9 ms·

Microsoft Donated Money to Gnome: Remember How They Attacked Open Source Before

96 points by nxss 4y ago

spacemanmatt 4y ago
Turns out, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but you can't clean a dirty dog. He'll just get dirty again.
waplot 4y ago
Does this finally mean they'll can bring back image preview for file upload modals?
- grnmamba 4y ago
  That would take a multi-million dollar grant from Microsoft Research.
  - w4rh4wk5 4y ago
    Yeah. I vote for the next 5 million dollars to go towards resolving the file-roller drag-n-drop issue[1]. Well, maybe better make it 10 million! Next month this issue will be 4 years old after all. [1]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/-/issues/4 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/-/issues/4
- alias_neo 4y ago
  So it's not just me! I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I can't see thumbnails any more in the image upload dialog, tried looking for all sorts of view settings. What gives?
- qalmakka 4y ago
  GNOME? Don't even think about it. The next version of the file manager will probably remove icons all together in favour of a single, big button that opens a random file in your home directory. GNOME is that user interface where out of the box everything is super eye-candy and cool, and yet you can't really do anything unless you install a billion extensions and swap out a few builtin programs for some other that look like shite but at least have the basic features everyone expects. GNOME has been putting the entirety of its efforts and focus on UI only for the last 11 years, and that has cause the whole UX to become a total nightmare. GNOME 2 was incredible, it was a pinnacle in UX and it's a shame the GNOME devs got carried away and destroyed basically everything in their attempt at beating Apple at its own game.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    I don’t understand GNOME. I try it but I feel like I’m fighting it to use my computer. Then I start looking for extensions. KDE Plasma on the other hand I can just install. Visually be annoyed. But it just works. And I don’t need to install a bunch of extensions.
    - hollerith 4y ago
      >Visually be annoyed. The visual design of KDE was annoying and distracting to me, too. (Ditto the other non-GNOME DEs I tried.) If I had continued to use it instead of abandoning it after 5 minutes, it would've become much less annoying, but some of the annoyance would've persisted indefinitely. So I've been using GNOME for the last year and a half. In many ways it is worse than the GUI of MacOS or Windows, but it looks great.
fartcannon 4y ago
They gave a pittance and it bought so much PR.
Tao3300 4y ago
> "Microsoft :heart: Open Source" ends where their benefits end. Shucks, that's true for everybody. I only heart open source so far as it benefits me.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Not for exerybody. There are people in this world who care about others regardless of personal benefits.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    To get pedantic, the benefit to you for caring for other people is that you feel like you're a good person.
    - beebmam 4y ago
      And that society continues to function. A social contract
    - panta 4y ago
      Some people act according to internal core values, even when the outcome of the act doesn't bring visible rewards or good feelings.
  - jollofricepeas 4y ago
    Source?
    - skywal_l 4y ago
      My parents.
  - mikkergp 4y ago
    And those people are not making software.
    - 4y ago
speeder 4y ago
Article forgot to mention secure boot shenanigans. I actually own a laptop that literally refuses to run anything except win8 that come with it and doesn't let me disable secure boot. People say that it is a bios bug... but there are no plans to fix the bios.
- 999900000999 4y ago
  I could of swore Ubuntu figured out a way around this. What distro are you using
  - kcb 4y ago
    Yea AFAIK Ubuntu and others use a shim signed by Microsoft that boots grub.
    - judge2020 4y ago
      > On Ubuntu, all pre-built binaries intended to be loaded as part of the boot process, with the exception of the initrd image, are signed by Canonical's UEFI certificate, which itself is implicitly trusted by being embedded in the shim loader, itself signed by Microsoft. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEFI/SecureBoot#How_UEFI_Secure_Boot_works_on_Ubuntu https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEFI/SecureBoot#How_UEFI_Secure_Boot...
      - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
        Note that the keys uses by Microsoft for signing Windows are different from the ones they use to sign anything else, and some motherboards and laptops only come with the former. Early x86 Surface Pros, for example (even though you could disable secure boot entirely, and be forced to go through Scary Boot Prompts).
  - refracture 4y ago
    Ubuntu and Fedora (among others I'm sure) have signed binaries.
- 4y ago
chirau 4y ago
