4 ms·

That's certainly one way to frame it; though, I think, a very narrow view. They knew they were going to lose some 'developer love' when they originally made th

That's certainly one way to frame it; though, I think, a very narrow view. They knew they were going to lose some 'developer love' when they originally made the decision. They went ahead anyway. So, your framing isn't adequate. What made them walk back is when they realised _how much_ they'd lose. Which happened only because lots of people were outraged and vocally spoke against it. Far more than the number of people they were expecting. It'd be naive to believe they didn't know they're going to lose some, especially given how long they've kept up their charade of 'MS :hearts: OSS'. What's more likely, and supported from evidence of their similar behaviour in other parts of their OSS charade, is that they thought they could get away with it this time too.

sedatk 5y ago
> What made them walk back is when they realised _how much_ they'd lose. What's wrong with this arithmetic? Don't independent FOSS organizations have similar metrics when deciding on things? They want to progress while causing the least amount of grievance to the community, and when it exceeds expectations, they walk back? For example, I hate Firefox's new tab UI; I think it's terrible, and one of the reasons I stopped using it. But, apparently I'm in the minority, so Mozilla Foundation is okay losing my love. Had the backlash exceeded Mozilla's expectations, wouldn't they have walked back? What's extra sinister about what Microsoft's doing here (besides other valid points of criticism)?
- pritambaral 5y ago
  > What's wrong with this arithmetic? Don't independent FOSS organizations have similar metrics when deciding on things? Math is never the problem; it's what you use it for. > They want to progress while causing the least amount of grievance to the community ... Except that's not what's happening here at all. Cannibalising a promised, existing OSS feature in favour of one's proprietary tool is not "progress". What caused them to back off wasn't a desire to minimise "grievance to the community", but harm to their self-image. I'm not going to deign your sidetrack about another, actually Open Source product, making UX decisions, with a reply in connection to this charade of OSS.

sedatk 5y ago

> What made them walk back is when they realised _how much_ they'd lose. What's wrong with this arithmetic? Don't independent FOSS organizations have similar metrics when deciding on things? They want to progress while causing the least amount of grievance to the community, and when it exceeds expectations, they walk back? For example, I hate Firefox's new tab UI; I think it's terrible, and one of the reasons I stopped using it. But, apparently I'm in the minority, so Mozilla Foundation is okay losing my love. Had the backlash exceeded Mozilla's expectations, wouldn't they have walked back? What's extra sinister about what Microsoft's doing here (besides other valid points of criticism)?

pritambaral 5y ago
> What's wrong with this arithmetic? Don't independent FOSS organizations have similar metrics when deciding on things? Math is never the problem; it's what you use it for. > They want to progress while causing the least amount of grievance to the community ... Except that's not what's happening here at all. Cannibalising a promised, existing OSS feature in favour of one's proprietary tool is not "progress". What caused them to back off wasn't a desire to minimise "grievance to the community", but harm to their self-image. I'm not going to deign your sidetrack about another, actually Open Source product, making UX decisions, with a reply in connection to this charade of OSS.