9 ms·

> And Microsoft is all-in on open source. We have been on a journey with open source, and today we are active in the open source ecosystem, we contribute to ope

> And Microsoft is all-in on open source. We have been on a journey with open source, and today we are active in the open source ecosystem, we contribute to open source projects, and some of our most vibrant developer tools and frameworks are open source. When it comes to our commitment to open source, judge us by the actions we have taken in the recent past, our actions today, and in the future. It’s a fair point but I still cannot read this without thinking of someone saying “yeah I did some things in the past but I’ve totally changed I promise. Look, for the whole past week I’ve been really nice to people haven’t I?”

Totoradio 8y ago
I can understand those concerns, but what can they do to convince you they have changed?
- adamc 8y ago
  Continue behaving well.
- nileshtrivedi 8y ago
  (1) Make it easy for alternative OS to run on Surface/Windows-certified devices: Both x86 and ARM. (2) Support OpenDocumentFormat in their office apps. Still remember how they corrupted the ISO certification process by creating OOXML (which is just a wrapper over binary blobs produced by MS-Office) (3) Stop suing Android OEM's for patent licenses
  - Totoradio 8y ago
    About your second point, I just tested it on my machine, Word 2016 saves and opens *.odt files just fine. Is there some unsupported stuff?
    - nileshtrivedi 8y ago
      Yes, their implementation is (deliberately?) patchy with many bugs. They've been lobbying to prevent governments from adopting ODF (an open ISO standard with multiple implementations): https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/22/microsoft_uk_odf_response/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/22/microsoft_uk_odf_re...
  - koyote 8y ago
    What do you mean by 'wrapper over binary blobs'? I know the old .doc format was basically a memory dump of the document; but how does OXML relate to that?
    - nileshtrivedi 8y ago
      > OpenXML on the other hand, is a high-level specification which describes the high level envelopes used to embed binary objects which are included in the content. The content itself contains the binary code which can call any function in any Microsoft library and has all permissions of the person opening the document. http://slated.org/ooxml_dissecting_the_binary_blob_problem http://slated.org/ooxml_dissecting_the_binary_blob_problem http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/2007/08/microsoft-office-xml-formats-defective.html http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/2007/08/microso...
      - wangyjx 8y ago
        But lots of Office-like apps have implmented OpenXML read/write without MS libraries
  - IamaMentalGiant 8y ago
    Especially (3). The day they stop taking $ for Android is the day I believe.
  - dcbadacd 8y ago
    There's a nice documentary about Microsoft vs. FLOSS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wGLS2rSQPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wGLS2rSQPQ
  - g-b-r 8y ago
    They'll do it the day they think it's profitable for them to do so, as their public company status obliges them to do, unless their shareholders vote otherwise.
    - nileshtrivedi 8y ago
      Of course. That's the point of criticizing them. So that they can see the potential profit in behaving nice.
      - g-b-r 8y ago
        Absolutely.
- ninkendo 8y ago
  To me? Almost nothing. Some of the the things they've done are pretty much a "life sentence" for ill will.
- jhasse 8y ago
  * Drop DirectX for Vulkan * Drop MSVC for Clang or GCC * Drop Edge for Firefox or Chromium because they love open-source, right?
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    Vulkan is just a 3D graphics and compute API, it cannot replace DirectX because it doesn't support most of the things DirectX does. Did you mean to say Direct3D? That's still leave you with input, sound, maths, and 2D missing.
    - jhasse 8y ago
      Yes, I meant Direct3D.
  - Ornstein 8y ago
    This is just ridiculous. The other points may/may not make sense but drop direct-x for vulkan? What? It'd have made more sense to make Direct-X open source than just dump it like it's useless. It's not like windows drivers for GPUs don't support vulkan. Direct-X has had a history of being the superior graphics API to OGL. Now, VULKAN evens things out a bit but just dumping so much of RnD for nothing doesn't make sense
    - ekr 8y ago
      > Direct-X has had a history of being the superior graphics API to OGL. That view is fairly one-sided, to say the least. The history is presented in this StackExchange thread: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/6054.... But to summarize: OpenGL was the standard before D3D was created. D3D has been a step behind OpenGL in features and performance up to about D3Dv7. Then the OpenGL ARB screwed up, with Microsoft among the members (some hypothesize that Microsoft were attempting to sabotage OpenGL).
