6 ms·

It's hard to let past Ballmer / Gates era sins go, and I'll probably take a lot of heat here, but moves like this continue to reinforce the Nadella era is truly

by damon 8y ago

It's hard to let past Ballmer / Gates era sins go, and I'll probably take a lot of heat here, but moves like this continue to reinforce the Nadella era is truly serious about advancing OSS both within Microsoft and within the broader community.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kennymeyers 8y ago
You won't take heat from me. I think this is a very rational response to all the steps they've been taking.
baldfat 8y ago
I really think the Open Source Community has been to focused on Microsoft for way to long. Even during the Ballmer ERA we had very Open Source Friendly People at Microsoft. I think our focus needs to be on what is happening in the other areas. 1) Apple's Counterfeit Lawsuit for refurbished screens and Apple's Diagnostic Software requirement for basic repairs. If that mindset gets turned towards software we all will be in big trouble. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes-iphone-screens-jessa-jones https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes... 2) John Deer and the very idea of ownership being taken away. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ I think Linux has won the OS War, minus desktop. Now it is moving to the hardware that is running it.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Linux has won the server and HPC room war, there are many other kinds of deployments. On mobile there is iOS and regarding ChromeOS and Android it is only an implementation detail, lets see where it goes if Google is serious about Fuchsia. On game consoles we have a modified BSD on PS, Windows variant on XBox and Nintendo's own microkernel. Then on IoT space BSD licensed OSes like mbed, Zephyr and RTOS are on the rise. And then there is the whole mainframe and high integrity computing domains.
  - emilsedgh 8y ago
    Android it is only an implementation detail, lets see where it goes if Google is serious about Fuchsia. I think you got it backwards. Android was a serious thing. Fuchsia is an implementation detail.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Not really, you missed the point that the Linux kernel is actually irrelevant for app developers on Android, to the point that ART might in the future run on top of Fuchsia and no one would notice. There are no Linux kernel specific APIs in the list of stable NDK APIs. https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis As of Android 7 using non-stable APIs will kill the APK on launch. https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-7.0-changes#ndk https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-... https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/improving-stability-with-private-cc.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/improving-... https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/android-changes-for-ndk-developers.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/android-ch... Only OEMs get to deal directly with Linux kernel. You might naturally create an NDK application and do a bunch of syscalls, just it doesn't mean that the APK is guaranteed to work across all Android devices.
      - emilsedgh 8y ago
        Of course Linux is an implementation detail. When did I claim otherwise? That actually proves my point: Fuschia is another implementation detail as well.
  - baldfat 8y ago
    Linux = a kernel and if it uses the Linux kernel well that is what defines something as Linux.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Sure if it makes you happy, even if the userspace is completely different.
- chithanh 8y ago
  In what way is what Apple did to Henrik Huseby worse than than what Microsoft did to Eric Lundgren? I mean, Apple sued a business and wanted property confiscated. But Microsoft actually had someone sent to prison. Louis Rossmann who became famous with his Apple repair videos, and is otherwise very critical of Apple repair policies, had some choice words for Microsoft in this case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaoJErxYLtM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaoJErxYLtM
  - nkassis 8y ago
    Can't watch videos at the moment but found this article about this case: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/04/24/recycling-innovator-eric-lundgren-loses-appeal-on-computer-restore-discs-must-serve-15-month-prison-term/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.efc47eb2c0ce https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/04/24...
  - baldfat 8y ago
    Eric Lundgren should have had people install Linux on the computers or some other Open OS. The issue was Microsoft made $25 a disc for selling to refurbisher shops. 100% agree its stupid but once Eric was caught he was in the hands of federal prosecutors and MS Lawyers that needed to "defend" the value of their property. This is why we encourage people to stray away from closed OS.
- sjwright 8y ago
