those consequences is that informed people try to remember the lessons of the past so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. We're not talking about some company with an untarnished history that should be given the benefit of the doubt. Microsoft has to earn back its trust. It's not going to be handed it on a silver platter by those of us with a memory. Founders and CEOs of HN take note: This is what happens when you fuck the community in the ass.
      - StaticRedux 8y ago
        "Actions have consequences" Yep. And in today's world, those consequences seem to be all or nothing, death penalty forever with no forgiveness or forgetting, no matter what, or let them completely off the hook and pretend like you don't know anything at all. The same people calling for everyone to always remember what Microsoft did 20 years ago log out of HN and go work on their Facebook React app with no apparent sense of irony. So while you are reminding everyone of how terrible Microsoft was 20 years ago, you should probably be shutting down your Facebook, Instagram, and Google accounts, throwing away your Android phone, deleting any projects you have that use React.js, TypeScript, Angular, Go, Dart, and a lot more, and generally cleaning out everything that isn't completely FOSS from your life. Bc if you aren't, then you really don't give a crap about Microsoft's behavior, you just care about looking cool by talking shit about Microsoft and everyone knowing how knowledgeable you are about their history from 20 years ago, even if you are willfully ignoring the same and worse behavior by many, many companies today.
        8y ago
  - kop316 8y ago
    I can't speak for the parent comment, but I certainly do: - Amazon has completely ruined my trust with their constant fake review issue and their counterfeit issue. - Google does the "embrace, extend, extinguish" issue. Try running an Android phone without Google Play Services. Try using U2F on any site BUT Google (I have a Yubikey U2F that works on GitHub, Nextcloud, and a few other sites with Firefox, but mysteriously does not work on Google except for Chrome). That doesn't even mention their dark patterns when opting out of their data collection, or their horrible customer service if they lock you out of your Google account, or their tendency to kill off services seemingly at random. - Apple has had a storied history of locking one into their ecosystem, and makes me skeptical to buy anything by them. I also find it even more troubling that they have no problem giving all PRC users data to the PRC government, just so they have access to that market. - I won't bother to address Facebook here, as they have had so much recent (and continued) controversy. - I admittedly have never used Alibaba, so I don't know enough to talk to that. I think there are other people who have similar issues with those companies, and I have seen them discussed here.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    Whatabboutism. The story concerns Microsoft. And I do. Tech monopolies are bad, mkay?
  - s2g 8y ago
    because hating M$ has been the cool thing to do for decades. Look how cool I am with my use of $ in M$.
- Leon 8y ago
  > forced upgrades I think the forced upgrades were a good thing. The security model on Windows 10 and continued support of updates to 10 is overall a Good Thing for the average Windows User. The majority of users on Windows run their systems in extremely non-secure ways and skip updates and upgrades completely. This is a danger to the internet as a whole. To me it ultimately comes down to this: I can't force my older relatives to update their machines or even stop them from running ancient versions of Windows. On that front, Windows 10 made things better.
  - iajrz 8y ago
    That's a nice take - it's still understandable that many of us would rather be in control of the software we're using, though, isn't it? It's - irksome. If one of my prod servers were forcefully updated - with no warning, therefore no chance to make backups - I'd be furious. If my main dev machine was bricked as a result of forceful updates, as I seem to recall it happened to some folk... It feels like they disregard users in that sense, and it's sad.
    - the_hoser 8y ago
      I think this is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation. On the one hand, the user definitely thinks it's in their best interest to be in control of their software. On the other hand, history has shown that the average user doesn't make good decisions when it comes to said software. Microsoft will catch the blame for the insecure operating system, or they'll catch the blame for forcing users to update their software. I'm no Microsoft fan, but I really do believe they did the less-wrong thing in this case.
      - gnud 8y ago
        The forced upgrade would be less of a problem if Win10 didn't spy so much, or show ads in the start menu. It would still be a problem, but less so.
        the_hoser 8y ago
- ryanackley 8y ago