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Several key pieces of Edge are open source, such as Chakra Core, which is the JS engine (like Chromium's V8), and more are expected. The argument IE6 was that the web grew too stagnant with a single dominant web renderer. If we all agree that the Web is a better place with multiple competing web renderers, why wish the death of the Edge renderer when it and Firefox are all that are standing in the way (and barely by latest metrics) of forks from the KHTML/WebKit/Blink family dominating?
- notheguyouthink 8y ago
  He consistent and have a good track record for years. It feels just like yesterday that Microsoft was spying on windows boxes. In my mind, everyone has a "Days since last accident" counter in their head, and Microsoft's number is quite low.
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    >It feels just like yesterday that Microsoft was spying on windows boxes. Windows 10 exists. Microsoft is "spying" on Windows boxes right now
  - notheguyouthink 8y ago
    *Be
- Nullabillity 8y ago
  * Drop Windows and contribute to WINE * Drop OOXML and make ODF the default format * Drop the patents * Drop the telemetry * Drop Xbox * Drop DirectX * Drop the cloud garbage * Drop or open MSVC * Drop or open Edge * Actually open .NET
  - philliphaydon 8y ago
    > * Actually open .NET We don't need to open the .NET Framework... We have .NET Core. It's better, faster, and cross-platform...
    - Nullabillity 8y ago
      But it's not a drop-in replacement, and it doesn't have any of the GUI bits.
      - bsg75 8y ago
        Would the GUI bits be useful on a non-Windows platform?
        Nullabillity 8y ago
        Yes? There is lots of legacy GUI software that's stuck on it.
        mikeymop 8y ago
        gtk / qt wrappers for old .net programs would be awesome.
        efskap 8y ago
        Think this is the only other alternative for cross plat guis if you don't want to pull in non-.net stuff like qt or electron. https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia So yeah.
  - lovich 8y ago
    I can see, or kinda see your point for all of these except for the Xbox. Why would you want them to drop that?
- jjgreen 8y ago
  Allow install of Windows onto a partition and not overwrite the MBR
  - undseg 8y ago
    I've hated that behavior for years, and am appalled to learn this it still works that way.
    - mikeymop 8y ago
      Its worse now. Grub-efi cant boot Windows 8.1+ directly. It instead boots Window's Bootloader which then handles all of the bootable windows partitions. It looks okay if you only have one Windows in your boot options but once you have two you realize you have two bootloaders.
- mulmen 8y ago
  Honestly? Nothing. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose and Microsoft has spent my entire professional life acting against my interests.
- g-b-r 8y ago
  Sell the majority of their shares to other people and behave very nicely, doing things against their short and medium term interest, for 15 years. That's about the minimum, given their track record. In the meanwhile we can give them increasing credit, if they do behave nicely, but it's absurd to believe that they've suddenly become a good company and that they'll stay like this for the next decades. I have a hard time believing that anyone not payed by them could think so. And by the way, they have yet to reverse the decidedly un-nice things they have done with Windows 10 in the last years. Allow everyone to disable the telemetry and to better control the updates, and then we can start the 15 years count. Oh yeah, and maybe also stop astroturfing, that's another extremely un-nice thing that they clearly started doing only recently. There would be nothing wrong in discussing with the people, if they paid people to do so while stating in every message that they're being paid by Microsoft it would be perfectly ok, but that's very different from what they're doing now. These things make it clear that they're still motherfuckers, just less then they used to be.
crazygringo 8y ago
Corporations aren't people. If you change the leadership and change employee incentives, it might as well be a different company. Sure there's cultural inertia... but incentives trump culture every time.
- 4lch3m1st 8y ago
  It may sound like a harsh statement, but exactly because corporations are not like people, they seem to be harder to change, in my opinion. I'm not saying Microsoft can't change, but it's easy to forget that the main goal of any corporation is profit, specially when it's so big.
  - crazygringo 8y ago
