4 ms·

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.

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.