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(While I applaud your energy, I wanted to gently point out that the labels might not be too productive. You might be right, or you might not, but given Microsof

(While I applaud your energy, I wanted to gently point out that the labels might not be too productive. You might be right, or you might not, but given Microsoft’s recent (very positive IMO) open source contributions, well… it just seemed a little unfair that your labels discounted it entirely. That said, perhaps “you’re not wrong” applies. I don’t know.)

sneak 5y ago
Microsoft doesn't contribute to open source software because open source software is good for the world. Microsoft contributes to open source software because Microsoft wants to sell more proprietary software and services to the open source world, as more and more developers live in that world. They realized that without significant service lock-in, people would begin to abandon things like Windows (and continue to ignore things like Azure). This is why WSL exists (so even open source people will keep buying Windows licenses), this is why VS Code exists (and, despite being open source, the most popular plugins for it are proprietary) (to provide a privileged position for GitHub integration), this is why they bought GitHub, this is why they bought NPM, this is why they paid Docker to make dockerd run on Windows, and this is why they're trying very hard to get as many people locked in to proprietary services like GitHub Actions and GitHub Issues. This is also why they run little shell nonprofits like the .NET Foundation.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  You might be right about that. But that doesn’t change the fact that good software now exists, which wouldn’t otherwise exist, and that the software is now open source, which otherwise wouldn’t be open source. In my opinion, that counts for something. I’ve long hoped that gamedev would make a similar transition. And although Unreal Engine et al are open source, it’s still not the default. So in other words, if gamedev as a whole behaved as Microsoft behaves now, I would be gleefully happy. But you would also be correct in saying that they are doing it “just to sell more proprietary software and services to the open source world.” I don’t know. The reason I’m trying to take a neutral stance is because I empathize with your point of view, but also can’t shake the feeling that the hard line open source idealism of 1980’s has not achieved all the goals that it set out to achieve (to phrase it diplomatically). And so in 2021, the movement is in danger of being totally ineffective, because all of the teenagers from 1980 are old now, and the teenagers from 2021 aren’t buying into the dogma.
  - phkahler 5y ago
    >> can’t shake the feeling that the hard line open source idealism of 1980’s has not achieved all the goals that it set out to achieve... Actually it has done quite well. Not as widespread as some would like, but I think Free Software is doing spectacularly well. I would say nobody needs Microsoft for anything these day because there are great alternative, but they are creating some decent enterprise tools that may not have free equivalents. Windows and Office though? I haven't needed those in 15 years, and that's because Free Software has achieved most of its goals.
    - sneak 5y ago
      There is no replacement for Excel. Those who think there is are either ignorant of Excel's capability, or are fooling themselves.
      - sillysaurusx 5y ago
        (Just wanted to say, it was a delightful surprise to hear you make a defense of Microsoft in this particular area. Thanks for being impartial.)
  - sneak 5y ago
    > I’ve long hoped that gamedev would make a similar transition. Reminder: Microsoft is one of the biggest game platforms, too, and have not even flirted with the idea of open source there.
- robertwt7 5y ago
  open source is open source, it is good that they are embracing open source community and contributing A LOT of resources to that. We have a lot of good softwares, framework, open code to learn and communities build by them and they're not allowed to make money from it? You're basically saying that people who wants to make money are bad. That is just a weird judgement, laravel is building a whole ecosystem to make money, spring is building training and support around , nestjs is building enterprise support. If there is no way to make money around doing something that we love, then open source will be dead. If we are grateful as a community towards what they did, we should support them. not judge them that they want to make money :/
  - livueta 5y ago
    Reading the parent post, I found the monetary aspect less as some kind of anti-capitalist moralism, but more an observation regarding incentives: There's nothing wrong with making money. However, when your historical business model relies on leveraging monopolistic positions to make said money, any contribution you make is tainted by your ultimate goals of embracing, extending and extinguishing competition to those monopolistic, proprietary offerings. I simply don't trust Microsoft: anything they present isn't a Trojan horse of one flavor or another; proprietary addons in vsc, all the Github nonsense, poisoned "foundation" governance structures - all of it has the effect of luring developers into doing work that benefits the Microsoft ecosystem over open ecosystems. It is naive in the extreme to assert that just because a benefit exists in any form, all harms associated with that benefit must be ignored. Nothing wrong with making money from software. Lots is wrong with Microsoft attempting to bamboozle developers out of the rights to their work in a transparent attempt to extend corporate lock-in. When Microsoft GPLs their codebase, I'll take their contributions to open source at face value. They can take donations like everyone else.