    I think the profit motive is exactly why change happens. As soon as a company realizes it can make more $$$ with new strategy B than their original strategy A, then boom -- changed. (Sometimes you have to get rid of the old believers, but that already happened at Microsoft.) If you look at MSFT's stock price, it's ~tripled since Satya became CEO, after being stagnant for years. He seems incredibly committed to open-source -- because in the long run it will ultimately be more profitable for Microsoft, no?
    - icc97 8y ago
      > I think the profit motive is exactly why change happens. I agree. They don't actually care about open source it's purely because it's profitable to their business. They'll close it without caring if it's not making them enough money or good will. But I still hope this works. As long as maintaining open source projects is profitable to Microsoft then it gives incentives for other FLOSS projects to show that if such an anti open source company as Microsoft is willing to embrace it then there's good reasons to join in.
    - g-b-r 8y ago
      > He seems incredibly committed to open-source -- because in the long run it will ultimately be more profitable for Microsoft, no? I think it's just because in the short run Microsoft ran a very high risk of getting pushed in a corner. They are embracing what's hip most of all to improve their image, especially so as to be more attractive for talented technical people. The "Windows everywhere" vision is not pursuable at this time, so it makes sense to let some things go and focus on what can get you the most money right now (cloud, IA, individual profitable products and services). And maybe, just maybe, surreptitiously spread your patents everywhere... =0
sleavey 8y ago
I'd believe them if they open sourced Windows. They could still keep their web platforms (Office365, Azure, etc.) closed but it would be a huge statement to open up Windows 10. (Never going to happen, not just for philosophical reasons, but I'm sure legal reasons too)
- leeter 8y ago
  I think the biggest issue would be the audit. Recall that NT started out as part of OS/2 which is owned by IBM. I suspect that Edge/IE has similar issues, because it was evolved from NCSA Mosaic it probably has legal issues preventing it from being open sourced. I know for a fact that the ZIP component of the windows shell would be an issue as that is definitely licensed to Microsoft instead of being owned by.
  - dkersten 8y ago
    Open what they can and keep binary blobs of stuff they can’t?
- ksk 8y ago
  GitHub was closed source, so its a good fit.
daniel-levin 8y ago
The MS of today has massive skin in this OSS game. They've been contributing to the Linux kernel for years now [0]. They've got over 4000 repos on GitHub. Many projects are actively developed on GH. As an example, the VS code team solicits contributions on GH [1]. It's hard to say what kind of resources have been invested in .NET core and the open source compilers (Roslyn) and the CLR. Substantial resources. If you told me 5/10 years ago about these developments I would have never believed you. I don't think it's fair to reason about a (40+ year old, 100k+ employees, public) company's behaviour as if it has a mind. It doesn't. [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-microsoft/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-mic... [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING...
- Stranger43 8y ago
  The new Microsoft only exist in markets where the old Microsoft have been pushed to the fringes. In the markets where Microsoft still have the ability to set the rules their behavior is even worse then the bad old days when they still believed the windows market could grow(as anyone trying to get a telemetry free copy of windows10 can tell you). What we are seeing now is Microsoft reacting to being kicked out of several markets by going back to the embrace phase in an attempt to regain some of the ground lost from Balmers failed attempt to secure a foothold for MS in the mobile and web framework markets. If they had really been about embracing open source and open standards we would have seen them do something useful for Linux like releasing a version of excel for Linux or opening up the protocols outlook and exchange use to talk to each other, but that kind of openness was never on the table. What i would expect to see with github is that if/when ms decide they want to utilize their investment for profit is a heavy integration with the azure environment in the form of CI hooks designed around azure api's to the point where other CI platforms become 2nd degree citizens in the ecosystem and i would not be surprised if a github account becomes a add on to an office365 subscription rather then a stand alone product.
partycoder 8y ago
They're all-in open source. They love it. That's why their former CEO said its cancer. Everything said after that is just some cheap PR trick for chumps. Quickly after they get back into an advantage position again they will abuse it same as before and you will live in an age of digital slavery.

