5 ms·

Microsoft: Too big to fail. Open Source: Too good to fail. That's why Microsoft can't "own" open source. So they decided to "own" the open source developer by

by zmix 5y ago

Microsoft: Too big to fail. Open Source: Too good to fail. That's why Microsoft can't "own" open source. So they decided to "own" the open source developer by owning the source repository he uses, owning the editor, owning one of the most popular languages (Typescript) he uses, the command line shell, he uses along with grabbing all the Linux commands and make them available on their own platform. This is not about proprietary code (owning the code), anymore, but about owning the platform and making people use it. I doubt, they have a clear plan, right now, instead they hope, that it will play out positively for them, in the future. A few years from now, I wouldn't be surprised, if you'd need a Microsoft account to log into Github.

skohan 5y ago
I agree that they probably don't have a clear plan here. I would speculate that they saw the writing on the wall that Linux and OSS had won, and they just started doing anything and everything to gain influence in that space. And there's no company I trust less not to abuse that influence once they see the opportunity to use it in an anti-competitive way without consequences.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  The plan, as near as I can tell, is watching Google leverage Chrome and Android user base into votes for standards. Microsoft finally realized standards and interoperability was the future. They also realized that a requirement of being able to extract profit in that future was having power to influence standards. Consequently, open source tools (and more importantly, the dev/user share that comes with them) get Microsoft votes. Either explicitly or via mind share. And when it's a corporate priority or matter of survival, they use those votes to advance Microsoft's interest. We've seen this with Chrome / web standards for years now. Most of the time it's good for users, but sometimes it's just that important to corporate reveneue.
  - skohan 5y ago
    I mean MS basically invented leveraging market share to drive web standards. IE was famous for flaunting W3C and implementing things their own way, much to the chagrin of web developers even to this day. It's the kind of behavior which got their hand slapped for anti-trust in the 90's. It's hard to say it's "copying google", it's more of a return to form now that the regulatory environment seems to have relaxed on anti-trust.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      IMHO, it seems like revisionist history to say Microsoft was flaunting W3C changes and implementing things in their own way. Granted, early versions of IE made a hash of the standards that did exist, and didn't place an emphasis on compliance. But the more accurate phrasing would be "W3C wasn't prepared for web adoption, and wasn't as agile as the early web needed." People forget we wouldn't have gotten AJAX and descendents without IE's non-standard XMLHttpRequest support.
      - skohan 5y ago
        I'm old enough to remember web development in the early 2000's, and I don't think I am the one revising history ;)
        ethbr0 5y ago
        That makes two of us. But if your takeaway from the 90s was 'W3C was in the right and timely, and MS decided to go another way just because,' then we have very different memories.
netcan 5y ago
>>This is not about proprietary code (owning the code), anymore, but about owning the platform and making people use it. FOSS, early on created a whole bunch of concepts and ideology that was very useful for framing the issue. Back then, it did make sense to focus on open vs proprietary code license etc. That was a long time ago though, and most of what we know about the software industry wasn't known yet. These days we know software's best businesses are about control and power. OS can be used for strategic commodities, while convenient bottlenecks like app stores, cloud platforms or key dev tools. A lot casual assumptions got made about links between norms at GNU, linux, etc and what OS is. We need an update to OSS language. What does freedom, or openness mean today? As it stands, it's hard to say whether or not such and such violates such values, because the values are vague and unarticulated. We can fall back to 1980s FOSS, but that's somewhat dated.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fouc 5y ago
This is an excellent point that you're raising, I'm a bit surprised it's not the top upvoted comment.

by zmix 5y ago

skohan 5y ago

I agree that they probably don't have a clear plan here. I would speculate that they saw the writing on the wall that Linux and OSS had won, and they just started doing anything and everything to gain influence in that space. And there's no company I trust less not to abuse that influence once they see the opportunity to use it in an anti-competitive way without consequences.

ethbr0 5y ago
The plan, as near as I can tell, is watching Google leverage Chrome and Android user base into votes for standards. Microsoft finally realized standards and interoperability was the future. They also realized that a requirement of being able to extract profit in that future was having power to influence standards. Consequently, open source tools (and more importantly, the dev/user share that comes with them) get Microsoft votes. Either explicitly or via mind share. And when it's a corporate priority or matter of survival, they use those votes to advance Microsoft's interest. We've seen this with Chrome / web standards for years now. Most of the time it's good for users, but sometimes it's just that important to corporate reveneue.
- skohan 5y ago
  I mean MS basically invented leveraging market share to drive web standards. IE was famous for flaunting W3C and implementing things their own way, much to the chagrin of web developers even to this day. It's the kind of behavior which got their hand slapped for anti-trust in the 90's. It's hard to say it's "copying google", it's more of a return to form now that the regulatory environment seems to have relaxed on anti-trust.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    IMHO, it seems like revisionist history to say Microsoft was flaunting W3C changes and implementing things in their own way. Granted, early versions of IE made a hash of the standards that did exist, and didn't place an emphasis on compliance. But the more accurate phrasing would be "W3C wasn't prepared for web adoption, and wasn't as agile as the early web needed." People forget we wouldn't have gotten AJAX and descendents without IE's non-standard XMLHttpRequest support.
    - skohan 5y ago
      I'm old enough to remember web development in the early 2000's, and I don't think I am the one revising history ;)
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        That makes two of us. But if your takeaway from the 90s was 'W3C was in the right and timely, and MS decided to go another way just because,' then we have very different memories.

netcan 5y ago

>>This is not about proprietary code (owning the code), anymore, but about owning the platform and making people use it. FOSS, early on created a whole bunch of concepts and ideology that was very useful for framing the issue. Back then, it did make sense to focus on open vs proprietary code license etc. That was a long time ago though, and most of what we know about the software industry wasn't known yet. These days we know software's best businesses are about control and power. OS can be used for strategic commodities, while convenient bottlenecks like app stores, cloud platforms or key dev tools. A lot casual assumptions got made about links between norms at GNU, linux, etc and what OS is. We need an update to OSS language. What does freedom, or openness mean today? As it stands, it's hard to say whether or not such and such violates such values, because the values are vague and unarticulated. We can fall back to 1980s FOSS, but that's somewhat dated.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fouc 5y ago

This is an excellent point that you're raising, I'm a bit surprised it's not the top upvoted comment.