It's interesting how entities are societally not allowed to change for the better. Somehow, though, entities can change for the worse. It's a never forget situation. What will it take for you to actually believe that they may genuinely be changing? Or you will always prefer to remember the dark times of CEOs past and a workforce that is probably half gone from those days? You want them to change their name, open source Windows? Just because their path to cleaning their name has not yet passed through your preferred Open Source project does not mean they do not mean any good. The mere fact that such a large behemoth which you admit was blatantly against OSS but is now embracing and even backing some projects should tell you that entities can change, in either direction, good and bad.
- paskozdilar 4y ago
  Businesses, including Microsoft, do only what is necessary for survival. This time, they have apparently embraced open source, while still keeping most of their core stuff closed, because doing otherwise would be bad for them. Microsoft will gladly ditch open-source in the future, if it becomes the best option for survival.
- butterfi 4y ago
  I’m not sure it’s them not be allowed to change as much as it was the absolute appalling way they did business for decades. Stink lingers.
- cowpig 4y ago
  I think a more measured perspective is to understand that Microsoft has decided to change its strategy at the top level, but also still is a company full of people looking for ways to capture value, and who have had a history of success capturing value in ways that are harmful to the broader software ecosystem. And it's important to note that big companies are full of individuals trying to make their own careers. For a less contentious example, I imagine top-level leadership recognizes that the immediate financial gains that come from bloating their flagship operating system with ads to the point where it feels like a mid-2000s filesharing app is short-sighted, but there are thousands of VPs who get promotions if they can point to a number and say "look at that revenue, I created it"
ErikCorry 4y ago
Do MS still collect patent fees from Android OEMs?
- lom 4y ago
  The article suggests so
lom 4y ago
> Microsoft deleted the open source Hot Reload feature, 'cause they decided to shit it only in commercial edition of Visual Studio 2022. After scandal and closed discussion, MS decided to return it. To shit it? Hilarious typo
dtx1 4y ago
While the hate for Micro$oft is well deservered, I'd still rather have them as a friend of Open Source Software than an enemy of it.
0des 4y ago
Embrace <-- you are here Extend Extinguish
- dal 4y ago
  With the Linux virtual machines that are integrated into windows, known as WSL2 I can see how Extend will be the next step. The proprietary binary blobs for graphics and compute acceleration are already there. Hopefully the GPL and AGPL can protect us somewhat against the Extend.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
car_analogy 4y ago
Let's not forget lobbying against government adoption of free software: Over the past five years Microsoft has developed one of the most sophisticated lobbying networks [..] two of Microsoft's policy priorities, limiting the adoption of open-source software [..] stand out as areas wherein what's good for Microsoft may not be good for all CIOs. - https://web.archive.org/web/20040915234341/https://www.cio.com/archive/091504/microsoft.html/ https://web.archive.org/web/20040915234341/https://www.cio.c... Against open standards: https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/22/microsoft_uk_odf_response/ https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/22/microsoft_uk_odf_resp... Mandating their patented, proprietary exFAT filesystem for SD cards, despite plenty of adequate FOSS filesystems, so they can extort patent fees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT The Windows tax, making it nigh-impossible to buy a PC without also paying for Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows Detecting non-MS DOS versions and refusing to run Windows on them, giving an obtuse (and incorrect) error message: https://www.theregister.com/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_incompatibility/ https://www.theregister.com/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_inc... Using Secure Boot to lock Windows RT devices from being able to install alternative OSs, with no way for the user to unlock it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT#Restrictions_and_compatibility_limitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT#Restrictions_and_co... (and disallowing all software except that found on the Windows store) Remember how we were told our fears of Secure Boot doing exactly this were unfounded? Oh but it's not "real" PCs, just Windows RT devices. If we worry that the category of "real" PC will get narrower and narrower, with more and more "special purpose" locked-down devices taking its place, effectively preventing normal people from switching to linux because they'd need to buy a special-purpose device, those worries will also be dismissed as unfounded.
- rasz 4y ago
