8 ms·

What I don't get is why didn't Microsoft open source at least some of their toolset even if they didn't make it free? I remember coding in the 90s. It was a nig

What I don't get is why didn't Microsoft open source at least some of their toolset even if they didn't make it free? I remember coding in the 90s. It was a nightmare. You were never sure if you hit a bug in the programming language, the operating system, or the database. All three were closed off. It was maddening.

FussyZeus 8y ago
Pretty much anything from the days of yore that was done stupidly by Microsoft can be laid at Ballmer's feet, either directly, or in-directly via the company culture he fostered. He was the reason they missed out on open source, missed out on mobile, and missed out on a ton of other stuff as he counted his money while the market slipped ahead without them. They're better now but I don't think they'll ever be the player they were in the 2000's (and that's probably a good thing for everyone).
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  "[Stomping] Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!" He wasn't entirely wrong, but even so, Nadella is a bazillion percent better as the CEO. ...Actually, make that a gazillion percent better.
amaranth 8y ago
I've seen suggestions from ex-Microsoft employees that the only reason they were even charging money for Visual C++ and the rest of their toolchain was to avoid killing off the third-party market. They wanted to be as developer friendly as possible and that meant having a variety of choices so everyone could use what they liked most. Now that MinGW and LLVM have made it easy to get free and open source toolchains for Windows (and even MSVC compatible ones from LLVM) they do just give away most of their developer tools. They can't open source the compiler though because they don't write the C++ frontend parser/lexer, that comes from a third party.
- ammar2 8y ago
  >because they don't write the C++ frontend parser/lexer This is a common story with a lot of MS stuff, especially in the more legacy products. There are so many open tickets about rewriting 3rd party licensed components but they usually get pushed down for business needs.

FussyZeus 8y ago

Pretty much anything from the days of yore that was done stupidly by Microsoft can be laid at Ballmer's feet, either directly, or in-directly via the company culture he fostered. He was the reason they missed out on open source, missed out on mobile, and missed out on a ton of other stuff as he counted his money while the market slipped ahead without them. They're better now but I don't think they'll ever be the player they were in the 2000's (and that's probably a good thing for everyone).

logfromblammo 8y ago
"[Stomping] Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!" He wasn't entirely wrong, but even so, Nadella is a bazillion percent better as the CEO. ...Actually, make that a gazillion percent better.

amaranth 8y ago

I've seen suggestions from ex-Microsoft employees that the only reason they were even charging money for Visual C++ and the rest of their toolchain was to avoid killing off the third-party market. They wanted to be as developer friendly as possible and that meant having a variety of choices so everyone could use what they liked most. Now that MinGW and LLVM have made it easy to get free and open source toolchains for Windows (and even MSVC compatible ones from LLVM) they do just give away most of their developer tools. They can't open source the compiler though because they don't write the C++ frontend parser/lexer, that comes from a third party.

ammar2 8y ago
>because they don't write the C++ frontend parser/lexer This is a common story with a lot of MS stuff, especially in the more legacy products. There are so many open tickets about rewriting 3rd party licensed components but they usually get pushed down for business needs.