4 ms·

I don't know about you youngsters, but I'm in my thirties and it's amazing to watch Microsoft evolve since the 90s. As a teenager I would never have imagined th

by kanobo 6y ago

I don't know about you youngsters, but I'm in my thirties and it's amazing to watch Microsoft evolve since the 90s. As a teenager I would never have imagined the words 'Open Source' would ever be in a <h1> tag on a Microsoft-branded website.

Legogris 6y ago
Unless perhaps when compared to some kind of disease. Looks like even Ballmer himself did a 180 on the whole "Linux is a cancer" thing (thinks he was still "right" at the time becaus ethe stance made them money): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ballmer-linux-idUSKCN0WC2RA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ballmer-linux-i...
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  It's not the prettiest word, but just saying he called it cancer leaves out important context. He wasn't trying to bash Linux itself so much as (his interpretation of) its GPL license. If its license had been different (say, MIT or BSD) I don't think he would've described it like that. https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_ca...
  - Legogris 6y ago
    Oh absolutely he was more targeting FOSS software in general than Linux specifically.
  - nix23 6y ago
    True, but on the other hand, did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time? I think it was especially against the GPL, but against a complete different Business model too.
    - mehrdadn 6y ago
      No, but I didn't claim they would've actively embraced MIT/BSD either.
    - sgift 6y ago
      Afair the first IP stack of either Windows 95 oder Windows 98 was the one from FreeBSD(?). They rewrote it later, but there was an acknowledgement in the docs for a while. So, they at least used it when needed. (My memory may be fuzzy, it's been a long time after all ..)
      - johannes1234321 6y ago
        Yes, the IP stack was derived from BSD as well as Internet Explorer was derived from NCSA Mosaic however they didn't publish those things under open licenses. (Which isn't required by BSD etc.)
    - nineteen999 6y ago
      > Did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time? Many of the TCP/IP utilities (telnet, nslookup etc) in earlier versions of Windows were based on BSD code.
      - nix23 6y ago
        I did not say they where allergic against free code/work, i said they where allergic against a complete different Business where you sell just the service and not the code. EDIT: And i wrote "the made no mit/bsd code" but adapting it...just like Apple
Hokusai 6y ago
I agree (not a youngster). I guess that Microsoft has also changed business model. Nowadays they are way more into hardware, cloud and services than just selling software. Still a nice move. Other similar companies (Oracle, Amazon) are less kind with Open Source. So, kudos to the new Microsoft.
- johannes1234321 6y ago
  Oracle certainly has a different approach, but they contribute to the Linux kernel (i.e. bttrfs originates from Oracle), Oracle also runs MySQL, OpenJDK, GraalVM, Fn Project, ... https://github.com/oracle/ https://github.com/oracle/ has a few more projects.
pydry 6y ago
I'm in my thirties too and I'm not at all amazed by the way MS evolved. The three MS open source offerings I have tried where MS has something that resembles a non open source competitor - Azure MySQL, Azure Postgres and WSL are all horrendously slow (I'd go as far as to say deliberately crippled). It's a trap. Every time they've released something big as open source or on Linux (e.g. .NET/vscode) it's been something where they're losing ground quickly and fighting off irrelevance. Moreover it's just as irritating as ever to get Linux installed on laptops (the OEM stranglehold is still there). I am amazed that Microsoft did a PR push on how they've turned 5 or so years around and people bought it. They acknowledged some new realities but they didn't fundamentally change tactics. They still (correctly) view open source as a threat to their profits and act accordingly.
- ItsJason 6y ago
  Can confirm; tried to use Azure PG in a project at work and we were shocked at the terrible performance. It was basically unusable. This was < 1 year ago.
- ewzimm 6y ago
  Microsoft is over 163,000 people. While I don't doubt that executives tend to be motivated by profit, I doubt that everyone shares a singular focus on it. Someone in charge of an open source project at Microsoft today might have been working with Mozilla or Apache yesterday. I know executive leadership sets trends and influences culture, but I don't agree with the idea that a corporation is nothing more than the extension of the leadership's ambitions.
- kanobo 6y ago
  I'm not disagreeing, but there's plenty of microsoft closed-source efforts that have been horrible too. It's possible microsoft just isn't very good at everything.
  - pydry 6y ago
    I'd be receptive to that view if hosted Microsoft SQL server were also crippled.

