4 ms·

I'm still unconvinced, I think we'll need to see years of really good behavior for me to possibly believe they've changed. There have been decades of bad faith

I'm still unconvinced, I think we'll need to see years of really good behavior for me to possibly believe they've changed. There have been decades of bad faith attacks on free/libre technology, I think I'm going to need to see at least 5 years of no fucking around from them before I consider this more than the embrace part of embrace, extend, extinguish. Up till now my biggest complaint has been the extortion racket they've been running with these patents, so this is certainly a move in the right direction, but that company is evil to the core and I don't believe for a second they're really trying to change for any reason other than marketing/public perception.

icey 8y ago
When does the timer start? Microsoft started open sourcing a lot of its core technology over four years ago (.NET Core being one example).
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  It doesn't matter - just another person that jumped on the MS bash bandwagon because it's fun and it lets you score quick brownie points. Most people have crap articulations of why MS is evil or why it sucks besides "patents", and it's the same basic drivel I see repeated about any company. Never ceases to amaze me how critical thinking skills can cease so thoroughly on a subject.
  - cure 8y ago
    I think you may be missing some historical perspective. Microsoft have quite the history of being extremely unpleasant toward free and open source software. There's also this list of more recent issues with their software: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html
    - tomnipotent 8y ago
      No, not missing anything. Most of the stuff on the GNU list is highly subjective, and I don't consider Richard Stallman a voice of reason. Did Microsoft employ some aggressive business practices? Sure. Show me another modern-day company from any country that hasn't done the same.
      - AsyncAwait 8y ago
        > I don't consider Richard Stallman a voice of reason. So what exactly has he been wrong about?
        intern4tional 8y ago
        Not the parent but: Technical details I cannot think of anything off the top of my head; my issues would be with his motivations. He ascribes things to malice that could be easily attributed (and rightfully should be) to incompetence or out of touch with the customer.
        AsyncAwait 8y ago
        > He ascribes things to malice that could be easily attributed (and rightfully should be) to incompetence or out of touch with the customer. So you're ascibing spying, tacking, inserting ads etc. all to "incompetence". Interesting. I'd definitely say it's malice. It's not "out of touch with the customer", it's making money at the expense of the customer.
        tomnipotent 8y ago
        It definitely wasn't malice, but feel free to believe in whatever makes you feel better. The way people like to throw around words like "malice" and "evil" without seeing the ridiculous hyperbole is beyond me.
        AsyncAwait 8y ago
        You can say it wasn't malice, just 'business' or something like that. But in that sense, war also isn't awful, just 'business' etc. I am on the other hand amazed at how much Slack people are willing to give multinational corporations that don't presumably even have them on payroll.
  - AnonymousPlanet 8y ago
    > It doesn't matter - just another person that jumped on the MS bash bandwagon because it's fun and it lets you score quick brownie points. Please stop doing this. With the same attitude, I could call you a naive starry eyed fanboy who has been duped by some benevolent looking little tricks and who is riding on the sugary wave of MS apologism that has been going on here for a while. The actual money for MS comes from its strong foothold within corporations. And if you look at the picture here, you will see technical interdependencies and licensing models that are carefully crafted to make MS technology spread like a cancer through your org. None of this is in danger of being changed by any of Microsoft's oh so benevolent moves. Those are merely to get people like us developers on their good side. Microsoft opensources .NET core. But not those parts that are important to interoperate with other MS technologies. For that you are still stuck with Windows and closed source. This doesn't even slightly endanger MS's foothold here. Microsoft embraces Linux. But as part of Windows and not to the benefit of Linux as an independent OS. Should MS Office ever run on Linux then the boat has turned wrt. Linux. What I see here is classic embrace, extend, extinguish. Microsoft builds VS Code, an editor for web developers. VS Code does not compete with Visual Studio but with editors like Sublime. MS is trying to pull developers working on MacBooks and Linux to their side, to their technology stack. Get people to care for (in the form of making plugins etc.) technology under their control. The current developer world revolves around open source and communities taking care of projects they need and use. MS wants control of this (cf. the acquisition of Github). Keep this in mind when judging any new move of Microsoft.
- markovbot 8y ago
  Well, I suppose now. Their last majorly problematic behavior (that I'm aware of) was the extortion racket against Android vendors with their FAT patent, which is presumably no longer going to occur.
- executesorder66 8y ago
  Their core technology? They haven't opensourced windows, MS Office, Skype, Visual Studio or Active Directory/Exchange. So no, they haven't opensourced any of their core tech.
  - jve 8y ago
    Guys, are they obligated to throw their business outside windows, give everything for free and quit or shrink, firing more than half of people doing job @ ms? Why do people think they should opensource everything?
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
      Noone is saying they should opensource everything. But people are saying they opensourced their "core tech", and that is bullshit.