  I'm not a Microsoft fan but I don't get two of your examples. Nokia was on the path to obsolescence before Microsoft purchased the failing company. Nokia lost more than $3 billion dollars in 2012. You don't spend billions of dollars to purchase a failing company and then intentionally fail some more. Skype works the same as it always has for me and I pay them nothing. Are you upset that Skype hasn't moved forward at all? That seems like a valid criticism but hardly "evil". The stuff they did in the 90's was true evil. They actively sabotaged competitive technology and companies. Making agreements in bad faith was part of their corporate culture. They considered open source a cancer they were trying to snuff out.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dorkusmcgavin 8y ago
    For Skype, the real complaints (maybe not here) are the structure and ways Skype works. Originally, Skype was a P2P communications platform, even for calls. After Microsoft acquired it, it was pushed into a centralized model. This goes against some fundamental concepts of how the internet is supposed to work, and the main benefits are mostly for Microsoft and not necessarily for users. Data acquisition of random call monitoring (for "quality"), government snooping (PRISM), and to integrate Skype into things like Xbox. We should be moving more in the direction of federated protocols, but instead we are moving towards more and more centralization in tech and as well as in our society. This also has security implications with data consolidation, data sharing, etc.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    Well, it isn't only Nokia, it's in the context of Microsoft's whole mobile strategy where they were more than happy to fuck over their own users. For example, the Windows Phone running version 7 could not be upgraded to 8. Or that it took them over two years to port Skype (which they owned) to Windows Phone. Meanwhile, it was available on iOS. This was all around 2010 and after. Not in the 90s. So Nokia is just shorthand for how clueless they were in this space.
  - wila 8y ago
aleden 8y ago
In the early days of linux, contributors were mostly individuals. At that time, that critical group of people- were effectively socially ostracized by Microsoft. Fellow engineers turned against them. For someone living in that time, I can't imagine it being easy for them to forget.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  As someone who’s been using multiple forms of Linux continuously at home and (often) work from 1994 to present, who entered the software profession the year this memo came out, and owes his career to a large extent to Linux and free software, the damage MS has done will be hard to forgive, impossible to forget.
shmerl 8y ago
Key point about lock-in: http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween1.html http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween1.html > OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market. In practice this applies not just to server applications, but to anything where MS didn't fall behind competition yet. Where they are already behind, they aren't pushing lock-in anymore.
cmiles74 8y ago
It's been a while and there have been many leadership changes at Microsoft. I'd speculate that there's little relationship between the Microsoft of 1998 and that of 2018. Aside from them both being large corporations. That said, I think the lesson here is clear: we should never trust any corporation for much of anything. This memo strikes me as a nice summary of what any incumbent company will do when they feel threatened. I think it's unhelpful to think of this memo solely in terms of "Microsoft".
lo_fye 8y ago
That memo was by Gates/Ballmer. Satya Nadella has a completely different strategy. 2018 is a very different time, strategy-wise. Microsoft is transitioning from platforms to platform less supporting technologies (.Net core, Azure, OneDrive, etc), and Github is a major one.
- MrStonedOne 8y ago
  And what happens when that changes again?
  - zeusk 8y ago
    We can re-evaluate our stance on their policy then.
mercwear 8y ago
It feels to me that you are trying to use something Microsoft said 20 years ago against them. 20 years may as well be 2000 years when it comes to technology - I don't see how this thread is suppose to be productive (maybe that's not the point)?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  It's not "just something that happened 20 years ago" it's "pretty much everything they've done over the past 20 years"... I think skeptics are just (and rightfully so) waiting for the other shoe to drop.
  - mercwear 8y ago
    I never said "just something that happened 20 years ago", so your quote is incorrect - honest mistake I'm sure. My point is that businesses HAVE to adapt and change to stay relevant, if they don't - they die. Looking at what a business did 20 years to adapt and not die almost certainly has nothing to do with the same decisions being made today by that business.
- mikec3010 8y ago
  The decisions they made and evils they committed 20 years ago propelled them into the success they now enjoy.
  - ihattendorf 8y ago
    The same can be said for many companies, and going back further pretty much every country as well.
  - walterstucco 8y ago
    That could be a merit If they changed nonetheless it's a good thing Even Scrooge get to be forgiven at the end of the book
s2g 8y ago
Really gotta dig into the archives huh. Microsoft could release a free cure for cancer tomorrow and people would complain about it being EEE on humanity.

