7 ms·

You aren't the only one. Most users are too young to understand how predatory Microsoft has always been. Can't wait for the "npm won't publish my package becaus

You aren't the only one. Most users are too young to understand how predatory Microsoft has always been. Can't wait for the "npm won't publish my package because it circumvents something in Windows" or whatever. Give it time.

bdcravens 7y ago
I am old enough (42) to remember those days, but honestly I don't feel that threatened by them. I remember their EEE days, and for a long time I haven't seen much of the same behavior.
- bromuro 7y ago
  Same here (40). I was with Ballmer singing “developer developer developer”... i think his legacy is not that bad. The company was not ready to grasp the idea of open source at these times, but the principle holds.
allover 7y ago
Tbf Microsoft have won back a lot of good faith with developers due to projects like VS Code and TypeScript, even for those of us who remember their past. And we're yet to hear of any negative impact of their Github acquisition (afaik - correct me if wrong).
- judge2020 7y ago
  Before someone else comes along and writes a monologue, the biggest downside might be how it handled (didn't break) its contract with ICE[0]. If the acquisition didn't happen, old GitHub might've dropped the contract immediately upon enough employees speaking about it. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412600
  - allover 7y ago
    That's a fair point - thanks for the reminder :|
  - manigandham 7y ago
    That's a subjective political opinion of a far-left vocal minority. Not everyone has an issue with ICE (a federal law-enforcement agency that stops criminals and saves lives) nor finds a problem with a company legally providing services to the government.
    - Dahoon 7y ago
      >That's a subjective political opinion of a far-left vocal minority What you are talking about is Right-wing politics, even if they are extremely far to the left of your -and the majority of peoples political view -in the USA. Both parties in the US are on the right. This isn't Reddit where the state of US politics is the default norm when it differs from most of planet earth. Though HN is quickly getting there.
      - manigandham 7y ago
        Open/loose borders is far left policy everywhere. Most countries are far stricter with borders than the US.
        IAmEveryone 7y ago
        ICE doesn't protect the border, that's United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP). ICE are the goons operating everywhere (i. e. not tied to the border) rounding up "suspected illegal immigrants". Because it isn't exactly hard to find illegal immigrants, and their charter allows them to control people without objective cause, ICE gets to arbitrarily decide whom to harass. It's the real-life version of the perennial fear of civil libertarians that too many criminal laws will just lead to any one of us being arrested whenever it happens to be convenient for whoever is currently in power. It isn't going to end illegal immigration, nor curtail it to any significant degree. It just serves to keep a large segment of the people who see every day in a constant state of fear, unable to (for example) seek protection from crime or exploitation for fear of being deported.
        manigandham 7y ago
  - thu2111 7y ago
    Others see that as an upside. ICE today, who knows what tomorrow. The sort of activists who wanted that have all kinds of random targets. No company wants to deal with suppliers suddenly blacklisting them because the hard left decided they're evil.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    Lots of big tech firms are government contractors, and as we've seen most of them are unwilling to drop government contracts (ICE, DARPA, etc). So this problem would arise with almost any large benefactor. I would've liked to see GitHub drop ICE though, personally.
- jbkiv 7y ago
  Agree, What would you say would have been a better outcome? Google? Facebook? Microsoft has changed quite a lot, and in a good way.
- sneak 7y ago
