5 ms·

Microsoft seems to be going all in on open source over the past 10-15 years. From a consumer perspective, we're almost all benefiting. From a business perspec

Microsoft seems to be going all in on open source over the past 10-15 years. From a consumer perspective, we're almost all benefiting. From a business perspective, they get unpaid help and community brownie points.

90s_dev 1y ago
Also, given that they recently bought github, they have financial incentive to keep people there, who might upgrade to pro accounts or grow to need enterprise.
teruakohatu 1y ago
> going all in on open source over the past 10-15 years. Given that there are many Microsoft closed source extensions for VS Code, that cannot legally be used with the open source Version of VS Code, I would say they are not going all in. Knee deep maybe.
- ahartmetz 1y ago
  Because of the closed extensions situation, the open source part feels insincere. Sort of like a free plan up to 10 users and then pretty expensive situation. The purpose isn't the free plan, it's just an advertising measure to get people to where you really benefit eventually.
  - GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
    It's the contemporary version of the second E [0], if you will. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
  - 90s_dev 1y ago
    You're mixing up ideas. Microsoft isn't "sincere" because it's just a business doing what businesses do, making money. They're not trying to be altruistic or principled. They're just doing business. But I have personally benefited from this deal by having TypeScript and VS Code at my disposal.
    - ahartmetz 1y ago
      I don't believe that all business is "just business". You have tobacco companies and Purdue Pharma on one end of the spectrum and, let's say, Mozilla Corporation and Valve (debatable but I think they're cool) on the other end. And, of course, large companies are kinda many different entities, really. Microsoft has a long history of dishonest behavior, some of it pretty sophisticated and with a long-term view. That makes it very hard to trust them, generally. Why is part of VS Code not FOSS anyway?
      - tomnipotent 1y ago
        > Microsoft has a long history of dishonest behavior Can you point out such recent behavior that isn't just echoing other peoples opinions from the anti-trust case from over two decades ago? It's been my experience that many people seem to "borrow" their opinion about Microsoft from things they've read rather than personal experience so we keep getting the same low-effort criticism ad nauseam.
        infamia 1y ago
        VSCode's marketing was that it is an open source editor you could rely upon, complete with open source extensions for popular languages like Python. Then when once it became popular and vscodium was growing in popularity (a vscode fork), MS locked things down. Now the Python extensions are closed source, and MS has artificially prevented vscode forks from using those extensions. A bait and switch if I've ever seen one.
        tomnipotent 1y ago
        > VSCode's marketing Point to this marketing. Here's the blog announcement on the 1.0 releases - what I can't find are any examples of Microsoft over-promising. https://web.archive.org/web/20160422123116/https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2016/04/14/vscode-1.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20160422123116/https://code.visu... > MS locked things down... and MS has artificially prevented vscode forks from using those extensions Or like any growing and maturing project they established boundaries - one of which was that the plugin marketplace was proprietary, which is a perfectly reasonable position. Their existing and continued contributions to vscode are significant, so I think they can be allowed to keep some cards up their sleeves like the plugin marketplace or their Python extension. I'm just flabbergasted at this idea that somehow we're entitled to everything vscode-adjacent "just because", or that Microsoft is obligated to subsidize other billion-dollar business by giving them free features for their vscode forks. > A bait and switch if I've ever seen one. Where's the bait? Where's the switch? If the best you have is that they released a closed source plugin I'm going to bucket this as another borrowed opinion.
  - Alupis 1y ago
    I recently called this (and other Microsoft behavior) out as being "fake" open source. The comment was highly controversial with quite a battle of up and down votes - so clearly not everyone agrees. In my opinion, Microsoft wants the good vibes and PR that comes with open source, but they don't actually want to be open source. Its why many people still don't trust them in this arena.
    - ahartmetz 1y ago
      Regarding fake open source, WSL2 comes to mind. It is entirely useless that it's open source except in one way, people can help Microsoft to replace Linux with Windows - for free.
      - cgio 1y ago
        At least they are making windows so bad that the incentive to go the other way around with Linux and wine looks better by the day. I personally made the transition last year. I have been playing with Linux since late 90s with dual boot, vms, wsl etc. But Linux never stuck as my main driver. I still don’t love it, but they managed to make me hate the windows experience so much that it feels natural to switch. I also have Mac, which I am using less and less for some other unidentified reason. Probably, that experience has degraded too but in more subtle ways.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      Like Android for example? Yes, Microsoft has an history, yet it isn't as if there is any big corporation doing full open source across all their products, the large majority only does the part that somehow brings good vibes, cuts down their own R&D costs, or is a kind of suble way to find out about possible new employees.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    As most of the big corps contributing to open source.
datavirtue 1y ago
And most of us are invested in MSFT, so we benefit that way as well. (I don't hold any positions)