215 points by duncan_bayne 8y ago

That's just a small piece of the history. MS was extremely active in that field. For example, they were asking Gartner to bash Linux, but forgot to remove their small print: http://lwn.net/1999/1021/bigpage.php3 http://lwn.net/1999/1021/bigpage.php3

dm319 8y ago

There's a lot of people on HN and reddit who don't understand the scepticism some people have for microsoft. But actually, I wouldn't even say things have changed that much recently - Windows 10 was born into controversy with both the forced upgrades and spying. Skype didn't happen too long ago, nor did Nokia. I also like this post here[1] from reddit about some of the earlier evils of Microsoft's leadership. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3aicvf/what_villain_lived_long_enough_to_see_themselves/csd2rrl/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3aicvf/what_vill... I know there is an open-source movement going on with MS, but I inherently don't trust them - they've got prior form and still have the power to shift the software landscape even more in their favour.

SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
Holding big companies to high standards is a great idea. But why single out Microsoft? Do you hold Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba to the same sceptical standard? 1998 was 20 years ago. Even if Microsoft somehow hadn't changed, the biggest concentrations of power reside elsewhere now. I don't understand the scepticism some people have for Microsoft and only Microsoft. It seems like living in the past.
- philliphaydon 8y ago
  Facebook and Google scare me more, Microsoft has desperately being trying to turn a new leaf, but no matter what they do, the same old people are beating drums from the before time.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 8y ago
    Quite. If you want to talk about "prior form" and "the power to shift the landscape", then there's Facebook over the last few years. It's a bigger danger, and much more recent.
  - pmoriarty 8y ago
    "Microsoft has desperately being trying to turn a new leaf, but no matter what they do, the same old people are beating drums from the before time." What are we supposed to do, pretend their sociopathic history didn't happen? Actions have consequences, and one of those consequences is that informed people try to remember the lessons of the past so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. We're not talking about some company with an untarnished history that should be given the benefit of the doubt. Microsoft has to earn back its trust. It's not going to be handed it on a silver platter by those of us with a memory. Founders and CEOs of HN take note: This is what happens when you fuck the community in the ass.
    - StaticRedux 8y ago
      "Actions have consequences" Yep. And in today's world, those consequences seem to be all or nothing, death penalty forever with no forgiveness or forgetting, no matter what, or let them completely off the hook and pretend like you don't know anything at all. The same people calling for everyone to always remember what Microsoft did 20 years ago log out of HN and go work on their Facebook React app with no apparent sense of irony. So while you are reminding everyone of how terrible Microsoft was 20 years ago, you should probably be shutting down your Facebook, Instagram, and Google accounts, throwing away your Android phone, deleting any projects you have that use React.js, TypeScript, Angular, Go, Dart, and a lot more, and generally cleaning out everything that isn't completely FOSS from your life. Bc if you aren't, then you really don't give a crap about Microsoft's behavior, you just care about looking cool by talking shit about Microsoft and everyone knowing how knowledgeable you are about their history from 20 years ago, even if you are willfully ignoring the same and worse behavior by many, many companies today.
      - 8y ago
- kop316 8y ago
  I can't speak for the parent comment, but I certainly do: - Amazon has completely ruined my trust with their constant fake review issue and their counterfeit issue. - Google does the "embrace, extend, extinguish" issue. Try running an Android phone without Google Play Services. Try using U2F on any site BUT Google (I have a Yubikey U2F that works on GitHub, Nextcloud, and a few other sites with Firefox, but mysteriously does not work on Google except for Chrome). That doesn't even mention their dark patterns when opting out of their data collection, or their horrible customer service if they lock you out of your Google account, or their tendency to kill off services seemingly at random. - Apple has had a storied history of locking one into their ecosystem, and makes me skeptical to buy anything by them. I also find it even more troubling that they have no problem giving all PRC users data to the PRC government, just so they have access to that market. - I won't bother to address Facebook here, as they have had so much recent (and continued) controversy. - I admittedly have never used Alibaba, so I don't know enough to talk to that. I think there are other people who have similar issues with those companies, and I have seen them discussed here.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Whatabboutism. The story concerns Microsoft. And I do. Tech monopolies are bad, mkay?
- s2g 8y ago
  because hating M$ has been the cool thing to do for decades. Look how cool I am with my use of $ in M$.
Leon 8y ago
> forced upgrades I think the forced upgrades were a good thing. The security model on Windows 10 and continued support of updates to 10 is overall a Good Thing for the average Windows User. The majority of users on Windows run their systems in extremely non-secure ways and skip updates and upgrades completely. This is a danger to the internet as a whole. To me it ultimately comes down to this: I can't force my older relatives to update their machines or even stop them from running ancient versions of Windows. On that front, Windows 10 made things better.
- iajrz 8y ago
  That's a nice take - it's still understandable that many of us would rather be in control of the software we're using, though, isn't it? It's - irksome. If one of my prod servers were forcefully updated - with no warning, therefore no chance to make backups - I'd be furious. If my main dev machine was bricked as a result of forceful updates, as I seem to recall it happened to some folk... It feels like they disregard users in that sense, and it's sad.
  - the_hoser 8y ago
    I think this is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation. On the one hand, the user definitely thinks it's in their best interest to be in control of their software. On the other hand, history has shown that the average user doesn't make good decisions when it comes to said software. Microsoft will catch the blame for the insecure operating system, or they'll catch the blame for forcing users to update their software. I'm no Microsoft fan, but I really do believe they did the less-wrong thing in this case.
    - gnud 8y ago
      The forced upgrade would be less of a problem if Win10 didn't spy so much, or show ads in the start menu. It would still be a problem, but less so.
      - the_hoser 8y ago
ryanackley 8y ago
I'm not a Microsoft fan but I don't get two of your examples. Nokia was on the path to obsolescence before Microsoft purchased the failing company. Nokia lost more than $3 billion dollars in 2012. You don't spend billions of dollars to purchase a failing company and then intentionally fail some more. Skype works the same as it always has for me and I pay them nothing. Are you upset that Skype hasn't moved forward at all? That seems like a valid criticism but hardly "evil". The stuff they did in the 90's was true evil. They actively sabotaged competitive technology and companies. Making agreements in bad faith was part of their corporate culture. They considered open source a cancer they were trying to snuff out.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dorkusmcgavin 8y ago
  For Skype, the real complaints (maybe not here) are the structure and ways Skype works. Originally, Skype was a P2P communications platform, even for calls. After Microsoft acquired it, it was pushed into a centralized model. This goes against some fundamental concepts of how the internet is supposed to work, and the main benefits are mostly for Microsoft and not necessarily for users. Data acquisition of random call monitoring (for "quality"), government snooping (PRISM), and to integrate Skype into things like Xbox. We should be moving more in the direction of federated protocols, but instead we are moving towards more and more centralization in tech and as well as in our society. This also has security implications with data consolidation, data sharing, etc.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  Well, it isn't only Nokia, it's in the context of Microsoft's whole mobile strategy where they were more than happy to fuck over their own users. For example, the Windows Phone running version 7 could not be upgraded to 8. Or that it took them over two years to port Skype (which they owned) to Windows Phone. Meanwhile, it was available on iOS. This was all around 2010 and after. Not in the 90s. So Nokia is just shorthand for how clueless they were in this space.
- wila 8y ago