  + lobbying against Right to Repair https://illinoispirg.org/blogs/blog/usp/who-doesn%E2%80%99t-want-right-repair-companies-worth-over-10-trillion https://illinoispirg.org/blogs/blog/usp/who-doesn%E2%80%99t-... >Microsoft offered to pay more in taxes to fund STEM education in the state if Right to Repair never went to a floor vote. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/microsoft-and-apple-wage-war-on-gadget-right-to-repair-laws-1.1606259 https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/microsoft-and-apple-wage-war-on-... >Microsoft’s top lawyer advocated against a repair bill in its home state. >February, Microsoft held a meeting for state lawmakers to go over the company’s priorities. It was a snow day, so executives convened over a conference call. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, ran the meeting, according to a person on the call. He ticked through a couple items before arriving at the repair bill. Microsoft didn't like it, and Smith argued the measure would threaten his company’s intellectual property. Later, as the legislative session continued, Microsoft treated the bill as an “existential threat,” If Xbox is out of warranty and optical drive controller fries (it really happens) its the end of that console - drive is crypto paired to CPU, no optical drive handshake prevents updating/reinstalling os and cuts off online store.
YetAnotherNick 4y ago
Yes there are some people in Microsoft who are concerned about competition from OSS, but unlike IE I don't see any dirty tactic here TBH. It's their job to sell their product and highlight bad things about open source competing products. It is the same for other side of the camp as well.
- modo_mario 4y ago
  >I don't see any dirty tactic here TBH Lobbying against adoption, against reasonable ODF standards, etc Industry strongarming and other anticompetitive practices, Giving their project the same name as an open source project with similar function, etc
philliphaydon 4y ago
What a shame it doesn’t list the latest scandal by MS. https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/5276 https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/5276
agrue 4y ago
Tough to consider Microsoft's shift a permanent one until it survives a CEO change or two. For me, real commitment from MS means Office for Linux. Instead we have Windows Subsystem Linux.
api 4y ago
GPL FUD is still with us. A lot of corporations have "no GPL software" policies. They make exceptions for Linux but resist any new GPLed software over the concern that the license is "viral" in ways it really isn't. It's dumb. I'm convinced that if you simply renamed the license it would go away. The text could be unchanged. It all goes back to Microsoft pushing FUD against the GPL years ago.
- phendrenad2 4y ago
  The GPL is scary enough even with the ways it really is viral. Just look at the torches/pitchforks any time some company violates it accidentally. People calling for the company to "lose" its GPL license and have to stop shipping products, or have to open-source their entire portfolio. Crazy stuff. And to avoid accidents, it requires top-down scrutiny of the sort most companies aren't prepared to enforce. You don't want to hear "The intern accidentally used a 3rd party proprietary code module in our GPL software and shipped the binary, a month ago, what do we do now?"
intsunny 4y ago
The article fails to mention how Microsoft corrupted the ISO standardization process to ram through their Office XML file format. They were very scared of companies/countries/organizations adopting the open standard OpenDocument format: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open... A 6000+ page spec ratified in less than a year. The spec was so bad, Microsoft themselves didn't adhere to the standard and updates were needed to clarify much ambiguity baked into the spec. What a disgrace.
photochemsyn 4y ago
The whole Windows Subsystem for Linux saga is kind of interesting, and maybe illustrative. With the GUI interface (WSL2g) working, you can basically do Linux development pretty easily on a Windows machine, with some caveats (Linux network control commands didn't work, they seem to want you to use Powershell for that). However, I think it was more out of necessity as most developers seem to view Linux as a far easier development environment relative to Windows or Mac. You did have to sign up for the Insider program (at least with Win10, not sure about 11) which meant a lot of telemetry and constant updates. They've also now released WSL2 for Windows Server: https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/26/wsl2_windows_server_2022/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/26/wsl2_windows_server_2... To get the full use out of it, though, you probably need a Windows Pro license, which costs ~$100-$200 last I checked (lower if it comes bundled with the inital purchase of the computer). I eventually just wiped Windows entirely and installed Debian, because the telemetry and updates were getting to be too much... flashing the BIOS at the same time. There were a few challenges (getting the drivers for my laptop's touchpad to work definitely wasn't that easy, but eventually found instructions on the Debian forums). Practically, Linux is just easier to understand, and that's where open source is better than proprietary. Regardless, and equally practically, knowing how to use a Windows or Apple system is still necessary if you want to make software that can be run on those systems, and of course Android/iOS. However, there's no reason not to make Linux (and RISCV) the primary standard in academic education, which is still where Apple and Microsoft (and ARM and Intel) market heavily.