7 ms·

>This is situational and opportunistic. It can change any day. In fact, managing an important app store is exactly one way to re-(un)-balance this relationship.

• syshum 6y ago
  This really is a generational divide, those of US that were around for the 90's and early 00's Microsoft crap still have a bad taste for the "new Microsoft" that claims to love FLOSS (while still showing many signs of EEE.. ) During that time Google was very friendly to FLOSS, and open protocols (remember when GChat was just a XMPP client) Today MS and Google seems to have flipped, Google now is fully embracing Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, where MS seems to be attempting to wind that back though with mixed success
  • fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    Yeah, LSP may be turning out to be a good example of Microsoft going back to EEE; with a twist, though: rather than embracing a pre-existing standard, they're proposing a new one https://github.com/emacs-lsp/lsp-mode/issues/1863#issuecomment-653874467 https://github.com/emacs-lsp/lsp-mode/issues/1863#issuecomme...
  • klyrs 6y ago
    Yeah, I was there. I have a long view and cynicism that m$ has retreated to the Embrace phase. To vastly oversimplify their governance, they're a new CEO away from Extend and Extinguish. Lately, I love what they've been doing. Even github -- there have been disappointments, for sure, but nothing like the egregious misbehavior in the bad old days. But given their history; given Google's "do no evil" bait&switch... I don't want to hand them more power. It'd be cool if an interested third party could build out an app store that automatically sources from github (and its competitors), though.
    • mulmen 6y ago
      > It'd be cool if an interested third party could build out an app store that automatically sources from github (and its competitors), though. That’s called a package repository and there are hundreds (thousands?) of them. An “App Store” is a vertically integrated package repo.
    • wh33zle 6y ago
      There is F-droid but its success is unfortunately only moderate at best. Element is actually in the F-droid store but the version is outdated.
      • klyrs 6y ago
        Yeah, I "use" fdroid. Usually that means searching for apps, finding their download links broken, and then finding the apk on a couple skeezy-looking apk download pages and checking that they checksum the same (verifying, at best, that the skeezy sites have the same possibly hacked apk... ick)
  • Phemist 6y ago
    I have developed a rekindled hatred for M$ in the past few weeks trying to install firefox on a fresh installation of windows 10. I counted 5 seperate scare tactics employed by M$ to keep you using Edge. I thought they were successfully sued for monopolistically coupling Internet Explorer to Windows and had a flow in their installation menu's for installing competing browsers. I was surprised that this is now totally missing! From what I could see it was also difficult to switch the office suite. My OEM installed trial versions of word, excel, etc. which were set to be opened by default on all related file extensions. Switching to libreoffice was a PITA, I couldnt find a simple, one-click way to change all these. I had to go over them one-by-one.. (.doc, .docx, .dochtml, .docxhtml, .xls, .xlsx, .xlshtml, .xslsxhtml,....)
    • COGlory 6y ago
      Since I abandoned Windows for Linux, my opinion of Microsoft has improved dramatically. Windows has to be one of their worst, if not their worst product. GitHub and Azure are both quite good, and Office is at least OK. All their Android apps and Android integration are excellent. The new Xbox and related services are even quite good. Just every time I'm forced to use Windows (especially at work where I can't change any aspect of it), I'm reminded of why I hated Microsoft so much.
    • ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      The thing to experience here, is to try using Google sites with Edge: Microsoft has definitely been pushing people to use Edge, but it pales in comparison to how heavily Google abuses their web properties to shove Chrome down peoples' throats. Back when I used Gmail, I'd open my email and get not one, but TWO separate things, one a popup box, and one a top bar, telling me I should switch to Chrome, and dismissing it never stuck. It'd come back in a week or so. Even once Edge started running on Chrome code, Google stepped up writing new tricks to claim that Edge was "less secure" because it didn't direct telemetry straight to Google servers. Google's underhanded push with Chrome has hurt everyone, and unfortunately, Microsoft probably can't "target just Chrome" in retaliating against such messaging, so Firefox gets hit too.
    • MereInterest 6y ago
      Don't forget about the shady and underhanded ways to prevent you from making a local account for a new installation of Windows. The first screen you see asks for a WiFi password, and I assume that it is going to start downloading updates in the background. Instead, it prompts you to enter an email address for a Microsoft account. The "Learn More" button says that you can make an offline account later, but right now they'd really like to have your personal information before letting you continue. The only way to actually make a local account is to either (a) refuse to connect to WiFi until after an account is made or (b) disconnect the router while it is trying to talk to Microsoft. Option (a) is inaccessible by the time you realize that there is a problem, and option (b) is ridiculous and needs to be found on third-party suggestions. All so that Microsoft can pull in another email address.
  • danielovichdk 6y ago
    Personally I do not look at companies for being nice, sweet, good to the world or whatever other bullshit any company will try to convince you to believe. Do you really believe Microsoft is changing their tactics because they want to? They needed to change. Their goal which has always been Platform, around 12 years ago they realized it had to be open open towards everything else than Windows only. Otherwise they would be seriously under pressure. Why do you think Azure is so popular with other platforms too, other than ms tech? Microsoft is really really good at setting and reaching goals. They excel at it. And believe you me, that their goal is not to approve and support open source because they shifted their mindset towards it - it's because they had to - and they will make money doing it. These statements about companies, being kind towards this or that, has to be read carefully. They are savages in the end and will do pretty much anything to win. I worked at MS for many years. Not any longer.