icey 8y ago

When does the timer start? Microsoft started open sourcing a lot of its core technology over four years ago (.NET Core being one example).

tomnipotent 8y ago
It doesn't matter - just another person that jumped on the MS bash bandwagon because it's fun and it lets you score quick brownie points. Most people have crap articulations of why MS is evil or why it sucks besides "patents", and it's the same basic drivel I see repeated about any company. Never ceases to amaze me how critical thinking skills can cease so thoroughly on a subject.
- cure 8y ago
  I think you may be missing some historical perspective. Microsoft have quite the history of being extremely unpleasant toward free and open source software. There's also this list of more recent issues with their software: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html
  - tomnipotent 8y ago
    No, not missing anything. Most of the stuff on the GNU list is highly subjective, and I don't consider Richard Stallman a voice of reason. Did Microsoft employ some aggressive business practices? Sure. Show me another modern-day company from any country that hasn't done the same.
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      > I don't consider Richard Stallman a voice of reason. So what exactly has he been wrong about?
      - intern4tional 8y ago
        Not the parent but: Technical details I cannot think of anything off the top of my head; my issues would be with his motivations. He ascribes things to malice that could be easily attributed (and rightfully should be) to incompetence or out of touch with the customer.
        AsyncAwait 8y ago
        > He ascribes things to malice that could be easily attributed (and rightfully should be) to incompetence or out of touch with the customer. So you're ascibing spying, tacking, inserting ads etc. all to "incompetence". Interesting. I'd definitely say it's malice. It's not "out of touch with the customer", it's making money at the expense of the customer.
        tomnipotent 8y ago
        It definitely wasn't malice, but feel free to believe in whatever makes you feel better. The way people like to throw around words like "malice" and "evil" without seeing the ridiculous hyperbole is beyond me.
        AsyncAwait 8y ago
        You can say it wasn't malice, just 'business' or something like that. But in that sense, war also isn't awful, just 'business' etc. I am on the other hand amazed at how much Slack people are willing to give multinational corporations that don't presumably even have them on payroll.
- AnonymousPlanet 8y ago
  > It doesn't matter - just another person that jumped on the MS bash bandwagon because it's fun and it lets you score quick brownie points. Please stop doing this. With the same attitude, I could call you a naive starry eyed fanboy who has been duped by some benevolent looking little tricks and who is riding on the sugary wave of MS apologism that has been going on here for a while. The actual money for MS comes from its strong foothold within corporations. And if you look at the picture here, you will see technical interdependencies and licensing models that are carefully crafted to make MS technology spread like a cancer through your org. None of this is in danger of being changed by any of Microsoft's oh so benevolent moves. Those are merely to get people like us developers on their good side. Microsoft opensources .NET core. But not those parts that are important to interoperate with other MS technologies. For that you are still stuck with Windows and closed source. This doesn't even slightly endanger MS's foothold here. Microsoft embraces Linux. But as part of Windows and not to the benefit of Linux as an independent OS. Should MS Office ever run on Linux then the boat has turned wrt. Linux. What I see here is classic embrace, extend, extinguish. Microsoft builds VS Code, an editor for web developers. VS Code does not compete with Visual Studio but with editors like Sublime. MS is trying to pull developers working on MacBooks and Linux to their side, to their technology stack. Get people to care for (in the form of making plugins etc.) technology under their control. The current developer world revolves around open source and communities taking care of projects they need and use. MS wants control of this (cf. the acquisition of Github). Keep this in mind when judging any new move of Microsoft.
markovbot 8y ago
Well, I suppose now. Their last majorly problematic behavior (that I'm aware of) was the extortion racket against Android vendors with their FAT patent, which is presumably no longer going to occur.
executesorder66 8y ago
Their core technology? They haven't opensourced windows, MS Office, Skype, Visual Studio or Active Directory/Exchange. So no, they haven't opensourced any of their core tech.
- jve 8y ago
  Guys, are they obligated to throw their business outside windows, give everything for free and quit or shrink, firing more than half of people doing job @ ms? Why do people think they should opensource everything?
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 8y ago
    Noone is saying they should opensource everything. But people are saying they opensourced their "core tech", and that is bullshit.