5 ms·

Microsoft has made various token attempts at being open source friendly in the past. Thing is, Microsoft has a lot to live down from the OSS perspective. I wont

Microsoft has made various token attempts at being open source friendly in the past. Thing is, Microsoft has a lot to live down from the OSS perspective. I wont begin to consider Microsoft for anything serious until it "makes good" within an order of magnitude of the harm it has tried to do to the open source community.

latch 14y ago
I feel the same. I'd even argue that they continue to do more harm than good. So they aren't even moving in the right direction. For me, telling their employees that patents would only be used defensively, then using them offensively (against Android) is as bad as anything they've ever done.
- rufibarbatus 14y ago
  Microsoft is a behemoth of a company with presumably layers of bureaucratic and historical debris all over the place. Short of a very profound, top-down remodelling of the company, it's actually refreshing to see that new voices are popping up inside of MS and being allowed to advance this quickly. That is not to say they don't have a lot to make up for, just that there might still be hope for Microsoft.
  - jonhohle 14y ago
    And this certainly is completely different from when they partnered with Apple, and then screwed them over. Or when they partnered with IBM, and then screwed them over. Or when they partnered with Mosaic, and then screwed them over. Or when they partnered with hardware OEMs, and then used then to screw over competitors. I'm sure this time, MS is really serious about being a community player.
yawgmoth 14y ago
Am I the only one who finds statements like this to be somewhat fanatical? Companies compete in all sorts of ways, but I find it hard to believe that Microsoft is some malevolent (thanks) empire trying to crush every OSS entity that they see. Perhaps I just am not familiar enough with what they've done to harm OSS.
- joshuacc 14y ago
  "maligned empire" Perhaps you meant "malevolent empire?"
  - sp332 14y ago
    Or maybe just "malign" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malign#Adjective https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malign#Adjective
- beagle3 14y ago
  > Perhaps I just am not familiar enough with what they've done to harm OSS. That is probably the case. They've done a lot of harm to OSS and the technical community in general: - OOXML vote stacking, - Patent suit threats chilling effects against virtualdub - Vague FUD claims against Linux infringing on intellectual property, never substantiated - Extortion of fees from handset producers for using Android - Disallowing dual boot on Win8 ARMS (and that goes some 15 years back - and was one of the ways they killed BeOS) - Refusing to support ISO standards (like C99) and IETF standards (until they were forced to by dwindling market share) It is my impression that Microsoft has repeatedly shown they will not act antisocially only when they have no other choice.
  - JoelMcCracken 14y ago
    And, this is only the list of the last few years. I actually stopped caring about this sort of thing for the last five years or so simply because microsoft fans are not part of my life anymore. However, when I did, they were doing evil way back then, and had been since I started to pay attention.
  - CurtHagenlocher 14y ago
    As a Microsoft employee, I'm a bit confused about the C99 reference. You can get C99-compatible compilers from other sources that run under Windows, and if C99-compatibility is important, Microsoft will lose market share to them. My guess is that -- for the line-of-business developers that makes up the bulk of Microsofts dev market, C99 compatibility is simply not important. Microsoft doesn't ship a Fortran 2008 compiler either; should they?
rbanffy 14y ago
> of the harm it has tried to do to the open source community. Had they stopped extorting Linux and Android OEMs? Will ARM-based Win8 tablet makers be allowed to ship unlocked bootloaders? I don't think they "tried to do". I think they actively do it.

latch 14y ago

I feel the same. I'd even argue that they continue to do more harm than good. So they aren't even moving in the right direction. For me, telling their employees that patents would only be used defensively, then using them offensively (against Android) is as bad as anything they've ever done.

rufibarbatus 14y ago
Microsoft is a behemoth of a company with presumably layers of bureaucratic and historical debris all over the place. Short of a very profound, top-down remodelling of the company, it's actually refreshing to see that new voices are popping up inside of MS and being allowed to advance this quickly. That is not to say they don't have a lot to make up for, just that there might still be hope for Microsoft.
- jonhohle 14y ago
  And this certainly is completely different from when they partnered with Apple, and then screwed them over. Or when they partnered with IBM, and then screwed them over. Or when they partnered with Mosaic, and then screwed them over. Or when they partnered with hardware OEMs, and then used then to screw over competitors. I'm sure this time, MS is really serious about being a community player.

yawgmoth 14y ago

Am I the only one who finds statements like this to be somewhat fanatical? Companies compete in all sorts of ways, but I find it hard to believe that Microsoft is some malevolent (thanks) empire trying to crush every OSS entity that they see. Perhaps I just am not familiar enough with what they've done to harm OSS.

joshuacc 14y ago
"maligned empire" Perhaps you meant "malevolent empire?"
- sp332 14y ago
  Or maybe just "malign" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malign#Adjective https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/malign#Adjective
beagle3 14y ago
> Perhaps I just am not familiar enough with what they've done to harm OSS. That is probably the case. They've done a lot of harm to OSS and the technical community in general: - OOXML vote stacking, - Patent suit threats chilling effects against virtualdub - Vague FUD claims against Linux infringing on intellectual property, never substantiated - Extortion of fees from handset producers for using Android - Disallowing dual boot on Win8 ARMS (and that goes some 15 years back - and was one of the ways they killed BeOS) - Refusing to support ISO standards (like C99) and IETF standards (until they were forced to by dwindling market share) It is my impression that Microsoft has repeatedly shown they will not act antisocially only when they have no other choice.
- JoelMcCracken 14y ago
  And, this is only the list of the last few years. I actually stopped caring about this sort of thing for the last five years or so simply because microsoft fans are not part of my life anymore. However, when I did, they were doing evil way back then, and had been since I started to pay attention.
- CurtHagenlocher 14y ago
  As a Microsoft employee, I'm a bit confused about the C99 reference. You can get C99-compatible compilers from other sources that run under Windows, and if C99-compatibility is important, Microsoft will lose market share to them. My guess is that -- for the line-of-business developers that makes up the bulk of Microsofts dev market, C99 compatibility is simply not important. Microsoft doesn't ship a Fortran 2008 compiler either; should they?

rbanffy 14y ago

> of the harm it has tried to do to the open source community. Had they stopped extorting Linux and Android OEMs? Will ARM-based Win8 tablet makers be allowed to ship unlocked bootloaders? I don't think they "tried to do". I think they actively do it.