Totoradio 8y ago

I can understand those concerns, but what can they do to convince you they have changed?

adamc 8y ago
Continue behaving well.
nileshtrivedi 8y ago
(1) Make it easy for alternative OS to run on Surface/Windows-certified devices: Both x86 and ARM. (2) Support OpenDocumentFormat in their office apps. Still remember how they corrupted the ISO certification process by creating OOXML (which is just a wrapper over binary blobs produced by MS-Office) (3) Stop suing Android OEM's for patent licenses
- Totoradio 8y ago
  About your second point, I just tested it on my machine, Word 2016 saves and opens *.odt files just fine. Is there some unsupported stuff?
  - nileshtrivedi 8y ago
    Yes, their implementation is (deliberately?) patchy with many bugs. They've been lobbying to prevent governments from adopting ODF (an open ISO standard with multiple implementations): https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/22/microsoft_uk_odf_response/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/22/microsoft_uk_odf_re...
- koyote 8y ago
  What do you mean by 'wrapper over binary blobs'? I know the old .doc format was basically a memory dump of the document; but how does OXML relate to that?
  - nileshtrivedi 8y ago
    > OpenXML on the other hand, is a high-level specification which describes the high level envelopes used to embed binary objects which are included in the content. The content itself contains the binary code which can call any function in any Microsoft library and has all permissions of the person opening the document. http://slated.org/ooxml_dissecting_the_binary_blob_problem http://slated.org/ooxml_dissecting_the_binary_blob_problem http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/2007/08/microsoft-office-xml-formats-defective.html http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/2007/08/microso...
    - wangyjx 8y ago
      But lots of Office-like apps have implmented OpenXML read/write without MS libraries
- IamaMentalGiant 8y ago
  Especially (3). The day they stop taking $ for Android is the day I believe.
- dcbadacd 8y ago
  There's a nice documentary about Microsoft vs. FLOSS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wGLS2rSQPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wGLS2rSQPQ
- g-b-r 8y ago
  They'll do it the day they think it's profitable for them to do so, as their public company status obliges them to do, unless their shareholders vote otherwise.
  - nileshtrivedi 8y ago
    Of course. That's the point of criticizing them. So that they can see the potential profit in behaving nice.
    - g-b-r 8y ago
      Absolutely.
ninkendo 8y ago
To me? Almost nothing. Some of the the things they've done are pretty much a "life sentence" for ill will.
jhasse 8y ago
* Drop DirectX for Vulkan * Drop MSVC for Clang or GCC * Drop Edge for Firefox or Chromium because they love open-source, right?
- Someone1234 8y ago
  Vulkan is just a 3D graphics and compute API, it cannot replace DirectX because it doesn't support most of the things DirectX does. Did you mean to say Direct3D? That's still leave you with input, sound, maths, and 2D missing.
  - jhasse 8y ago
    Yes, I meant Direct3D.
- Ornstein 8y ago
  This is just ridiculous. The other points may/may not make sense but drop direct-x for vulkan? What? It'd have made more sense to make Direct-X open source than just dump it like it's useless. It's not like windows drivers for GPUs don't support vulkan. Direct-X has had a history of being the superior graphics API to OGL. Now, VULKAN evens things out a bit but just dumping so much of RnD for nothing doesn't make sense
  - ekr 8y ago
    > Direct-X has had a history of being the superior graphics API to OGL. That view is fairly one-sided, to say the least. The history is presented in this StackExchange thread: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/6054.... But to summarize: OpenGL was the standard before D3D was created. D3D has been a step behind OpenGL in features and performance up to about D3Dv7. Then the OpenGL ARB screwed up, with Microsoft among the members (some hypothesize that Microsoft were attempting to sabotage OpenGL).