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  The WSL saga is quite easy to understand and a proof that Microsoft has lost an opportunity to own Desktop UNIX by not caring enough with the POSIX personality on Windows NT. Thanks to the devs that give Apple money to use their hardware while targeting GNU/Linux, Microsoft realized that there is a huge set of developers that don't really care about Linux, they only want access to UNIX/POSIX toys and supporting Linux OEMs isn't really their thing. So with this in mind, and given that Linux kernel ABI nowadays is more relevant than just POSIX compatibility, WSL was born. Trailing the path of BSD, Solaris, IBM i, IBM z/OS that also have Linux compatibility available as feature. So ironically the Year of Desktop Linux is in the form of a VM.
pjmlp 4y ago
> "Microsoft Open Source" ends where their benefits end. Right, lets not forget that AMD, Intel, NVidia, Google, Apple, Facebook, IBM, Amazon, ARM, Sony,... aren't any better in that regard. Most companies only play nice with open source if it helps selling more stuff, while at the same time keeping the crown jewels a commercial product.
marcodiego 4y ago
The list is still missing how much money they siphoned to SCO.
midislack 4y ago
FreeDesktop is the Microsoft of Open Source. EEE is their game.
boberoni 4y ago
There are a lot of comments here about not forgiving corporations for their past because corporations are not people but are legal entities with profit-driven motives. I agree that we should not view Microsoft's donation to Gnome as altruism. Corporations make donations because it is in their own interest. Having a brand of generosity is valuable to the bottom-line. Overall, however, I am happy to see that Microsoft now operates in an environment where donating to open source is in their best interest. It was not always this way, but the open source software movement has successfully created incentives for corporations like Microsoft to act altruistically. It is not productive to call out corporations for being self-interested. This is already known. Instead, the discussion should explore how to maintain an environment where corporations are continuously incentivized to contribute to the open source community. Similarly, how do we incentivize companies to give up on the business model of proprietary software?
Cockbrand 4y ago
FWIW, Microsoft ran an anti Linux ad campaign in the early oughties in Germany, which fairly openly spread FUD [1]. The text reads An open operating system isn't exclusively advantageous An open operating system is prone to mutations. With Windows 2000, all services and daemons are from the same vendor. This saves time and thus real money. For more info, go to http://www.microsoft.com/germany/windows2000 http://www.microsoft.com/germany/windows2000 It was quite badly received in the Linux/OSS world and brought a lot of backlash. That said, MS have obviously changed their opinion to the extent that at some point they were among the five largest Linux kernel contributors [2]. [1] https://doraj.com/wp-images/2005/03/microsoft-vorteile.jpg https://doraj.com/wp-images/2005/03/microsoft-vorteile.jpg [2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-microsoft/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-mic...
kkfx 4y ago
To be a bit harsh... Gnome devs are perfectly capable of attacking FLOSS themselves...
pentagrama 4y ago
Yes, don't forget, be conscious, but for me is fine that Gnome take that money. The situation remembers me in some capacity to a recent Atlanta episode when one of the black protagonists choose to accept the money/opportunity of a white rich dude, even knowing the whole troubled past about slavery, and knowing that he is scamming him. The episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Tree A good analysis: https://youtu.be/PAk9UTNKNEM https://youtu.be/PAk9UTNKNEM By the way, the recent Gnome 42 was a milestone on UI/UX and performance improvements, that may be in part of that MS $ (oh, this donation is more recent, but you get my point).
nspattak 4y ago
saying linux is cancer (and communism even though this is only seen as a terrorizing thing mostly in the US) were pretty strong statements. strongarming companies to NOT sell computers with linux is not so far in the past either. I 100% understand if someone is suspicious of MS. That said, corporations are driven by profit and MS's views on how to profit have changed in the last 20 years. Obviously this shift is driven by a changing world, not ideology. Bottomline, M$ is still a for profit company, supporting open source projects is sth the world needs more of and if there are no strings I do not care where the (legal)money come from.