  VS Code is also spyware; I am not sure that this argument furthers your intended point. The fact that it is open source and popular is not sufficient on its own. It had to be forked (vscodium) to show basic respect for the user’s privacy and system resources.
  - allover 7y ago
    It's true insofar as VS Code is widely loved by web developers. So it "furthers my intended point".
  - charrondev 7y ago
    No fork is required. If you build before from the source in its main repo, there is no tracking included by default. It’s builds released by Microsoft that have all of their specific stuff added in.
  - chrisoverzero 7y ago
    VSCodium say they’re not a fork. > This is not a fork. This is a repository of scripts to automatically build Microsoft's `vscode` repository into freely-licensed binaries with a community-driven default configuration.
  - Hawxy 7y ago
    > VS Code is also spyware This is such an extreme & pretentious viewpoint. Microsoft knowing that I have VS Code installed & getting a report when it crashes is not in mine, or really any normal developer's threat landscape.
    - snypox 7y ago
      Don’t forget you’re on HN.
- mbesto 7y ago
  > Tbf Microsoft have won back a lot of good faith with developers due to projects like VS Code and TypeScript, even for those of us who remember their past. Those are great until they're not. It's why it's called "bait and switch". > And we're yet to hear of any negative impact of their Github acquisition (afaik - correct me if wrong). ANY?! Heh, do a quick search just on HN and you'll find it pretty quickly.
  - michaelmior 7y ago
    I did search, didn't find it quickly. Could you share some sources of the negative impact? (I'm legitimately curious as my use of GitHub hasn't led me to notice any change.)
    - mbesto 7y ago
      I found two pretty damn quickly. They're 3 of the top 5 most upvoted comments on the announcement thread... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221656 > I'm legitimately curious as my use of GitHub hasn't led me to notice any change Nor I. That's not that point. For the record, I think Microsoft has done wonderfully for the dev community in the last 10 years. I don't see any reason that they are going to "f it up", but big businesses get desperate when environments change and profits get impacted (look no further than what Oracle is doing). Microsoft is not immune to that.
      - ptato 7y ago
        I believe he was asking for specific evidence of negative impact, not people worried it might have a negative impact.
      - IAmEveryone 7y ago
        The complaints are "I think it really impacts the neutrality of github" and "I hope they don't discontinue Atom or apply their UX styling to the site/desktop app", respectively. Those don't strike me as particularly specific and/or nightmarish.
golergka 7y ago
And pulling a package from a custom url is what, one line of code in this package documentation? And the moment it happens, this package will be on top of HN? I understand the concern about MS business practices, but I don't think it applies to environment where transactions (as in, importing someone's package or submitting a pull request to it) don't involve any contracts or money.
rafaelvasco 7y ago
It may appear blaming Ms forever for their past actions is a good idea. It's not. Those actions and decisions came from certain people. They're long gone. I look only to the present. MS decisions and actions these past few years have been pretty solid imo. We must always assume the best of everything, not the worst. Not matter what. It may appear naive, but it's the only sane way.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  MS’s decisions outside of everything to do with windows 10 anyhow.
- yarrel 7y ago
  They've created a funnel from a jobs site they control, through an operating system and hardware they control, with development tools they control, and source (etc.) on a web platform they control, onto a cloud they control. Assume the best all you like. Microsoft are spying on you and can lock you out of their ecosystem for any reason. When that ecosystem includes critical public infrastructure, there is a problem. The only "sane" response to this is to smile at the MS employees who tell you how much they love Open Source and to use absolutely any other platform.

