14 ms·
This comment comes some 15 years late. Microsoft runs the biggest org on github and has open sourced a lot of their own code under permissive licenses. IE has
by gmueckl 1y ago
This comment comes some 15 years late. Microsoft runs the biggest org on github and has open sourced a lot of their own code under permissive licenses.
IE has been dead and buried for ages. Edge doesn't have even close to the same market share and is based on Chromium.
They build more and more of their own UIs on Electron.
I honestly don't remember when they tried to snare someone to use proprietary extensions to something open. I probably have missed a few instances.
Long story short: MS isn't a saint. They are a business. And they have behaved relatively nice for so long that some young adults don't know any other side of MS now.
- pge 1y agoI would add to your list that MSFT also makes decent hardware now - surface laptops and xbox have both done well
- selcuka 1y agoAlso their HID hardware was usually excellent. It's a shame they closed that division.
- cholantesh 1y agoXbox has done so well that they ravaged the division that oversees it.
- Sharlin 1y agoThey've "always" made decent hardware, as far as I recall. The original XBox is 23 years old, and in the 90s they made great joysticks and other controllers for PCs. And their mice and keyboards have always been good.
- mock-possum 1y ago> they have behaved relatively nicely That is some damnably faint praise re: Windows 11, and any experienced m$ users know exactly what’s meant by that.
- gmueckl 1y agoI intended that line to be ambiguous. My real point is that whatever their true motives, they have managed to shed a lot of the Evil Empire appearance and younger people weren't even around when the really bad behavior was at its peak. So it's understandable that there's a wide gulf in the perception of MS between older and younger IT guys.
- rustystump 1y agoIdk i can think of a long list of awful stuff coming out of ms that is modern. They put fing ads in an os among other atrocities. I put them behind meta on the evilness meter but i think google is less evil which speaks volumes. The only side of ms that i have any love for is xbox but that is also waning with all the studio acquisitions.
- tw04 1y ago> They put fing ads in an os among other atrocities. As did Ubuntu. >I put them behind meta on the evilness meter but i think google is less evil which speaks volumes. Huh? The same google caught tracking your every move even if you opted out? The Google that seems to serve ads based on your conversations if anyone in the room has an Android phone? The Google that actively tries to kill any and all ad blockers? They aren’t even close…
- rikafurude21 1y agoWindows normalized having ads in the OS.
- pseudosavant 1y agoAds in the OS? That isn’t Microsoft’s idea, or even Apple’s (they have places they do it too). No, that was popularized by the mobile OS made by an ad company, Android.
- rahkiin 1y agoVsCode is in a weird licensing limbo, or some of its microsoft plugins are anyway
- thiht 1y agoNo, it’s pretty clear. Some extensions are NOT open source. It’s not ambiguous, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as these extensions don’t have superpowers (ie. access to unexposed VSCode APIs)
- debugnik 1y agoBut they do. Microsoft extensions are the only ones whitelisted in the VS Code marketplace to request experimental ("proposed") APIs in their manifest. Remoting, notebooks and now Copilot have all been using experimental APIs, verboten to anyone else in the marketplace until they become stable a long time later.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- croes 1y agoWhat's wrong is that those extensions don't work with VS Codium because VS Codium isn't allowed to access the VS Code marketplace. Why? Imagine Google blocking Edge from using Chrome extensions.
- thiht 1y ago> Imagine Google blocking Edge from using Chrome extensions. I see nothing wrong with that if developers can upload their extension to the Edge Store in addition to the Chrome Store
- yencabulator 1y ago> I honestly don't remember when they tried to snare someone to use proprietary extensions to something open. Try using VSCodium legally with the same functionality as VSCode; remote development, Python language server, C++ debugging, and so on. People who think Microsoft is doing open source work for the good of their hearts are still in for a lesson in EEE. https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/docs/extensions.md#visual-studio-marketplace https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/docs/extens... https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/docs/extensions-compatibility.md https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/blob/master/docs/extens... https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/wiki/Microsoft-Native-Debugger-licensing-and-Microsoft-Visual-Studio-Code https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/wiki/Microsoft-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- ivanmontillam 1y agoAs GP said: > Long story short: MS isn't a saint. They are a business. And they have behaved relatively nice for so long that some young adults don't know any other side of MS now. They are a business. You seem to misunderstand that businesses cannot behave like charities. Being a business implies being for-profit. Nobody said open source had to be free as in free beer, it just had to be free as in freedom. It's their prerogative to make the plugins marketplace to alternative editors or not. Servers cost money. It's a business. Does Matt Mullenweg has to let WPEngine sap server resources? Arguably not; and this opinion comes from a guy (me) that strongly dislikes WordPress (and by extension: Matt and Automattic).
- yencabulator 1y agoI am responding to this: > I honestly don't remember when they tried to snare someone to use proprietary extensions to something open.