96 points by nxss 4y ago

spacemanmatt 4y ago

Turns out, you can teach an old dog new tricks, but you can't clean a dirty dog. He'll just get dirty again.

waplot 4y ago

Does this finally mean they'll can bring back image preview for file upload modals?

grnmamba 4y ago
That would take a multi-million dollar grant from Microsoft Research.
- w4rh4wk5 4y ago
  Yeah. I vote for the next 5 million dollars to go towards resolving the file-roller drag-n-drop issue[1]. Well, maybe better make it 10 million! Next month this issue will be 4 years old after all. [1]: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/-/issues/4 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/file-roller/-/issues/4
alias_neo 4y ago
So it's not just me! I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I can't see thumbnails any more in the image upload dialog, tried looking for all sorts of view settings. What gives?
qalmakka 4y ago
GNOME? Don't even think about it. The next version of the file manager will probably remove icons all together in favour of a single, big button that opens a random file in your home directory. GNOME is that user interface where out of the box everything is super eye-candy and cool, and yet you can't really do anything unless you install a billion extensions and swap out a few builtin programs for some other that look like shite but at least have the basic features everyone expects. GNOME has been putting the entirety of its efforts and focus on UI only for the last 11 years, and that has cause the whole UX to become a total nightmare. GNOME 2 was incredible, it was a pinnacle in UX and it's a shame the GNOME devs got carried away and destroyed basically everything in their attempt at beating Apple at its own game.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  I don’t understand GNOME. I try it but I feel like I’m fighting it to use my computer. Then I start looking for extensions. KDE Plasma on the other hand I can just install. Visually be annoyed. But it just works. And I don’t need to install a bunch of extensions.
  - hollerith 4y ago
    >Visually be annoyed. The visual design of KDE was annoying and distracting to me, too. (Ditto the other non-GNOME DEs I tried.) If I had continued to use it instead of abandoning it after 5 minutes, it would've become much less annoying, but some of the annoyance would've persisted indefinitely. So I've been using GNOME for the last year and a half. In many ways it is worse than the GUI of MacOS or Windows, but it looks great.

fartcannon 4y ago

They gave a pittance and it bought so much PR.

Tao3300 4y ago

> "Microsoft :heart: Open Source" ends where their benefits end. Shucks, that's true for everybody. I only heart open source so far as it benefits me.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
Not for exerybody. There are people in this world who care about others regardless of personal benefits.
- judge2020 4y ago
  To get pedantic, the benefit to you for caring for other people is that you feel like you're a good person.
  - beebmam 4y ago
    And that society continues to function. A social contract
  - panta 4y ago
    Some people act according to internal core values, even when the outcome of the act doesn't bring visible rewards or good feelings.
- jollofricepeas 4y ago
  Source?
  - skywal_l 4y ago
    My parents.
- mikkergp 4y ago
  And those people are not making software.
  - 4y ago

speeder 4y ago

Article forgot to mention secure boot shenanigans. I actually own a laptop that literally refuses to run anything except win8 that come with it and doesn't let me disable secure boot. People say that it is a bios bug... but there are no plans to fix the bios.

999900000999 4y ago
I could of swore Ubuntu figured out a way around this. What distro are you using
- kcb 4y ago
  Yea AFAIK Ubuntu and others use a shim signed by Microsoft that boots grub.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    > On Ubuntu, all pre-built binaries intended to be loaded as part of the boot process, with the exception of the initrd image, are signed by Canonical's UEFI certificate, which itself is implicitly trusted by being embedded in the shim loader, itself signed by Microsoft. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEFI/SecureBoot#How_UEFI_Secure_Boot_works_on_Ubuntu https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEFI/SecureBoot#How_UEFI_Secure_Boot...
    - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
      Note that the keys uses by Microsoft for signing Windows are different from the ones they use to sign anything else, and some motherboards and laptops only come with the former. Early x86 Surface Pros, for example (even though you could disable secure boot entirely, and be forced to go through Scary Boot Prompts).
- refracture 4y ago
  Ubuntu and Fedora (among others I'm sure) have signed binaries.
4y ago

chirau 4y ago

It's interesting how entities are societally not allowed to change for the better. Somehow, though, entities can change for the worse. It's a never forget situation. What will it take for you to actually believe that they may genuinely be changing? Or you will always prefer to remember the dark times of CEOs past and a workforce that is probably half gone from those days? You want them to change their name, open source Windows? Just because their path to cleaning their name has not yet passed through your preferred Open Source project does not mean they do not mean any good. The mere fact that such a large behemoth which you admit was blatantly against OSS but is now embracing and even backing some projects should tell you that entities can change, in either direction, good and bad.

