4 ms·

Microsoft have charged for non-individual use for longer than they’ve had the free version. I should have perhaps used commercial non-individual use rather than

by dagmx 2y ago

Microsoft have charged for non-individual use for longer than they’ve had the free version. I should have perhaps used commercial non-individual use rather than just commercial. https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/d/visual-studio-enterprise-subscription/dg7gmgf0dst4 https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/d/visual-studio-enterprise-s... Meanwhile Xcode is free and has been since the Project Builder days on Next. I’m not personally saying one is better value or not. Just that the companies have put different values on different parts of their developer flow for many decades now, and one can’t simply say that the money comes from a single source.

ffgjgf1 2y ago
Did MS ever make any significant amounts of money from selling VS/MSDN compared to how much the availability f 3rd part software benefited Windows sales/increasing market share? Also you didn’t actually necessarily need it to publish software on Windows. While if you want to develop for iOS (and even macOS these days) you still need to pay the $100/300 yearly fee (which is there entirely for gatekeeping and not an actual income stream).
- dagmx 2y ago
  To your question, that’s exactly my point. Without access to a companies books, you don’t know how they fund things. Take this as my response to your other reply as well. You don’t know if Microsoft chose to fund certain parts of their development with the profits from VS enterprise or not. None of us do. Even, for arguments sake, if we say that they could make it all free and still afford it, it would still affect priorities of what gets developed. Again, I’m not saying one is right or wrong. I’m just arguing that it’s a lot more nuanced than any of the comments here suggest. Nobody has enough facts outside the companies bookkeeping and leadership to make these hardline claims.
  - ffgjgf1 2y ago
    > Without access to a companies books, you don’t know how they fund things I’m highly certain about that. Regardless also I don’t think most companies work like that. More or less all revenue at least from the in specific divisions like Windows or Azure is going to the same pot. > Nobody has enough facts outside the companies Well.. same argument applies to > 90% of all stuff people say on online forums like HN and makes most online discussions entirely meaningless. Regardless we can still reason about a lot of things with a fairly high degree of confidence without complete certainty. > we say that they could make it all free and still afford it, it would still affect priorities of what gets developed. Yet it’s the direction MS has been taking over the last 10-15+ years. They have invested massive amounts of money into products which are either effectively free for most users or don’t really generate enough direct revenue to fund them like GitHub.
Sylamore 2y ago
Xcode is free if you don't consider the platform cost of needing to have only apple hardware to use it, however (generally) the hardware is cheaper than what MS charges for MSDN/VSE.
- dagmx 2y ago
  In the politest way, that is exactly my point. Different companies fund things differently and put up different barriers. Again, for the umpteenth time, I am not making a VALUE judgement. I am just saying they all do things differently and without knowledge of their books, nobody here can say what funds what internally That’s it.
justinclift 2y ago
Hmmm, maybe you're only familiar with the Visual Studio SDK's? The Azure SDK's aren't charged for access: https://azure.github.io/azure-sdk/ https://azure.github.io/azure-sdk/ The SDK's for modern MS products generally seem to be freely available. Maybe it's only their legacy offerings that have some charge to it? If that's actually the distinction, then my guess is that it's simply "no cost access means higher numbers of developers using them" for the new stuff. Whereas the legacy stuff probably would cause internal bun-fight's to happen if they changed their licensing model. ;)
- dagmx 2y ago
  Hmm maybe you’re only familiar with their azure SDKs ;) What makes Windows not modern? The whole point of my comments is that different business eases have different funding. Azure is a separate business for Microsoft than windows development. I’m going to guess based on your range of comments that you’re primarily a devops and web developer and not a native app or game developer? Which leads back to my first response to you: I don’t think you’re actually familiar with developing things for distribution on either steam or an App Store.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    Oh come on. Just because something doesn't fit your narrative you can't suddenly change the goal posts. Azure is literally Microsoft.

by dagmx 2y ago

ffgjgf1 2y ago

Did MS ever make any significant amounts of money from selling VS/MSDN compared to how much the availability f 3rd part software benefited Windows sales/increasing market share? Also you didn’t actually necessarily need it to publish software on Windows. While if you want to develop for iOS (and even macOS these days) you still need to pay the $100/300 yearly fee (which is there entirely for gatekeeping and not an actual income stream).

dagmx 2y ago
To your question, that’s exactly my point. Without access to a companies books, you don’t know how they fund things. Take this as my response to your other reply as well. You don’t know if Microsoft chose to fund certain parts of their development with the profits from VS enterprise or not. None of us do. Even, for arguments sake, if we say that they could make it all free and still afford it, it would still affect priorities of what gets developed. Again, I’m not saying one is right or wrong. I’m just arguing that it’s a lot more nuanced than any of the comments here suggest. Nobody has enough facts outside the companies bookkeeping and leadership to make these hardline claims.
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  > Without access to a companies books, you don’t know how they fund things I’m highly certain about that. Regardless also I don’t think most companies work like that. More or less all revenue at least from the in specific divisions like Windows or Azure is going to the same pot. > Nobody has enough facts outside the companies Well.. same argument applies to > 90% of all stuff people say on online forums like HN and makes most online discussions entirely meaningless. Regardless we can still reason about a lot of things with a fairly high degree of confidence without complete certainty. > we say that they could make it all free and still afford it, it would still affect priorities of what gets developed. Yet it’s the direction MS has been taking over the last 10-15+ years. They have invested massive amounts of money into products which are either effectively free for most users or don’t really generate enough direct revenue to fund them like GitHub.

Sylamore 2y ago

Xcode is free if you don't consider the platform cost of needing to have only apple hardware to use it, however (generally) the hardware is cheaper than what MS charges for MSDN/VSE.

dagmx 2y ago
In the politest way, that is exactly my point. Different companies fund things differently and put up different barriers. Again, for the umpteenth time, I am not making a VALUE judgement. I am just saying they all do things differently and without knowledge of their books, nobody here can say what funds what internally That’s it.

justinclift 2y ago

Hmmm, maybe you're only familiar with the Visual Studio SDK's? The Azure SDK's aren't charged for access: https://azure.github.io/azure-sdk/ https://azure.github.io/azure-sdk/ The SDK's for modern MS products generally seem to be freely available. Maybe it's only their legacy offerings that have some charge to it? If that's actually the distinction, then my guess is that it's simply "no cost access means higher numbers of developers using them" for the new stuff. Whereas the legacy stuff probably would cause internal bun-fight's to happen if they changed their licensing model. ;)

dagmx 2y ago
Hmm maybe you’re only familiar with their azure SDKs ;) What makes Windows not modern? The whole point of my comments is that different business eases have different funding. Azure is a separate business for Microsoft than windows development. I’m going to guess based on your range of comments that you’re primarily a devops and web developer and not a native app or game developer? Which leads back to my first response to you: I don’t think you’re actually familiar with developing things for distribution on either steam or an App Store.
- justinclift 2y ago
  Oh come on. Just because something doesn't fit your narrative you can't suddenly change the goal posts. Azure is literally Microsoft.