• whatshisface 6y ago
  It's repeated very often that companies maximize shareholder value, but that's not really true. Companies follow the personal interests of their management and employees, in proportion to their power within the institution, which sometimes involves shareholder value.
  • rightbyte 6y ago
    Ye. The belief in the "invisible hand" is strong. Boards and executives are not more rational than employees in general. Why would they not do things because they e.g. feel good about it or want revenge - like they were some super human well oiled machine.
    • whatshisface 6y ago
      Furthermore (and I think this is the strongest evidence), if companies were really "amoral impersonal shareholder value maximizers," enterprise sales would consist of leaving a box outside their front door and billing them a day later. The fact that enterprise sales is the exact opposite of that, opposed to it in every form, is very strong evidence against the robot-corporate way of looking at it. Of the many techniques for getting corporations to do things, as practiced by professional influencers of corporate choices, all begin and end with relationships. Not relationships with the company; relationships with its members.
    • shakezula 6y ago
      In my personal and admittedly startup-prevalent experience with boards, I definitely think they operate more emotionally than most might think. Even companies I’ve worked with in the double to triple digit millions of worth function on far more emotional and interpersonal levels than most might think. Sure, money is the major motivator, but it’s all a machine driven by humans that are gut-based emotion bags.
      • rodgerd 6y ago
        It's not just startups. I've seen execs at old-school companies act worse than a 5 year old, alas. People are not rational actors, and the myth that we are is incredibly harmful.
• ironmagma 6y ago
  Business is amoral; the system is amoral. But every player in the system must choose for every action whether to do that action or not. The actions they choose will either conform to the morals or they will not, so in the end just like the individual people that comprise them, companies are (mostly) either good or bad. There’s nothing that says a company, even a publicly-traded one, must not exist for anything but profit.
  • marcinzm 6y ago
    A company is not a static entity and its "morals" will change must faster than those of an individual. Moreover nothing says that the management of a company must act based on their innate morals. Lying for personal benefit is a perfectly valid human trait. Humans are also very good at justifying anything we do that benefits us as aligning with our moral compass. So in the end a company must be assumed to have no moral compass in the future even if it has one now. Giving a company power now based on its moral compass will just mean it has power to abuse in the future when its moral compass changes. Microsoft and Google being recent examples of companies shifting their moral compass fairly quickly.
• GlennS 6y ago
  > I agree. Sorting huge, multinational, publicly traded companies in friends and enemies list is so obviously bogus and immature that it baffles me that this is so prevalent. If that's true, then why do brands exist? For most companies, the best way to drive profit is to build a long term relationship of trust with their customers and suppliers. Edit: this doesn't mean I'm ready to join the Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook/Amazon fan club, but I can see that some companies regularly behave better than others, and I'm happy to act on that reputation. Take Oracle, for example.
  • wyattpeak 6y ago
    I feel like the trouble with this line of thinking re large consumer-facing companies is that many of their loyalty relationships are in conflict with each other, so even when they're acting in the interests of preserving trust with one group, they're undermining the trust of another. When Github restored youtube-dl, they increased user trust while undermining media industry trust. When they pulled popcorntime, they did the reverse. In each case, they were presumably acting rationally to preserve their relationships as best as they could. But whether or not that benefits you as an individual is more or less a toss of a coin.
  • esperent 6y ago
    > I can see that some companies regularly behave better than others, and I'm happy to act on that reputation This is a bogus line of thinking. For example, Apple have a very strong stance on privacy compared to FB and Google. Does this mean they are more moral or trustworthy when it comes to privacy, or that you should trust them to remain focussed on privacy in the future? Not at all! Their focus on privacy is a smart business model that they use to differentiate themselves from the competition. As soon as it stops being a smart model, or a better model presents itself, under the bus their focus on privacy will go. Apple being focussed on privacy right now should not be taken as them having a good reputation. They do not care about your privacy. They care about you buying their products. The same applies to all apparent "good" or "moral" behavior of any large company. It's not genuine morality, they don't care about the benefits to you or society at large. They just want you to generate money for them. By all means, choose products from a company whose presented morality currently aligns with yours. But don't believe that morality is genuine, and don't get hooked on that company. Instead use them, just as they are using you, for as long as it benefits you, then dump them in a second when they inevitably change... Just as they would do to you.
• tw04 6y ago
  >It's profit driven and amoral. They'll always line up with whatever they believe will maximize profits because that their entire reason for existing. That's both unfair, and quite frankly lets companies like Boeing off the hook. Executives get paid egregious amounts of money to set the direction of companies. Yes, some do focus solely on profit and it's generally obvious when they do. Some focus on making customers happy at nearly all costs. And there is everything in between. Of course management at all those companies believe their approach will make the company money, but plenty aren't solely focused on maximizing profits, I'd argue MS included.
  • esperent 6y ago
    > Some focus on making customers happy at nearly all costs. I'm very sceptical that such a company exists (at least of any size beyond a small restaurant or similar). Can you give an example?