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Several key pieces of Edge are open source, such as Chakra Core, which is the JS engine (like Chromium's V8), and more are expected. The argument IE6 was that the web grew too stagnant with a single dominant web renderer. If we all agree that the Web is a better place with multiple competing web renderers, why wish the death of the Edge renderer when it and Firefox are all that are standing in the way (and barely by latest metrics) of forks from the KHTML/WebKit/Blink family dominating?
notheguyouthink 8y ago
He consistent and have a good track record for years. It feels just like yesterday that Microsoft was spying on windows boxes. In my mind, everyone has a "Days since last accident" counter in their head, and Microsoft's number is quite low.
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  >It feels just like yesterday that Microsoft was spying on windows boxes. Windows 10 exists. Microsoft is "spying" on Windows boxes right now
- notheguyouthink 8y ago
  *Be
Nullabillity 8y ago
* Drop Windows and contribute to WINE * Drop OOXML and make ODF the default format * Drop the patents * Drop the telemetry * Drop Xbox * Drop DirectX * Drop the cloud garbage * Drop or open MSVC * Drop or open Edge * Actually open .NET
- philliphaydon 8y ago
  > * Actually open .NET We don't need to open the .NET Framework... We have .NET Core. It's better, faster, and cross-platform...
  - Nullabillity 8y ago
    But it's not a drop-in replacement, and it doesn't have any of the GUI bits.
    - bsg75 8y ago
      Would the GUI bits be useful on a non-Windows platform?
      - Nullabillity 8y ago
        Yes? There is lots of legacy GUI software that's stuck on it.
      - mikeymop 8y ago
        gtk / qt wrappers for old .net programs would be awesome.
      - efskap 8y ago
        Think this is the only other alternative for cross plat guis if you don't want to pull in non-.net stuff like qt or electron. https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia So yeah.
- lovich 8y ago
  I can see, or kinda see your point for all of these except for the Xbox. Why would you want them to drop that?
jjgreen 8y ago
Allow install of Windows onto a partition and not overwrite the MBR
- undseg 8y ago
  I've hated that behavior for years, and am appalled to learn this it still works that way.
  - mikeymop 8y ago
    Its worse now. Grub-efi cant boot Windows 8.1+ directly. It instead boots Window's Bootloader which then handles all of the bootable windows partitions. It looks okay if you only have one Windows in your boot options but once you have two you realize you have two bootloaders.
mulmen 8y ago
Honestly? Nothing. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose and Microsoft has spent my entire professional life acting against my interests.
g-b-r 8y ago
Sell the majority of their shares to other people and behave very nicely, doing things against their short and medium term interest, for 15 years. That's about the minimum, given their track record. In the meanwhile we can give them increasing credit, if they do behave nicely, but it's absurd to believe that they've suddenly become a good company and that they'll stay like this for the next decades. I have a hard time believing that anyone not payed by them could think so. And by the way, they have yet to reverse the decidedly un-nice things they have done with Windows 10 in the last years. Allow everyone to disable the telemetry and to better control the updates, and then we can start the 15 years count. Oh yeah, and maybe also stop astroturfing, that's another extremely un-nice thing that they clearly started doing only recently. There would be nothing wrong in discussing with the people, if they paid people to do so while stating in every message that they're being paid by Microsoft it would be perfectly ok, but that's very different from what they're doing now. These things make it clear that they're still motherfuckers, just less then they used to be.