90s_dev 1y ago

Also, given that they recently bought github, they have financial incentive to keep people there, who might upgrade to pro accounts or grow to need enterprise.

teruakohatu 1y ago

> going all in on open source over the past 10-15 years. Given that there are many Microsoft closed source extensions for VS Code, that cannot legally be used with the open source Version of VS Code, I would say they are not going all in. Knee deep maybe.

ahartmetz 1y ago
Because of the closed extensions situation, the open source part feels insincere. Sort of like a free plan up to 10 users and then pretty expensive situation. The purpose isn't the free plan, it's just an advertising measure to get people to where you really benefit eventually.
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  It's the contemporary version of the second E [0], if you will. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- 90s_dev 1y ago
  You're mixing up ideas. Microsoft isn't "sincere" because it's just a business doing what businesses do, making money. They're not trying to be altruistic or principled. They're just doing business. But I have personally benefited from this deal by having TypeScript and VS Code at my disposal.
  - ahartmetz 1y ago
    I don't believe that all business is "just business". You have tobacco companies and Purdue Pharma on one end of the spectrum and, let's say, Mozilla Corporation and Valve (debatable but I think they're cool) on the other end. And, of course, large companies are kinda many different entities, really. Microsoft has a long history of dishonest behavior, some of it pretty sophisticated and with a long-term view. That makes it very hard to trust them, generally. Why is part of VS Code not FOSS anyway?
    - tomnipotent 1y ago
      > Microsoft has a long history of dishonest behavior Can you point out such recent behavior that isn't just echoing other peoples opinions from the anti-trust case from over two decades ago? It's been my experience that many people seem to "borrow" their opinion about Microsoft from things they've read rather than personal experience so we keep getting the same low-effort criticism ad nauseam.
      - infamia 1y ago
        VSCode's marketing was that it is an open source editor you could rely upon, complete with open source extensions for popular languages like Python. Then when once it became popular and vscodium was growing in popularity (a vscode fork), MS locked things down. Now the Python extensions are closed source, and MS has artificially prevented vscode forks from using those extensions. A bait and switch if I've ever seen one.
        tomnipotent 1y ago
        > VSCode's marketing Point to this marketing. Here's the blog announcement on the 1.0 releases - what I can't find are any examples of Microsoft over-promising. https://web.archive.org/web/20160422123116/https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2016/04/14/vscode-1.0 https://web.archive.org/web/20160422123116/https://code.visu... > MS locked things down... and MS has artificially prevented vscode forks from using those extensions Or like any growing and maturing project they established boundaries - one of which was that the plugin marketplace was proprietary, which is a perfectly reasonable position. Their existing and continued contributions to vscode are significant, so I think they can be allowed to keep some cards up their sleeves like the plugin marketplace or their Python extension. I'm just flabbergasted at this idea that somehow we're entitled to everything vscode-adjacent "just because", or that Microsoft is obligated to subsidize other billion-dollar business by giving them free features for their vscode forks. > A bait and switch if I've ever seen one. Where's the bait? Where's the switch? If the best you have is that they released a closed source plugin I'm going to bucket this as another borrowed opinion.
- Alupis 1y ago
  I recently called this (and other Microsoft behavior) out as being "fake" open source. The comment was highly controversial with quite a battle of up and down votes - so clearly not everyone agrees. In my opinion, Microsoft wants the good vibes and PR that comes with open source, but they don't actually want to be open source. Its why many people still don't trust them in this arena.
  - ahartmetz 1y ago
    Regarding fake open source, WSL2 comes to mind. It is entirely useless that it's open source except in one way, people can help Microsoft to replace Linux with Windows - for free.
    - cgio 1y ago
      At least they are making windows so bad that the incentive to go the other way around with Linux and wine looks better by the day. I personally made the transition last year. I have been playing with Linux since late 90s with dual boot, vms, wsl etc. But Linux never stuck as my main driver. I still don’t love it, but they managed to make me hate the windows experience so much that it feels natural to switch. I also have Mac, which I am using less and less for some other unidentified reason. Probably, that experience has degraded too but in more subtle ways.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Like Android for example? Yes, Microsoft has an history, yet it isn't as if there is any big corporation doing full open source across all their products, the large majority only does the part that somehow brings good vibes, cuts down their own R&D costs, or is a kind of suble way to find out about possible new employees.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  As most of the big corps contributing to open source.

datavirtue 1y ago

And most of us are invested in MSFT, so we benefit that way as well. (I don't hold any positions)