3 ms·

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 star

by 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.

by skohan 5y ago

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.