paskozdilar 4y ago
Businesses, including Microsoft, do only what is necessary for survival. This time, they have apparently embraced open source, while still keeping most of their core stuff closed, because doing otherwise would be bad for them. Microsoft will gladly ditch open-source in the future, if it becomes the best option for survival.
butterfi 4y ago
I’m not sure it’s them not be allowed to change as much as it was the absolute appalling way they did business for decades. Stink lingers.
cowpig 4y ago
I think a more measured perspective is to understand that Microsoft has decided to change its strategy at the top level, but also still is a company full of people looking for ways to capture value, and who have had a history of success capturing value in ways that are harmful to the broader software ecosystem. And it's important to note that big companies are full of individuals trying to make their own careers. For a less contentious example, I imagine top-level leadership recognizes that the immediate financial gains that come from bloating their flagship operating system with ads to the point where it feels like a mid-2000s filesharing app is short-sighted, but there are thousands of VPs who get promotions if they can point to a number and say "look at that revenue, I created it"

ErikCorry 4y ago

Do MS still collect patent fees from Android OEMs?

lom 4y ago
The article suggests so

lom 4y ago

> Microsoft deleted the open source Hot Reload feature, 'cause they decided to shit it only in commercial edition of Visual Studio 2022. After scandal and closed discussion, MS decided to return it. To shit it? Hilarious typo

dtx1 4y ago

While the hate for Micro$oft is well deservered, I'd still rather have them as a friend of Open Source Software than an enemy of it.

0des 4y ago

Embrace <-- you are here Extend Extinguish

dal 4y ago
With the Linux virtual machines that are integrated into windows, known as WSL2 I can see how Extend will be the next step. The proprietary binary blobs for graphics and compute acceleration are already there. Hopefully the GPL and AGPL can protect us somewhat against the Extend.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

car_analogy 4y ago

Let's not forget lobbying against government adoption of free software: Over the past five years Microsoft has developed one of the most sophisticated lobbying networks [..] two of Microsoft's policy priorities, limiting the adoption of open-source software [..] stand out as areas wherein what's good for Microsoft may not be good for all CIOs. - https://web.archive.org/web/20040915234341/https://www.cio.com/archive/091504/microsoft.html/ https://web.archive.org/web/20040915234341/https://www.cio.c... Against open standards: https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/22/microsoft_uk_odf_response/ https://www.theregister.com/2014/02/22/microsoft_uk_odf_resp... Mandating their patented, proprietary exFAT filesystem for SD cards, despite plenty of adequate FOSS filesystems, so they can extort patent fees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT The Windows tax, making it nigh-impossible to buy a PC without also paying for Windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_Windows Detecting non-MS DOS versions and refusing to run Windows on them, giving an obtuse (and incorrect) error message: https://www.theregister.com/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_incompatibility/ https://www.theregister.com/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_inc... Using Secure Boot to lock Windows RT devices from being able to install alternative OSs, with no way for the user to unlock it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT#Restrictions_and_compatibility_limitations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT#Restrictions_and_co... (and disallowing all software except that found on the Windows store) Remember how we were told our fears of Secure Boot doing exactly this were unfounded? Oh but it's not "real" PCs, just Windows RT devices. If we worry that the category of "real" PC will get narrower and narrower, with more and more "special purpose" locked-down devices taking its place, effectively preventing normal people from switching to linux because they'd need to buy a special-purpose device, those worries will also be dismissed as unfounded.