crazygringo 8y ago

Corporations aren't people. If you change the leadership and change employee incentives, it might as well be a different company. Sure there's cultural inertia... but incentives trump culture every time.

4lch3m1st 8y ago
It may sound like a harsh statement, but exactly because corporations are not like people, they seem to be harder to change, in my opinion. I'm not saying Microsoft can't change, but it's easy to forget that the main goal of any corporation is profit, specially when it's so big.
- crazygringo 8y ago
  I think the profit motive is exactly why change happens. As soon as a company realizes it can make more $$$ with new strategy B than their original strategy A, then boom -- changed. (Sometimes you have to get rid of the old believers, but that already happened at Microsoft.) If you look at MSFT's stock price, it's ~tripled since Satya became CEO, after being stagnant for years. He seems incredibly committed to open-source -- because in the long run it will ultimately be more profitable for Microsoft, no?
  - icc97 8y ago
    > I think the profit motive is exactly why change happens. I agree. They don't actually care about open source it's purely because it's profitable to their business. They'll close it without caring if it's not making them enough money or good will. But I still hope this works. As long as maintaining open source projects is profitable to Microsoft then it gives incentives for other FLOSS projects to show that if such an anti open source company as Microsoft is willing to embrace it then there's good reasons to join in.
  - g-b-r 8y ago
    > He seems incredibly committed to open-source -- because in the long run it will ultimately be more profitable for Microsoft, no? I think it's just because in the short run Microsoft ran a very high risk of getting pushed in a corner. They are embracing what's hip most of all to improve their image, especially so as to be more attractive for talented technical people. The "Windows everywhere" vision is not pursuable at this time, so it makes sense to let some things go and focus on what can get you the most money right now (cloud, IA, individual profitable products and services). And maybe, just maybe, surreptitiously spread your patents everywhere... =0

sleavey 8y ago

I'd believe them if they open sourced Windows. They could still keep their web platforms (Office365, Azure, etc.) closed but it would be a huge statement to open up Windows 10. (Never going to happen, not just for philosophical reasons, but I'm sure legal reasons too)

leeter 8y ago
I think the biggest issue would be the audit. Recall that NT started out as part of OS/2 which is owned by IBM. I suspect that Edge/IE has similar issues, because it was evolved from NCSA Mosaic it probably has legal issues preventing it from being open sourced. I know for a fact that the ZIP component of the windows shell would be an issue as that is definitely licensed to Microsoft instead of being owned by.
- dkersten 8y ago
  Open what they can and keep binary blobs of stuff they can’t?
ksk 8y ago
GitHub was closed source, so its a good fit.

daniel-levin 8y ago

The MS of today has massive skin in this OSS game. They've been contributing to the Linux kernel for years now [0]. They've got over 4000 repos on GitHub. Many projects are actively developed on GH. As an example, the VS code team solicits contributions on GH [1]. It's hard to say what kind of resources have been invested in .NET core and the open source compilers (Roslyn) and the CLR. Substantial resources. If you told me 5/10 years ago about these developments I would have never believed you. I don't think it's fair to reason about a (40+ year old, 100k+ employees, public) company's behaviour as if it has a mind. It doesn't. [0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-microsoft/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-mic... [1] https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING...

Stranger43 8y ago
The new Microsoft only exist in markets where the old Microsoft have been pushed to the fringes. In the markets where Microsoft still have the ability to set the rules their behavior is even worse then the bad old days when they still believed the windows market could grow(as anyone trying to get a telemetry free copy of windows10 can tell you). What we are seeing now is Microsoft reacting to being kicked out of several markets by going back to the embrace phase in an attempt to regain some of the ground lost from Balmers failed attempt to secure a foothold for MS in the mobile and web framework markets. If they had really been about embracing open source and open standards we would have seen them do something useful for Linux like releasing a version of excel for Linux or opening up the protocols outlook and exchange use to talk to each other, but that kind of openness was never on the table. What i would expect to see with github is that if/when ms decide they want to utilize their investment for profit is a heavy integration with the azure environment in the form of CI hooks designed around azure api's to the point where other CI platforms become 2nd degree citizens in the ecosystem and i would not be surprised if a github account becomes a add on to an office365 subscription rather then a stand alone product.

partycoder 8y ago

They're all-in open source. They love it. That's why their former CEO said its cancer. Everything said after that is just some cheap PR trick for chumps. Quickly after they get back into an advantage position again they will abuse it same as before and you will live in an age of digital slavery.