aleden 8y ago

In the early days of linux, contributors were mostly individuals. At that time, that critical group of people- were effectively socially ostracized by Microsoft. Fellow engineers turned against them. For someone living in that time, I can't imagine it being easy for them to forget.

ryandrake 8y ago
As someone who’s been using multiple forms of Linux continuously at home and (often) work from 1994 to present, who entered the software profession the year this memo came out, and owes his career to a large extent to Linux and free software, the damage MS has done will be hard to forgive, impossible to forget.

shmerl 8y ago

Key point about lock-in: http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween1.html http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween1.html > OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market. In practice this applies not just to server applications, but to anything where MS didn't fall behind competition yet. Where they are already behind, they aren't pushing lock-in anymore.

cmiles74 8y ago

It's been a while and there have been many leadership changes at Microsoft. I'd speculate that there's little relationship between the Microsoft of 1998 and that of 2018. Aside from them both being large corporations. That said, I think the lesson here is clear: we should never trust any corporation for much of anything. This memo strikes me as a nice summary of what any incumbent company will do when they feel threatened. I think it's unhelpful to think of this memo solely in terms of "Microsoft".

lo_fye 8y ago

That memo was by Gates/Ballmer. Satya Nadella has a completely different strategy. 2018 is a very different time, strategy-wise. Microsoft is transitioning from platforms to platform less supporting technologies (.Net core, Azure, OneDrive, etc), and Github is a major one.

MrStonedOne 8y ago
And what happens when that changes again?
- zeusk 8y ago
  We can re-evaluate our stance on their policy then.

mercwear 8y ago

It feels to me that you are trying to use something Microsoft said 20 years ago against them. 20 years may as well be 2000 years when it comes to technology - I don't see how this thread is suppose to be productive (maybe that's not the point)?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mfoy_ 8y ago
It's not "just something that happened 20 years ago" it's "pretty much everything they've done over the past 20 years"... I think skeptics are just (and rightfully so) waiting for the other shoe to drop.
- mercwear 8y ago
  I never said "just something that happened 20 years ago", so your quote is incorrect - honest mistake I'm sure. My point is that businesses HAVE to adapt and change to stay relevant, if they don't - they die. Looking at what a business did 20 years to adapt and not die almost certainly has nothing to do with the same decisions being made today by that business.
mikec3010 8y ago
The decisions they made and evils they committed 20 years ago propelled them into the success they now enjoy.
- ihattendorf 8y ago
  The same can be said for many companies, and going back further pretty much every country as well.
- walterstucco 8y ago
  That could be a merit If they changed nonetheless it's a good thing Even Scrooge get to be forgiven at the end of the book

s2g 8y ago

Really gotta dig into the archives huh. Microsoft could release a free cure for cancer tomorrow and people would complain about it being EEE on humanity.