  I get irritated every time Louis and others bang on about those damn "refurbished" iPhone screen assemblies. Refurbished is a term that is frequently used to describe a used product that has been returned to near-new condition by replacing worn or faulty components with genuine parts or parts of equal specification. These screen assemblies are NOT refurbished, they are not of equal or comparable specification. The replacement glass used on these refurbished assemblies is cheap fragile junk, not Gorilla glass or a comparable substitute. It's a greatly inferior product, so describing these assemblies as refurbished is at minimum misleading; personally I'd call it a scam. If someone sold you an entire iPhone as "refurbished" where it's mostly genuine but an essential component was replaced with a third-rate fake—let's say the motherboard is a cheap Android equivalent running Android with an iPhone theme—everyone would agree that was a scam. The only difference between a fake motherboard and fake glass is most consumers will be unaware they've been scammed... until it breaks. (And even then, most consumers will just consider it bad luck and blame themselves.) I know multiple people who have had their cracked iPhones independently repaired only to have the screen break again after a matter of days or weeks, under the most innocuous of circumstances. We are being scammed, and Louis Rossman defends the scammers.
  - baldfat 8y ago
    Your misusing terms. You are using the term refurbished but you really mean remanufactured. Remanufacturing is the rebuilding of a product to specifications of the original manufactured product using a combination of reused, repaired and new parts. It requires the repair or replacement of worn out or obsolete components and modules. Remanufacturing is a form of a product recovery process that differs from other recovery processes in its completeness: a remanufactured part should match the same customer expectation as new machines.
    - sjwright 8y ago
      You might be right from an industry wonk's perspective, but what matters is consumer expectation. For example: Apple themselves uses the term refurbished to describe an iPhone that—but for the packaging—appears identical to a brand new item as far as any regular consumer could tell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refurbishment_(electronics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refurbishment_(electronics)
trhway 8y ago
It isn't about Ballmer vs. Nadella. It is about the scale and importance of Azure and Linux/OSS usage there that made the MS hugely vulnerable to the same style patent attack that MS has been doing all these years against Android and the likes. Joining OIN they almost completely mitigate that risk. MS does that it has been always doing - milking and protecting its cash cow as much as possible.
- HankB99 8y ago
  Can this move (WRT patents) be revoked if MS decides that it is not in their best interest to share freely? At present it looks like they really have changed. Could they change again?
mulmen 8y ago
I will never forget and I will never forgive.
pkulak 8y ago
The WSL stuff has me seriously considering a Windows laptop next, which I would have told you was pants-on-head crazy a couple years ago.
- dewiz 8y ago
  The positive experience of Microsoft with OSS hasn't yet translated in a positive experience with Windows. Windows is still a closed platform, with several issues, like wasting disk space, degrading performance over months, frequent reboots interrupting work in progress and forcing software to be reopened, losing state, too much information on the screen, UI inconsistencies e.g. control panel and 3 different consoles (PowerShell, MSDOS, Bash), forced UI patterns, etc.
  - kibwen 8y ago
    Can confirm that despite my best efforts I just can't abide using Windows long-term. I have lots of games that are Windows-only, and after accidentally hosing my dual-boot Linux partition I've been honestly trying to use Windows alone for over a year, and the experience is increasingly frustrating, so pardon the following rant: The Windows Antimalware service consistently pegs my CPU at 35%, and the service cannot be stopped. Trying to kill it in task manager gives you "permission denied", even if you run task manager as admin. There's an entry for it in the service manager interface, but any settings that would effectively disable it are apparently ignored; there is no evident effect. Registry hacking has been fruitless. The only thing that almost works is to go into the Windows Defender interface and flip the "realtime protection" switch, at which point the service will eventually stop itself up to half an hour later, and then undo the switch and turn itself back on again the next day; I can tell when this has happened because I can hear my fans spinning up from across the room. There's really no better way for Microsoft to drive home how little control I have over my own computer. And this isn't the only thing. The Windows store is AFAICT pointless; even trying to install Microsoft software like Skype installs some weird limited version that tells you to manually install actual Skype if you want all the program's features. The fact that it keeps reinstalling Candy Crush shovelware lumps Microsoft in with scummy OEMs. You can't disable Cortana without also disabling the OS's search features. Disabling the ads in the start menu, lock screen, notifications pane, search interface, and god knows where else all require digging through different menus to flip different preferences. It endlessly pesters you to use Edge over any other browser and has the gall to reset your browser preference to Edge randomly after updates. So I can applaud Microsoft for their OSS work, but Windows really is just thoroughly aggravating. Desktop Linux is also thoroughly aggravating, but at least when it is, I know it's usually my fault, and I know it can be fixed.
linuxftw 8y ago
They're releasing their own linux distro (however half-baked it is). They need to join the OIN so the other Linux Patent holders don't sue them for infringement.
jtr_47 8y ago
Do not trust a for profit company, ever to provide free or open anything. They are there to make money off of the work they do or that others do as contributions to their open source products.
dwd 8y ago
There are also some long term employees like Scott Guthrie who have nudged the corporation in a better direction for many years.