rasz 4y ago
+ lobbying against Right to Repair https://illinoispirg.org/blogs/blog/usp/who-doesn%E2%80%99t-want-right-repair-companies-worth-over-10-trillion https://illinoispirg.org/blogs/blog/usp/who-doesn%E2%80%99t-... >Microsoft offered to pay more in taxes to fund STEM education in the state if Right to Repair never went to a floor vote. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/microsoft-and-apple-wage-war-on-gadget-right-to-repair-laws-1.1606259 https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/microsoft-and-apple-wage-war-on-... >Microsoft’s top lawyer advocated against a repair bill in its home state. >February, Microsoft held a meeting for state lawmakers to go over the company’s priorities. It was a snow day, so executives convened over a conference call. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, ran the meeting, according to a person on the call. He ticked through a couple items before arriving at the repair bill. Microsoft didn't like it, and Smith argued the measure would threaten his company’s intellectual property. Later, as the legislative session continued, Microsoft treated the bill as an “existential threat,” If Xbox is out of warranty and optical drive controller fries (it really happens) its the end of that console - drive is crypto paired to CPU, no optical drive handshake prevents updating/reinstalling os and cuts off online store.

YetAnotherNick 4y ago

Yes there are some people in Microsoft who are concerned about competition from OSS, but unlike IE I don't see any dirty tactic here TBH. It's their job to sell their product and highlight bad things about open source competing products. It is the same for other side of the camp as well.

modo_mario 4y ago
>I don't see any dirty tactic here TBH Lobbying against adoption, against reasonable ODF standards, etc Industry strongarming and other anticompetitive practices, Giving their project the same name as an open source project with similar function, etc

philliphaydon 4y ago

What a shame it doesn’t list the latest scandal by MS. https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/5276 https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/5276

agrue 4y ago

Tough to consider Microsoft's shift a permanent one until it survives a CEO change or two. For me, real commitment from MS means Office for Linux. Instead we have Windows Subsystem Linux.

api 4y ago

GPL FUD is still with us. A lot of corporations have "no GPL software" policies. They make exceptions for Linux but resist any new GPLed software over the concern that the license is "viral" in ways it really isn't. It's dumb. I'm convinced that if you simply renamed the license it would go away. The text could be unchanged. It all goes back to Microsoft pushing FUD against the GPL years ago.

phendrenad2 4y ago
The GPL is scary enough even with the ways it really is viral. Just look at the torches/pitchforks any time some company violates it accidentally. People calling for the company to "lose" its GPL license and have to stop shipping products, or have to open-source their entire portfolio. Crazy stuff. And to avoid accidents, it requires top-down scrutiny of the sort most companies aren't prepared to enforce. You don't want to hear "The intern accidentally used a 3rd party proprietary code module in our GPL software and shipped the binary, a month ago, what do we do now?"

intsunny 4y ago

The article fails to mention how Microsoft corrupted the ISO standardization process to ram through their Office XML file format. They were very scared of companies/countries/organizations adopting the open standard OpenDocument format: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_XML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open... A 6000+ page spec ratified in less than a year. The spec was so bad, Microsoft themselves didn't adhere to the standard and updates were needed to clarify much ambiguity baked into the spec. What a disgrace.

photochemsyn 4y ago

The whole Windows Subsystem for Linux saga is kind of interesting, and maybe illustrative. With the GUI interface (WSL2g) working, you can basically do Linux development pretty easily on a Windows machine, with some caveats (Linux network control commands didn't work, they seem to want you to use Powershell for that). However, I think it was more out of necessity as most developers seem to view Linux as a far easier development environment relative to Windows or Mac. You did have to sign up for the Insider program (at least with Win10, not sure about 11) which meant a lot of telemetry and constant updates. They've also now released WSL2 for Windows Server: https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/26/wsl2_windows_server_2022/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/26/wsl2_windows_server_2... To get the full use out of it, though, you probably need a Windows Pro license, which costs ~$100-$200 last I checked (lower if it comes bundled with the inital purchase of the computer). I eventually just wiped Windows entirely and installed Debian, because the telemetry and updates were getting to be too much... flashing the BIOS at the same time. There were a few challenges (getting the drivers for my laptop's touchpad to work definitely wasn't that easy, but eventually found instructions on the Debian forums). Practically, Linux is just easier to understand, and that's where open source is better than proprietary. Regardless, and equally practically, knowing how to use a Windows or Apple system is still necessary if you want to make software that can be run on those systems, and of course Android/iOS. However, there's no reason not to make Linux (and RISCV) the primary standard in academic education, which is still where Apple and Microsoft (and ARM and Intel) market heavily.

