8 ms·
For the last half-dozen years (give or take), I've been flabbergasted that MS has taken some of the steps it has toward being a better technology neighbor. Eve
by apotheon 8y ago
For the last half-dozen years (give or take), I've been flabbergasted that MS has taken some of the steps it has toward being a better technology neighbor. Even so, it still engages in some very sketchy (even "evil") behavior, as all publicly traded corporations do, and some of that behavior is very reminiscent of the bad old days of Microsoft (though living up to the evils of the Ballmer age is probably not even visible from where MS is now).
Over the last couple years, I see people having completely ignored the fact that Microsoft still pulls a lot of bad shit. Because the change has been so drastic, people seem entirely willing to overlook the horrors still in play. Sure, Oracle seems more evil than Microsoft these days, but that's a pretty damned low bar for someone to suddenly forgive Microsoft and start singing its praises. I'm a bit more cynical than that. Show me an open source MS-DOS 5.0 at least; MS-DOS 2.0 is nothing but a mostly-pointless curiosity and PR stunt. Show me a covenant to never sue anyone for patent infringement, regardless of OIN membership, unless that other party sued MS for patent infringement first. Show me opt-in telemetry instead of opt-out; never opt-out instead of opt-in, for any software at all. We need more.
I've been disappointed that people were so ready to forgive MS not only for the perfidies of the past, but the ongoing bad behavior of the present, too. I'm happy to see there are still people skeptical of Microsoft's current state of reform here on HN. Yes, I am willing to believe MS is better than it was, and is better in some respects than Google and Apple now (which are just atrocious), but that doesn't mean I'm willing to give MS any support for anything that isn't completely free and clear in its licensing.
DOS 2.0? .NET Core? PowerShell? Sure, I am happy with the direction Microsoft has taken with those, but I'm not 100% sure I can legally trust them outside of a Linux context, given how the OIN somehow abandoned the pretense of just being about openness and doubled down on being about Linux specifically. What kind of insanity might creep into GitHub now? How dangerous would it still be to use Windows? No thanks, I'll put my time and trust elsewhere, same as with how I treat Apple, Facebook, Google, and Oracle. I can't trust any of them, and you shouldn't either.
- neolefty 8y ago> ... Microsoft still pulls a lot of bad shit. Specific examples?
- mixmastamyk 8y ago- Data collection - Forced installs - Android shakedown
- maxxxxx 8y agoWindows 10 definitely feels very user hostile with forced updates and data collection.
- pjmlp 8y agoMuch less than my Android devices.
- scruffyherder 8y agoI stopped using Android a month ago, and it was amazing all the emails from google wondering where I was, or suddenly getting invited to various beta programs and stuff. They really do their best to lock you in. I just hate that WeChat had their hissy fit with Microsoft, and it blocked WeChat on Windows Phones. (I have a Wo Mobile China OEM version of a Nokia 1520 and it refuses to let me logon with the Chinese version of the app in Hong Kong, China & Macau using local SIMs in each area). When you look at the Xbox One where Google doesn't compete it has things like YouTube, and other popular media apps, and yet the Windows Phone was denied these apps as Google's primary target for Android was to dethrone the Microsoft Windows CE world, which they did brilliantly with the aquisiition of Android, and releasing it for zero dollars to any OEM for any formfactor, while Microsoft kept too far of a strict control over the platform. Ironically Micosoft forgot the lession of MS-DOS, which is that the money isn't in the hardware, but the end users buying software.
- apotheon 8y agoThat's debatable, but I find Apple iOS, Google Android, and Microsoft Win10 all user-hostile. One of them being "worse" than another, in some person's opinion, in no way excuses anyone from being bad.
- chithanh 8y ago> Specific examples? Microsoft should come clean, admit their wrongdoings and recant doing from the following unethical practices: 1. Bullying the competition with software patents 2. Hijacking the ISO standardization process when they pushed through their OOXML specification 3. Having a man sent to prison for making Windows Restore DVDs from ISO images that you could download freely from the Internet 4. Lobbying lawmakers to block laws which promote open standards and free software for use in the government 5. Preventing users from running their own software using draconian DRM on closed devices (Windows 10 Mobile and S) 6. Enacting restrictive Marketplace policies against GPL-3 software 7. Launching misinformation campaigns ("Get the facts" etc.), Astroturfing and other ways of spreading lies, especially against Linux So now they basically stopped #1 after already having more or less stopped #7, and while technically still on sale, the market laughed them out of #5. But they have still not owned up on anything, so someone mistrusting might think they could start at any time again.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]