sneak 5y ago

Microsoft doesn't contribute to open source software because open source software is good for the world. Microsoft contributes to open source software because Microsoft wants to sell more proprietary software and services to the open source world, as more and more developers live in that world. They realized that without significant service lock-in, people would begin to abandon things like Windows (and continue to ignore things like Azure). This is why WSL exists (so even open source people will keep buying Windows licenses), this is why VS Code exists (and, despite being open source, the most popular plugins for it are proprietary) (to provide a privileged position for GitHub integration), this is why they bought GitHub, this is why they bought NPM, this is why they paid Docker to make dockerd run on Windows, and this is why they're trying very hard to get as many people locked in to proprietary services like GitHub Actions and GitHub Issues. This is also why they run little shell nonprofits like the .NET Foundation.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
You might be right about that. But that doesn’t change the fact that good software now exists, which wouldn’t otherwise exist, and that the software is now open source, which otherwise wouldn’t be open source. In my opinion, that counts for something. I’ve long hoped that gamedev would make a similar transition. And although Unreal Engine et al are open source, it’s still not the default. So in other words, if gamedev as a whole behaved as Microsoft behaves now, I would be gleefully happy. But you would also be correct in saying that they are doing it “just to sell more proprietary software and services to the open source world.” I don’t know. The reason I’m trying to take a neutral stance is because I empathize with your point of view, but also can’t shake the feeling that the hard line open source idealism of 1980’s has not achieved all the goals that it set out to achieve (to phrase it diplomatically). And so in 2021, the movement is in danger of being totally ineffective, because all of the teenagers from 1980 are old now, and the teenagers from 2021 aren’t buying into the dogma.
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> can’t shake the feeling that the hard line open source idealism of 1980’s has not achieved all the goals that it set out to achieve... Actually it has done quite well. Not as widespread as some would like, but I think Free Software is doing spectacularly well. I would say nobody needs Microsoft for anything these day because there are great alternative, but they are creating some decent enterprise tools that may not have free equivalents. Windows and Office though? I haven't needed those in 15 years, and that's because Free Software has achieved most of its goals.
  - sneak 5y ago
    There is no replacement for Excel. Those who think there is are either ignorant of Excel's capability, or are fooling themselves.
    - sillysaurusx 5y ago
      (Just wanted to say, it was a delightful surprise to hear you make a defense of Microsoft in this particular area. Thanks for being impartial.)
- sneak 5y ago
  > I’ve long hoped that gamedev would make a similar transition. Reminder: Microsoft is one of the biggest game platforms, too, and have not even flirted with the idea of open source there.
robertwt7 5y ago
open source is open source, it is good that they are embracing open source community and contributing A LOT of resources to that. We have a lot of good softwares, framework, open code to learn and communities build by them and they're not allowed to make money from it? You're basically saying that people who wants to make money are bad. That is just a weird judgement, laravel is building a whole ecosystem to make money, spring is building training and support around , nestjs is building enterprise support. If there is no way to make money around doing something that we love, then open source will be dead. If we are grateful as a community towards what they did, we should support them. not judge them that they want to make money :/
- livueta 5y ago
  Reading the parent post, I found the monetary aspect less as some kind of anti-capitalist moralism, but more an observation regarding incentives: There's nothing wrong with making money. However, when your historical business model relies on leveraging monopolistic positions to make said money, any contribution you make is tainted by your ultimate goals of embracing, extending and extinguishing competition to those monopolistic, proprietary offerings. I simply don't trust Microsoft: anything they present isn't a Trojan horse of one flavor or another; proprietary addons in vsc, all the Github nonsense, poisoned "foundation" governance structures - all of it has the effect of luring developers into doing work that benefits the Microsoft ecosystem over open ecosystems. It is naive in the extreme to assert that just because a benefit exists in any form, all harms associated with that benefit must be ignored. Nothing wrong with making money from software. Lots is wrong with Microsoft attempting to bamboozle developers out of the rights to their work in a transparent attempt to extend corporate lock-in. When Microsoft GPLs their codebase, I'll take their contributions to open source at face value. They can take donations like everyone else.