pjmlp 4y ago
The WSL saga is quite easy to understand and a proof that Microsoft has lost an opportunity to own Desktop UNIX by not caring enough with the POSIX personality on Windows NT. Thanks to the devs that give Apple money to use their hardware while targeting GNU/Linux, Microsoft realized that there is a huge set of developers that don't really care about Linux, they only want access to UNIX/POSIX toys and supporting Linux OEMs isn't really their thing. So with this in mind, and given that Linux kernel ABI nowadays is more relevant than just POSIX compatibility, WSL was born. Trailing the path of BSD, Solaris, IBM i, IBM z/OS that also have Linux compatibility available as feature. So ironically the Year of Desktop Linux is in the form of a VM.

pjmlp 4y ago

> "Microsoft Open Source" ends where their benefits end. Right, lets not forget that AMD, Intel, NVidia, Google, Apple, Facebook, IBM, Amazon, ARM, Sony,... aren't any better in that regard. Most companies only play nice with open source if it helps selling more stuff, while at the same time keeping the crown jewels a commercial product.

marcodiego 4y ago

The list is still missing how much money they siphoned to SCO.

midislack 4y ago

FreeDesktop is the Microsoft of Open Source. EEE is their game.

boberoni 4y ago

There are a lot of comments here about not forgiving corporations for their past because corporations are not people but are legal entities with profit-driven motives. I agree that we should not view Microsoft's donation to Gnome as altruism. Corporations make donations because it is in their own interest. Having a brand of generosity is valuable to the bottom-line. Overall, however, I am happy to see that Microsoft now operates in an environment where donating to open source is in their best interest. It was not always this way, but the open source software movement has successfully created incentives for corporations like Microsoft to act altruistically. It is not productive to call out corporations for being self-interested. This is already known. Instead, the discussion should explore how to maintain an environment where corporations are continuously incentivized to contribute to the open source community. Similarly, how do we incentivize companies to give up on the business model of proprietary software?

Cockbrand 4y ago

FWIW, Microsoft ran an anti Linux ad campaign in the early oughties in Germany, which fairly openly spread FUD [1]. The text reads An open operating system isn't exclusively advantageous An open operating system is prone to mutations. With Windows 2000, all services and daemons are from the same vendor. This saves time and thus real money. For more info, go to http://www.microsoft.com/germany/windows2000 http://www.microsoft.com/germany/windows2000 It was quite badly received in the Linux/OSS world and brought a lot of backlash. That said, MS have obviously changed their opinion to the extent that at some point they were among the five largest Linux kernel contributors [2]. [1] https://doraj.com/wp-images/2005/03/microsoft-vorteile.jpg https://doraj.com/wp-images/2005/03/microsoft-vorteile.jpg [2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-microsoft/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-five-linux-contributor-mic...

kkfx 4y ago

To be a bit harsh... Gnome devs are perfectly capable of attacking FLOSS themselves...

pentagrama 4y ago

Yes, don't forget, be conscious, but for me is fine that Gnome take that money. The situation remembers me in some capacity to a recent Atlanta episode when one of the black protagonists choose to accept the money/opportunity of a white rich dude, even knowing the whole troubled past about slavery, and knowing that he is scamming him. The episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Man_and_the_Tree A good analysis: https://youtu.be/PAk9UTNKNEM https://youtu.be/PAk9UTNKNEM By the way, the recent Gnome 42 was a milestone on UI/UX and performance improvements, that may be in part of that MS $ (oh, this donation is more recent, but you get my point).

nspattak 4y ago

saying linux is cancer (and communism even though this is only seen as a terrorizing thing mostly in the US) were pretty strong statements. strongarming companies to NOT sell computers with linux is not so far in the past either. I 100% understand if someone is suspicious of MS. That said, corporations are driven by profit and MS's views on how to profit have changed in the last 20 years. Obviously this shift is driven by a changing world, not ideology. Bottomline, M$ is still a for profit company, supporting open source projects is sth the world needs more of and if there are no strings I do not care where the (legal)money come from.