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Does MSFT make "real" money from Visual Studio? Compared to Azure it must be spare change? It would be like a commercial property developer hamstringing their

Does MSFT make "real" money from Visual Studio? Compared to Azure it must be spare change? It would be like a commercial property developer hamstringing their property development by selling shovels to builders. I can understand why Shovel Product Managers might want to keep shovels profitable, and not a subsidized product, but why are MSFT execs on board? Edit: This may be a Apples and Oranges comparison but Azure bought in 15 billion in Q3 2021, Unity (which is sort of partially a .NET IDE) bought in 273.6 million in Q2.

dannyw 5y ago
After some level of tenure, many executives lose the feeling of being told no. If they have a strategic initiative they want to push (e.g. increase lock-in between .NET and Visual Studio), they've lived and worked in a culture where they can make decisions without impunity or anyone saying to say no; so why would they care about a bunch of random github comments? To them, I doubt the community even feels like humans. They're numbers in a spreadsheet: userbases to be monetised; cattle to be bred and slaughtered for beef. From the Verge article: > Sources describe the move as a business-led decision, and it’s clear the company thought it would fly under the radar and not generate a backlash. TL;DR is that some exec high up thought this would increase their KPIs, and have enough fear in the org chart (from 29 years of tenure and being a Corporate Vice President) that no one dares to question. Let this action be clear: no matter how much a PR team spins, Microsoft's "open source" initiatives will never, ever, come close to true open source projects like Linux or SQLite.
- passivate 5y ago
  Long term, its best to seek alternative means of funding, and reduce dependence on them. I don't think a commercial for-profit company should be on the hook to subsidize free software. The bottom line here is that the entity paying developers for their time has a very important say in what code they're going to work on.
cerved 5y ago
Azure is a different business unit to dotnet / Crap I mean Visual Studio
- ghuntley 5y ago
  No, it's the same business unit and GitHub now reports to the person who caused community desire to fork .NET. Here's the internal promotion email which was leaked from DevDiv on the same day of new GitHub CEO: https://pastebin.com/pA3uP0bG https://pastebin.com/pA3uP0bG See also the Candor newsletter which reported last week: https://app.sparkmailapp.com/web-share/HUI6CY0rzr7BUdgLnS0TvBt9UNH9gUvTX9fhHjdq https://app.sparkmailapp.com/web-share/HUI6CY0rzr7BUdgLnS0Tv... "After getting mauled allegedly in not one but 2 political fights at Mcrosoft, GitHub CEO Nat Friedman is ready to move on. After a year of scandals and bad press for the division - what’s next?" "Microsoft wants one thing: peace and quiet. With all the press GH has drummed up this year, it’s not surprising that it’s getting layered in under Julia Liuson’s org. The goal is no longer to innovate - just keep the ship steady and sell more. Meanwhile, Gitlab’s large co’ contracts are growing 75% YoY."
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    The developer division team is certainly producing division amongst the developers.
    - cerved 5y ago
      developing division
  - cerved 5y ago
    i meant to say I think it's different isn't cloud a different business unit?
DeathArrow 5y ago
>It would be like a commercial property developer hamstringing their property development by selling shovels to builders. >I can understand why Shovel Product Managers might want to keep shovels profitable, and not a subsidized product, but why are MSFT execs on board? Shovel Divison Managers don't care if the company is profitable or if their actions hurt the company, they only care if their division makes profits so they can cash in some bonusses and make them seem important to company's future.

dannyw 5y ago

After some level of tenure, many executives lose the feeling of being told no. If they have a strategic initiative they want to push (e.g. increase lock-in between .NET and Visual Studio), they've lived and worked in a culture where they can make decisions without impunity or anyone saying to say no; so why would they care about a bunch of random github comments? To them, I doubt the community even feels like humans. They're numbers in a spreadsheet: userbases to be monetised; cattle to be bred and slaughtered for beef. From the Verge article: > Sources describe the move as a business-led decision, and it’s clear the company thought it would fly under the radar and not generate a backlash. TL;DR is that some exec high up thought this would increase their KPIs, and have enough fear in the org chart (from 29 years of tenure and being a Corporate Vice President) that no one dares to question. Let this action be clear: no matter how much a PR team spins, Microsoft's "open source" initiatives will never, ever, come close to true open source projects like Linux or SQLite.

passivate 5y ago
Long term, its best to seek alternative means of funding, and reduce dependence on them. I don't think a commercial for-profit company should be on the hook to subsidize free software. The bottom line here is that the entity paying developers for their time has a very important say in what code they're going to work on.

cerved 5y ago

Azure is a different business unit to dotnet / Crap I mean Visual Studio

ghuntley 5y ago
No, it's the same business unit and GitHub now reports to the person who caused community desire to fork .NET. Here's the internal promotion email which was leaked from DevDiv on the same day of new GitHub CEO: https://pastebin.com/pA3uP0bG https://pastebin.com/pA3uP0bG See also the Candor newsletter which reported last week: https://app.sparkmailapp.com/web-share/HUI6CY0rzr7BUdgLnS0TvBt9UNH9gUvTX9fhHjdq https://app.sparkmailapp.com/web-share/HUI6CY0rzr7BUdgLnS0Tv... "After getting mauled allegedly in not one but 2 political fights at Mcrosoft, GitHub CEO Nat Friedman is ready to move on. After a year of scandals and bad press for the division - what’s next?" "Microsoft wants one thing: peace and quiet. With all the press GH has drummed up this year, it’s not surprising that it’s getting layered in under Julia Liuson’s org. The goal is no longer to innovate - just keep the ship steady and sell more. Meanwhile, Gitlab’s large co’ contracts are growing 75% YoY."
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  The developer division team is certainly producing division amongst the developers.
  - cerved 5y ago
    developing division
- cerved 5y ago
  i meant to say I think it's different isn't cloud a different business unit?

DeathArrow 5y ago

>It would be like a commercial property developer hamstringing their property development by selling shovels to builders. >I can understand why Shovel Product Managers might want to keep shovels profitable, and not a subsidized product, but why are MSFT execs on board? Shovel Divison Managers don't care if the company is profitable or if their actions hurt the company, they only care if their division makes profits so they can cash in some bonusses and make them seem important to company's future.