4 ms·
Almost every months Microsoft make a more or less major gift to the open source community, this is beautiful. They are the new "benevolent" Google and it's no s
by The_rationalist 7y ago
Almost every months Microsoft make a more or less major gift to the open source community, this is beautiful.
They are the new "benevolent" Google and it's no surprise they're now the number one open source contributor of the world.
- TwoNineA 7y agoThey already extorted Android OEMs using exFat patents for billions, might as well try to look nice.
- MaupitiBlue 7y agoI always chuckled at the joke: Who makes more money off of the sale of each Android device, Google or Microsoft?
- mtgx 7y agoExactly. They are likely doing this because smartphone makers were already moving away from supporting as cards. The patents will likely expire soon too.
- swiley 7y agoAs much as I hate the patent bullying Android should have never used FAT for ANYTHING. The stupidity around that continues to make everyone's lives hard to this day.
- lern_too_spel 7y agoIf you want an SD card that is also readable by the digital camera ecosystem, what choice do you have?
- jdnenej 7y agoHow often are people taking a microSD card from their camera and putting it in their phone considering on a lot of devices this means pulling the battery out. Also they could support fat while not having the main system storage using fat.
- vetinari 7y agoMain system storage didn't use FAT; /sdcard did.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Piskvorrr 7y agoReading external flash media becomes hard if you don't have FAT support. But agreed, anything internal should have used a sane filesystem (I know that's hard to find. At least an open one: I see ext* used internally, but FAT32 for removable flash).
- tveita 7y agoYou need to support it if you want to properly support removable SD cards. Microsoft managed to make their patent encumbered exFAT file system a required part of the SDXC card spec, just as their much-abused patents on FAT32 were expiring. I guess it is gracious of them to partially undo the damage they've done, now that they have given up on Windows Phone.
- sametmax 7y agoSure, they are not the top dog anymore. They can't get away with insulting people the way they used too. Business as usual.
- Keyframe 7y agoThey managed to overtake Apple’s market cap. Seems to me they’re quite a top dog still.
- Synaesthesia 7y agoThat’s great but there’s nothing benevolent in their intentions. I don’t mean that as a slight, they’re the same as any other corporation - driven by profit and growth, not benevolence.
- Gibbon1 7y agoThe difference is Microsoft sells and licenses products to help customers with real needs. Google's customers are all about dark marketing.
- robocat 7y agoWindows Home is to Microsoft, as Chrome is to Google. Microsoft hasn't charged consumers for upgrades to Windows for years - and surely that is because they expect to profit from advertising. The same can pretty much be said for Windows Pro and small businesses. Why is there no subscription to Windows? Why can't I pay to get 3 more years of security fixes for Windows 7 however an enterprise can?
- rickycook 7y agoadvertising yes, but also why they are kind of lax on piracy: the real money is in corporate, so you have to keep people using your ecosystem at home so that’s what they want to use at work
- mda 7y agoSure sure, They had been extorting countless companies for decades including Satya's 5 years. Give me a break. They are neither benevolent nor better than Google.