9 ms·

So after abusing this bullshit for more than a decade to bully companies. How gracious and generous of them. Oh btw, Satya is the CEO for 5 years.

by mda 7y ago

GordonS 7y ago
I think that's pretty unfair - Microsoft has changed enormously in the past 5 years.
- msftlvslicnsing 7y ago
  VSCode, exFat, and .Net core are not enormous. Their revenue streams are enormous and remain as close to their chest as ever.
  - immigrantsheep 7y ago
    So they should start losing money? Should Google? Should Apple? I don't get this argument. And .Net Core being open source is enormous if you use it.
    - rswail 7y ago
      The system I just implemented is using .Net Core on Ubuntu on AWS/VMWare and is happily processing lots of transit trips a day. Licensing costs are $0. .Net Core brings MS's equivalent to Java to Linux and enables the use of a better language set (C#/F#) and allows for a relatively seamless development experience. What's not to like?
    - msftlvslicnsing 7y ago
      >So they should start losing money? I was unclear; their revenue streams are still overwhelmingly comprised of proprietary tech. Darwin and AOSP are massive compared to the toys MSFT is throwing over the Linux wall. This idea that they need to lose money is a strawman.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    Microsoft SQL Server on Linux indeed has enormous licensing costs.
    - msftlvslicnsing 7y ago
      Relative to what, though? Departmental budgets or MSFT's gross revenue?
  - GordonS 7y ago
    I disagree - VSCode has an enormous user base, and .NET Core is a huge deal. They even open sourced the serverless engine from Azure's Function Apps!
    - msftlvslicnsing 7y ago
      All that withstanding, nobody but developers buy Microsoft products because of VSCode.
- userbinator 7y ago
  MS has changed from proprietary software vendor to a spy-on-the-users-and-try-to-monetise-them services company that's trying to be Google. I don't think that's much of an improvement. Their code used to be their core value and source of profit; they are open-sourcing a lot of it now because that's not true anymore and they might as well get some publicity out of it. If you look at companies like Google and Facebook who publish lots of open-source, you'll see the same trend --- it's opened because it's not worth anything to keep it secret anymore.
jaboutboul 7y ago
Stop shitting on them. We won the war. They’re mending their ways. It takes a long time to right such a large ship with levels upon levels of bureaucratic bullshit that’s been caked on for decades. It’s a WIP and they just granted a patent license to the OIN for fuck’s sake. Even 10 years ago this would have sounded like science fiction.
- yarrel 7y ago
  No, we are losing the war. Open Source is not an impediment to Microsoft's attacks on users' freedom. You can get a job on LinkedIn to write code on GitHub that runs on Windows and talks to a server deployed to Azure with a single click from within the README.md . In that ecosystem, permissively licensed Open Source software just helps Microsoft exploit you. Which is why Microsoft unironically love Open Source and are very happy to see paid and unpaid shills shout that from the rooftops. Dumping soon-to-expire patents to get goodwill from people they need to encourage into or prevent leaving that ecosystem is a strategic move that is designed to make sure you don't escape in the long term. Pointing this out isn't shitting on the poor, defenceless corporation. It's just not being fooled by their attempts to fleshmask Open Source. They still hate Free Software.
  - jaboutboul 7y ago
    This is not just a dump of soon to expire patent. The patent grant and their support and commitment to indemnify anyone who uses it through OIN proves to me, that at least when it comes to this, they are acting in good faith. Listen, my first job outta high school was at Red Hat. For the majority of my life I hated Microsoft and everything they stood for. The bottom line is, money talks (the virtues or lack thereof of that are for a different debate) and they realized that people became familiar with Linux which was superior for most non-desktop use cases, enabled innovation at a greater pace and also was a path around all the Microsoft bullshit and customers were abandoning ship. Eventually they had NO CHOICE but to evolve or die.
    - wildfire 7y ago
      > Eventually they had NO CHOICE > but to evolve or die. So, really they haven't done anyone any favours then? Why do you think so many people look upon their acts as something with good intentions? Just better marketing spin?