bdcravens 7y ago

I am old enough (42) to remember those days, but honestly I don't feel that threatened by them. I remember their EEE days, and for a long time I haven't seen much of the same behavior.

bromuro 7y ago
Same here (40). I was with Ballmer singing “developer developer developer”... i think his legacy is not that bad. The company was not ready to grasp the idea of open source at these times, but the principle holds.

allover 7y ago

Tbf Microsoft have won back a lot of good faith with developers due to projects like VS Code and TypeScript, even for those of us who remember their past. And we're yet to hear of any negative impact of their Github acquisition (afaik - correct me if wrong).

judge2020 7y ago
Before someone else comes along and writes a monologue, the biggest downside might be how it handled (didn't break) its contract with ICE[0]. If the acquisition didn't happen, old GitHub might've dropped the contract immediately upon enough employees speaking about it. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21412600
- allover 7y ago
  That's a fair point - thanks for the reminder :|
- manigandham 7y ago
  That's a subjective political opinion of a far-left vocal minority. Not everyone has an issue with ICE (a federal law-enforcement agency that stops criminals and saves lives) nor finds a problem with a company legally providing services to the government.
  - Dahoon 7y ago
    >That's a subjective political opinion of a far-left vocal minority What you are talking about is Right-wing politics, even if they are extremely far to the left of your -and the majority of peoples political view -in the USA. Both parties in the US are on the right. This isn't Reddit where the state of US politics is the default norm when it differs from most of planet earth. Though HN is quickly getting there.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      Open/loose borders is far left policy everywhere. Most countries are far stricter with borders than the US.
      - IAmEveryone 7y ago
        ICE doesn't protect the border, that's United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP). ICE are the goons operating everywhere (i. e. not tied to the border) rounding up "suspected illegal immigrants". Because it isn't exactly hard to find illegal immigrants, and their charter allows them to control people without objective cause, ICE gets to arbitrarily decide whom to harass. It's the real-life version of the perennial fear of civil libertarians that too many criminal laws will just lead to any one of us being arrested whenever it happens to be convenient for whoever is currently in power. It isn't going to end illegal immigration, nor curtail it to any significant degree. It just serves to keep a large segment of the people who see every day in a constant state of fear, unable to (for example) seek protection from crime or exploitation for fear of being deported.
        manigandham 7y ago
- thu2111 7y ago
  Others see that as an upside. ICE today, who knows what tomorrow. The sort of activists who wanted that have all kinds of random targets. No company wants to deal with suppliers suddenly blacklisting them because the hard left decided they're evil.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  Lots of big tech firms are government contractors, and as we've seen most of them are unwilling to drop government contracts (ICE, DARPA, etc). So this problem would arise with almost any large benefactor. I would've liked to see GitHub drop ICE though, personally.
jbkiv 7y ago
Agree, What would you say would have been a better outcome? Google? Facebook? Microsoft has changed quite a lot, and in a good way.
sneak 7y ago
VS Code is also spyware; I am not sure that this argument furthers your intended point. The fact that it is open source and popular is not sufficient on its own. It had to be forked (vscodium) to show basic respect for the user’s privacy and system resources.
- allover 7y ago
  It's true insofar as VS Code is widely loved by web developers. So it "furthers my intended point".
- charrondev 7y ago
  No fork is required. If you build before from the source in its main repo, there is no tracking included by default. It’s builds released by Microsoft that have all of their specific stuff added in.
- chrisoverzero 7y ago
  VSCodium say they’re not a fork. > This is not a fork. This is a repository of scripts to automatically build Microsoft's `vscode` repository into freely-licensed binaries with a community-driven default configuration.
- Hawxy 7y ago
  > VS Code is also spyware This is such an extreme & pretentious viewpoint. Microsoft knowing that I have VS Code installed & getting a report when it crashes is not in mine, or really any normal developer's threat landscape.
  - snypox 7y ago
    Don’t forget you’re on HN.
mbesto 7y ago
> Tbf Microsoft have won back a lot of good faith with developers due to projects like VS Code and TypeScript, even for those of us who remember their past. Those are great until they're not. It's why it's called "bait and switch". > And we're yet to hear of any negative impact of their Github acquisition (afaik - correct me if wrong). ANY?! Heh, do a quick search just on HN and you'll find it pretty quickly.
- michaelmior 7y ago
  I did search, didn't find it quickly. Could you share some sources of the negative impact? (I'm legitimately curious as my use of GitHub hasn't led me to notice any change.)
  - mbesto 7y ago
    I found two pretty damn quickly. They're 3 of the top 5 most upvoted comments on the announcement thread... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221656 > I'm legitimately curious as my use of GitHub hasn't led me to notice any change Nor I. That's not that point. For the record, I think Microsoft has done wonderfully for the dev community in the last 10 years. I don't see any reason that they are going to "f it up", but big businesses get desperate when environments change and profits get impacted (look no further than what Oracle is doing). Microsoft is not immune to that.
    - ptato 7y ago
      I believe he was asking for specific evidence of negative impact, not people worried it might have a negative impact.
    - IAmEveryone 7y ago
      The complaints are "I think it really impacts the neutrality of github" and "I hope they don't discontinue Atom or apply their UX styling to the site/desktop app", respectively. Those don't strike me as particularly specific and/or nightmarish.

golergka 7y ago

And pulling a package from a custom url is what, one line of code in this package documentation? And the moment it happens, this package will be on top of HN? I understand the concern about MS business practices, but I don't think it applies to environment where transactions (as in, importing someone's package or submitting a pull request to it) don't involve any contracts or money.

rafaelvasco 7y ago

It may appear blaming Ms forever for their past actions is a good idea. It's not. Those actions and decisions came from certain people. They're long gone. I look only to the present. MS decisions and actions these past few years have been pretty solid imo. We must always assume the best of everything, not the worst. Not matter what. It may appear naive, but it's the only sane way.

Aeolun 7y ago
MS’s decisions outside of everything to do with windows 10 anyhow.
yarrel 7y ago
They've created a funnel from a jobs site they control, through an operating system and hardware they control, with development tools they control, and source (etc.) on a web platform they control, onto a cloud they control. Assume the best all you like. Microsoft are spying on you and can lock you out of their ecosystem for any reason. When that ecosystem includes critical public infrastructure, there is a problem. The only "sane" response to this is to smile at the MS employees who tell you how much they love Open Source and to use absolutely any other platform.