by damon 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kennymeyers 8y ago

You won't take heat from me. I think this is a very rational response to all the steps they've been taking.

baldfat 8y ago

I really think the Open Source Community has been to focused on Microsoft for way to long. Even during the Ballmer ERA we had very Open Source Friendly People at Microsoft. I think our focus needs to be on what is happening in the other areas. 1) Apple's Counterfeit Lawsuit for refurbished screens and Apple's Diagnostic Software requirement for basic repairs. If that mindset gets turned towards software we all will be in big trouble. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes-iphone-screens-jessa-jones https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evk4wk/dhs-seizes... 2) John Deer and the very idea of ownership being taken away. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ I think Linux has won the OS War, minus desktop. Now it is moving to the hardware that is running it.

pjmlp 8y ago
Linux has won the server and HPC room war, there are many other kinds of deployments. On mobile there is iOS and regarding ChromeOS and Android it is only an implementation detail, lets see where it goes if Google is serious about Fuchsia. On game consoles we have a modified BSD on PS, Windows variant on XBox and Nintendo's own microkernel. Then on IoT space BSD licensed OSes like mbed, Zephyr and RTOS are on the rise. And then there is the whole mainframe and high integrity computing domains.
- emilsedgh 8y ago
  Android it is only an implementation detail, lets see where it goes if Google is serious about Fuchsia. I think you got it backwards. Android was a serious thing. Fuchsia is an implementation detail.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Not really, you missed the point that the Linux kernel is actually irrelevant for app developers on Android, to the point that ART might in the future run on top of Fuchsia and no one would notice. There are no Linux kernel specific APIs in the list of stable NDK APIs. https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis As of Android 7 using non-stable APIs will kill the APK on launch. https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-7.0-changes#ndk https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-... https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/improving-stability-with-private-cc.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/improving-... https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/android-changes-for-ndk-developers.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2016/06/android-ch... Only OEMs get to deal directly with Linux kernel. You might naturally create an NDK application and do a bunch of syscalls, just it doesn't mean that the APK is guaranteed to work across all Android devices.
    - emilsedgh 8y ago
      Of course Linux is an implementation detail. When did I claim otherwise? That actually proves my point: Fuschia is another implementation detail as well.
- baldfat 8y ago
  Linux = a kernel and if it uses the Linux kernel well that is what defines something as Linux.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Sure if it makes you happy, even if the userspace is completely different.
chithanh 8y ago
In what way is what Apple did to Henrik Huseby worse than than what Microsoft did to Eric Lundgren? I mean, Apple sued a business and wanted property confiscated. But Microsoft actually had someone sent to prison. Louis Rossmann who became famous with his Apple repair videos, and is otherwise very critical of Apple repair policies, had some choice words for Microsoft in this case. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaoJErxYLtM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaoJErxYLtM
- nkassis 8y ago
  Can't watch videos at the moment but found this article about this case: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/04/24/recycling-innovator-eric-lundgren-loses-appeal-on-computer-restore-discs-must-serve-15-month-prison-term/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.efc47eb2c0ce https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/04/24...
- baldfat 8y ago
  Eric Lundgren should have had people install Linux on the computers or some other Open OS. The issue was Microsoft made $25 a disc for selling to refurbisher shops. 100% agree its stupid but once Eric was caught he was in the hands of federal prosecutors and MS Lawyers that needed to "defend" the value of their property. This is why we encourage people to stray away from closed OS.
sjwright 8y ago
I get irritated every time Louis and others bang on about those damn "refurbished" iPhone screen assemblies. Refurbished is a term that is frequently used to describe a used product that has been returned to near-new condition by replacing worn or faulty components with genuine parts or parts of equal specification. These screen assemblies are NOT refurbished, they are not of equal or comparable specification. The replacement glass used on these refurbished assemblies is cheap fragile junk, not Gorilla glass or a comparable substitute. It's a greatly inferior product, so describing these assemblies as refurbished is at minimum misleading; personally I'd call it a scam. If someone sold you an entire iPhone as "refurbished" where it's mostly genuine but an essential component was replaced with a third-rate fake—let's say the motherboard is a cheap Android equivalent running Android with an iPhone theme—everyone would agree that was a scam. The only difference between a fake motherboard and fake glass is most consumers will be unaware they've been scammed... until it breaks. (And even then, most consumers will just consider it bad luck and blame themselves.) I know multiple people who have had their cracked iPhones independently repaired only to have the screen break again after a matter of days or weeks, under the most innocuous of circumstances. We are being scammed, and Louis Rossman defends the scammers.
- baldfat 8y ago
  Your misusing terms. You are using the term refurbished but you really mean remanufactured. Remanufacturing is the rebuilding of a product to specifications of the original manufactured product using a combination of reused, repaired and new parts. It requires the repair or replacement of worn out or obsolete components and modules. Remanufacturing is a form of a product recovery process that differs from other recovery processes in its completeness: a remanufactured part should match the same customer expectation as new machines.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    You might be right from an industry wonk's perspective, but what matters is consumer expectation. For example: Apple themselves uses the term refurbished to describe an iPhone that—but for the packaging—appears identical to a brand new item as far as any regular consumer could tell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refurbishment_(electronics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refurbishment_(electronics)

