6 ms·

> the bad old days of Microsoft being an anti-competitive bully are dead and buried. Wait, there are people who genuinely believe this?

imglorp 7y ago
Plenty of us still have CALS-mares. The Man will use license terms to control what you deploy and where and how - it's more than just a purchase of a Thing that you can use because it comes with FUTURE terms that can change, forever. See also weekend thread on Cisco locking users out of their own hardware. This is why there is Free software -- free as in choice, not free as in beer -- so users don't get locked in or forced into something other than a simple purchase.
- DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
  At least Microsoft isn’t pulling an Oracle... yet.
magashna 7y ago
Well now it seems like they're much more strategic and Machiavellian
arnvald 7y ago
You'd be surprised. When I interview developers in their early 20s, they say Microsoft is great because they created Typescript and VS Code, and now they'll make web devs' lives easier by embracing Chromium. I once interviewed at a young fintech company that proudly said they're Microsoft-first company (ie they use .net stack, azure, outlook and ms teams etc)
holtalanm 7y ago
I genuinely believe that Microsoft is at least making an effort to not be the 'Microsoft of old'. Also, them open-sourcing a lot of their tools seems to back that effort up: VSCode TypeScript .NET Core Powershell Core Just to name a few.
- meesles 7y ago
  When you realize their objective is the commoditization of software and software development to further increase your dependence on their ecosystem (it's not just Windows anymore, it's Azure and the IDE and their other tools), it seems a lot less benevolent. No company worth their salt does anything for free, there's always a reason.
  - holtalanm 7y ago
    That is a given. Of course every company has the goal of making money. They really don't stand to gain much by open-sourcing their tools, though, besides developer goodwill, which is something that they sorely needed to remain competitive in today's market.
jbigelow76 7y ago
The "old" MS vs the "new" MS really could stand to fade away at this point. Companies, pick anyone you want, have sticks and carrots. MS used to be almost all stick and little carrot, these days they are a lot more generous with the carrots... but that stick is still in the other hand behind their back when the opportunity arises.

imglorp 7y ago

Plenty of us still have CALS-mares. The Man will use license terms to control what you deploy and where and how - it's more than just a purchase of a Thing that you can use because it comes with FUTURE terms that can change, forever. See also weekend thread on Cisco locking users out of their own hardware. This is why there is Free software -- free as in choice, not free as in beer -- so users don't get locked in or forced into something other than a simple purchase.

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
At least Microsoft isn’t pulling an Oracle... yet.

magashna 7y ago

Well now it seems like they're much more strategic and Machiavellian

arnvald 7y ago

You'd be surprised. When I interview developers in their early 20s, they say Microsoft is great because they created Typescript and VS Code, and now they'll make web devs' lives easier by embracing Chromium. I once interviewed at a young fintech company that proudly said they're Microsoft-first company (ie they use .net stack, azure, outlook and ms teams etc)

holtalanm 7y ago

I genuinely believe that Microsoft is at least making an effort to not be the 'Microsoft of old'. Also, them open-sourcing a lot of their tools seems to back that effort up: VSCode TypeScript .NET Core Powershell Core Just to name a few.

meesles 7y ago
When you realize their objective is the commoditization of software and software development to further increase your dependence on their ecosystem (it's not just Windows anymore, it's Azure and the IDE and their other tools), it seems a lot less benevolent. No company worth their salt does anything for free, there's always a reason.
- holtalanm 7y ago
  That is a given. Of course every company has the goal of making money. They really don't stand to gain much by open-sourcing their tools, though, besides developer goodwill, which is something that they sorely needed to remain competitive in today's market.

jbigelow76 7y ago

The "old" MS vs the "new" MS really could stand to fade away at this point. Companies, pick anyone you want, have sticks and carrots. MS used to be almost all stick and little carrot, these days they are a lot more generous with the carrots... but that stick is still in the other hand behind their back when the opportunity arises.