So after abusing this bullshit for more than a decade to bully companies. How gracious and generous of them. Oh btw, Satya is the CEO for 5 years.

by mda 7y ago

So after abusing this bullshit for more than a decade to bully companies. How gracious and generous of them. Oh btw, Satya is the CEO for 5 years.

GordonS 7y ago

I think that's pretty unfair - Microsoft has changed enormously in the past 5 years.

msftlvslicnsing 7y ago
VSCode, exFat, and .Net core are not enormous. Their revenue streams are enormous and remain as close to their chest as ever.
- immigrantsheep 7y ago
  So they should start losing money? Should Google? Should Apple? I don't get this argument. And .Net Core being open source is enormous if you use it.
  - rswail 7y ago
    The system I just implemented is using .Net Core on Ubuntu on AWS/VMWare and is happily processing lots of transit trips a day. Licensing costs are $0. .Net Core brings MS's equivalent to Java to Linux and enables the use of a better language set (C#/F#) and allows for a relatively seamless development experience. What's not to like?
  - msftlvslicnsing 7y ago
    >So they should start losing money? I was unclear; their revenue streams are still overwhelmingly comprised of proprietary tech. Darwin and AOSP are massive compared to the toys MSFT is throwing over the Linux wall. This idea that they need to lose money is a strawman.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  Microsoft SQL Server on Linux indeed has enormous licensing costs.
  - msftlvslicnsing 7y ago
    Relative to what, though? Departmental budgets or MSFT's gross revenue?
- GordonS 7y ago
  I disagree - VSCode has an enormous user base, and .NET Core is a huge deal. They even open sourced the serverless engine from Azure's Function Apps!
  - msftlvslicnsing 7y ago
    All that withstanding, nobody but developers buy Microsoft products because of VSCode.
userbinator 7y ago
MS has changed from proprietary software vendor to a spy-on-the-users-and-try-to-monetise-them services company that's trying to be Google. I don't think that's much of an improvement. Their code used to be their core value and source of profit; they are open-sourcing a lot of it now because that's not true anymore and they might as well get some publicity out of it. If you look at companies like Google and Facebook who publish lots of open-source, you'll see the same trend --- it's opened because it's not worth anything to keep it secret anymore.

jaboutboul 7y ago

Stop shitting on them. We won the war. They’re mending their ways. It takes a long time to right such a large ship with levels upon levels of bureaucratic bullshit that’s been caked on for decades. It’s a WIP and they just granted a patent license to the OIN for fuck’s sake. Even 10 years ago this would have sounded like science fiction.

yarrel 7y ago
No, we are losing the war. Open Source is not an impediment to Microsoft's attacks on users' freedom. You can get a job on LinkedIn to write code on GitHub that runs on Windows and talks to a server deployed to Azure with a single click from within the README.md . In that ecosystem, permissively licensed Open Source software just helps Microsoft exploit you. Which is why Microsoft unironically love Open Source and are very happy to see paid and unpaid shills shout that from the rooftops. Dumping soon-to-expire patents to get goodwill from people they need to encourage into or prevent leaving that ecosystem is a strategic move that is designed to make sure you don't escape in the long term. Pointing this out isn't shitting on the poor, defenceless corporation. It's just not being fooled by their attempts to fleshmask Open Source. They still hate Free Software.
- jaboutboul 7y ago
  This is not just a dump of soon to expire patent. The patent grant and their support and commitment to indemnify anyone who uses it through OIN proves to me, that at least when it comes to this, they are acting in good faith. Listen, my first job outta high school was at Red Hat. For the majority of my life I hated Microsoft and everything they stood for. The bottom line is, money talks (the virtues or lack thereof of that are for a different debate) and they realized that people became familiar with Linux which was superior for most non-desktop use cases, enabled innovation at a greater pace and also was a path around all the Microsoft bullshit and customers were abandoning ship. Eventually they had NO CHOICE but to evolve or die.
  - wildfire 7y ago
    > Eventually they had NO CHOICE > but to evolve or die. So, really they haven't done anyone any favours then? Why do you think so many people look upon their acts as something with good intentions? Just better marketing spin?