by kanobo 6y ago

Legogris 6y ago

Unless perhaps when compared to some kind of disease. Looks like even Ballmer himself did a 180 on the whole "Linux is a cancer" thing (thinks he was still "right" at the time becaus ethe stance made them money): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ballmer-linux-idUSKCN0WC2RA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-ballmer-linux-i...

mehrdadn 6y ago
It's not the prettiest word, but just saying he called it cancer leaves out important context. He wasn't trying to bash Linux itself so much as (his interpretation of) its GPL license. If its license had been different (say, MIT or BSD) I don't think he would've described it like that. https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/ https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_ca...
- Legogris 6y ago
  Oh absolutely he was more targeting FOSS software in general than Linux specifically.
- nix23 6y ago
  True, but on the other hand, did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time? I think it was especially against the GPL, but against a complete different Business model too.
  - mehrdadn 6y ago
    No, but I didn't claim they would've actively embraced MIT/BSD either.
  - sgift 6y ago
    Afair the first IP stack of either Windows 95 oder Windows 98 was the one from FreeBSD(?). They rewrote it later, but there was an acknowledgement in the docs for a while. So, they at least used it when needed. (My memory may be fuzzy, it's been a long time after all ..)
    - johannes1234321 6y ago
      Yes, the IP stack was derived from BSD as well as Internet Explorer was derived from NCSA Mosaic however they didn't publish those things under open licenses. (Which isn't required by BSD etc.)
  - nineteen999 6y ago
    > Did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time? Many of the TCP/IP utilities (telnet, nslookup etc) in earlier versions of Windows were based on BSD code.
    - nix23 6y ago
      I did not say they where allergic against free code/work, i said they where allergic against a complete different Business where you sell just the service and not the code. EDIT: And i wrote "the made no mit/bsd code" but adapting it...just like Apple

Hokusai 6y ago

I agree (not a youngster). I guess that Microsoft has also changed business model. Nowadays they are way more into hardware, cloud and services than just selling software. Still a nice move. Other similar companies (Oracle, Amazon) are less kind with Open Source. So, kudos to the new Microsoft.

johannes1234321 6y ago
Oracle certainly has a different approach, but they contribute to the Linux kernel (i.e. bttrfs originates from Oracle), Oracle also runs MySQL, OpenJDK, GraalVM, Fn Project, ... https://github.com/oracle/ https://github.com/oracle/ has a few more projects.

pydry 6y ago

I'm in my thirties too and I'm not at all amazed by the way MS evolved. The three MS open source offerings I have tried where MS has something that resembles a non open source competitor - Azure MySQL, Azure Postgres and WSL are all horrendously slow (I'd go as far as to say deliberately crippled). It's a trap. Every time they've released something big as open source or on Linux (e.g. .NET/vscode) it's been something where they're losing ground quickly and fighting off irrelevance. Moreover it's just as irritating as ever to get Linux installed on laptops (the OEM stranglehold is still there). I am amazed that Microsoft did a PR push on how they've turned 5 or so years around and people bought it. They acknowledged some new realities but they didn't fundamentally change tactics. They still (correctly) view open source as a threat to their profits and act accordingly.

ItsJason 6y ago
Can confirm; tried to use Azure PG in a project at work and we were shocked at the terrible performance. It was basically unusable. This was < 1 year ago.
ewzimm 6y ago
Microsoft is over 163,000 people. While I don't doubt that executives tend to be motivated by profit, I doubt that everyone shares a singular focus on it. Someone in charge of an open source project at Microsoft today might have been working with Mozilla or Apache yesterday. I know executive leadership sets trends and influences culture, but I don't agree with the idea that a corporation is nothing more than the extension of the leadership's ambitions.
kanobo 6y ago
I'm not disagreeing, but there's plenty of microsoft closed-source efforts that have been horrible too. It's possible microsoft just isn't very good at everything.
- pydry 6y ago
  I'd be receptive to that view if hosted Microsoft SQL server were also crippled.