trhway 8y ago

It isn't about Ballmer vs. Nadella. It is about the scale and importance of Azure and Linux/OSS usage there that made the MS hugely vulnerable to the same style patent attack that MS has been doing all these years against Android and the likes. Joining OIN they almost completely mitigate that risk. MS does that it has been always doing - milking and protecting its cash cow as much as possible.

HankB99 8y ago
Can this move (WRT patents) be revoked if MS decides that it is not in their best interest to share freely? At present it looks like they really have changed. Could they change again?

mulmen 8y ago

I will never forget and I will never forgive.

pkulak 8y ago

The WSL stuff has me seriously considering a Windows laptop next, which I would have told you was pants-on-head crazy a couple years ago.

dewiz 8y ago
The positive experience of Microsoft with OSS hasn't yet translated in a positive experience with Windows. Windows is still a closed platform, with several issues, like wasting disk space, degrading performance over months, frequent reboots interrupting work in progress and forcing software to be reopened, losing state, too much information on the screen, UI inconsistencies e.g. control panel and 3 different consoles (PowerShell, MSDOS, Bash), forced UI patterns, etc.
- kibwen 8y ago
  Can confirm that despite my best efforts I just can't abide using Windows long-term. I have lots of games that are Windows-only, and after accidentally hosing my dual-boot Linux partition I've been honestly trying to use Windows alone for over a year, and the experience is increasingly frustrating, so pardon the following rant: The Windows Antimalware service consistently pegs my CPU at 35%, and the service cannot be stopped. Trying to kill it in task manager gives you "permission denied", even if you run task manager as admin. There's an entry for it in the service manager interface, but any settings that would effectively disable it are apparently ignored; there is no evident effect. Registry hacking has been fruitless. The only thing that almost works is to go into the Windows Defender interface and flip the "realtime protection" switch, at which point the service will eventually stop itself up to half an hour later, and then undo the switch and turn itself back on again the next day; I can tell when this has happened because I can hear my fans spinning up from across the room. There's really no better way for Microsoft to drive home how little control I have over my own computer. And this isn't the only thing. The Windows store is AFAICT pointless; even trying to install Microsoft software like Skype installs some weird limited version that tells you to manually install actual Skype if you want all the program's features. The fact that it keeps reinstalling Candy Crush shovelware lumps Microsoft in with scummy OEMs. You can't disable Cortana without also disabling the OS's search features. Disabling the ads in the start menu, lock screen, notifications pane, search interface, and god knows where else all require digging through different menus to flip different preferences. It endlessly pesters you to use Edge over any other browser and has the gall to reset your browser preference to Edge randomly after updates. So I can applaud Microsoft for their OSS work, but Windows really is just thoroughly aggravating. Desktop Linux is also thoroughly aggravating, but at least when it is, I know it's usually my fault, and I know it can be fixed.

linuxftw 8y ago

They're releasing their own linux distro (however half-baked it is). They need to join the OIN so the other Linux Patent holders don't sue them for infringement.

jtr_47 8y ago

Do not trust a for profit company, ever to provide free or open anything. They are there to make money off of the work they do or that others do as contributions to their open source products.

dwd 8y ago

There are also some long term employees like Scott Guthrie who have nudged the corporation in a better direction for many years.