- yesbabyyes 1y agoMatt Mullenweg did nothing wrong
- 1y ago
- soraminazuki 1y ago> I honestly don't remember when they tried to snare someone to use proprietary extensions to something open VS Code? https://underjord.io/the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-are-proprietary.html https://underjord.io/the-best-parts-of-visual-studio-code-ar... > they have behaved relatively nice for so long that some young adults don't know any other side of MS now Windows has been going out of its way to be hostile to users for over a decade now.
- owebmaster 1y agoThis comment could not be more actual. The tools changed, even the methods changed, but Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is still Microsoft's strategy.
- Shorel 1y ago> IE has been dead and buried for ages. Edge doesn't have even close to the same market share and is based on Chromium. Because we remember the evil Microsoft. Many young people still follow advice from the elders.
- nirvdrum 1y ago> Because we remember the evil Microsoft. Many young people still follow advice from the elders. I get the point you're making, but it really seems like we haven't remembered. We've worked ourselves back into one juggernaut owning most of the web browser space and then collectively acted surprised when they started flexing their muscles. I encounter sites that only run in Chrome the same way I had sites that only ran in IE 6. It seems to me we're doomed to repeat history as long as that path is easier or more profitable.
- frollogaston 1y agoThe Chrome situation is non-ideal but still nowhere as bad. True IE was Windows-only (Mac one doesn't really count), closed-source so no other browsers could act like it, also it sucked per se.
- m463 1y agoI don't know why you are apologizing for them. Is it because extensive system telemetry might trace your comment back to you?
- ekianjo 1y ago> They build more and more of their own UIs on Electron. you mean shit software like Teams that crash the whole time?
- themafia 1y ago> a lot of their own code under permissive licenses. Simply releasing corporate projects under a permissive license is not what many people understand to be the fundament of "open source." > to snare someone to use proprietary extensions to something open What do you think their entire operating system is?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- michaelmrose 1y agoLiterally the same leadership including the CEO who held a senior leadership position during prior malfeasance. They aren't better people just bad people operating in an environment where better behavior is beneficial.
- smcin 1y agoNo, IE has not been dead and buried for ages. Not everyone's a US corporation. A lot of (mostly non-US) orgs used locked-down managed IT and VMs where IE was still the only allowed browser, until the IE 11 shutdown in 2022, which is recent. And just for reciprocity, here's Indian Defense Review (5/2025) "These People Never Moved On: They’re Stuck 24 Years in the Past and Have to Use Windows XP" : "Thousands of workers across the US and Europe still depend on a system from 2001. From hospitals to railways, entire operations run on technology long considered obsolete." https://indiandefencereview.com/these-people-never-moved-on-theyre-stuck-24-years-in-the-past-and-have-to-use-windows-xp/ https://indiandefencereview.com/these-people-never-moved-on-...
- selcuka 1y ago> A lot of (mostly non-US) orgs used locked-down managed IT and VMs where IE was still the only allowed browser, until the IE 11 shutdown in 2022, which is recent. That's hardly Microsoft's fault, isn't it?
- michaelmrose 1y agoThey literally promoted the shitty web tech that companies built their shit on which obligated them to stick with an old OS or rewrite entirely.
- smcin 1y agoI simply stated as a fact that IE has not been dead and buried for ages. The official 2022 shutdown is recent. Regardless of who we each might consider to be responsible (and in what proportion), that fact is a fact. Agreed? (and I've seen lots of end-of-life cycles in software and hardware, and gone through them as both user, customer and vendor)
- _carbyau_ 1y agoYeah, if you've done support in large MS corporate environments with MEM etc then you've come across crappy business apps that have crappy requirements stuck in the past. On the one hand, longevity of a platform is nice and MS screwed up IE in so many ways. On the other hand, at some time the business has to manage their software lifecycle - including the death of old systems - and you can't blame MS for that.
- ocontraire 1y ago> And they have behaved relatively nice for so long that some young adults don't know any other side of MS now. Except that their macOS software still is non-parity with Windows for really no good reason other than anti-competitive. They’ve also had the opportunity to open-source Windows, but won’t go that far willingly, with the exception of those that did it without approval.
- lofaszvanitt 1y agoHoly shite what I just read. It's like telling people: mafioso people are not so bad, they keep the streets clean and there is discipline around the city. They only pickpocket the foreigners...
- lanyard-textile 1y agoWith time, they will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- frollogaston 1y agoBusinesses don't and shouldn't operate as charities, but Microsoft is the only big tech company that manages to be a negative in every way. The only thing they've ever innovated on is lock-in. Now exploring the frontier of how bad Windows can be without people leaving. The open-source stuff is whatever, only a tiny part of the picture.
- userbinator 1y agoand has open sourced a lot of their own code under permissive licenses. That should be a good clue that it's not worth much to them anymore, and tjat they'd rather rely on random free labour from the "community" than their own developers. They build more and more of their own UIs on Electron. Which is a horribly bloated pig that only helps forced obsolescence of hardware. It should be a very disturbing sign that Microsoft itself doesn't seem to know how to do native code anymore, as they invented Win32 and Windows.
- fc417fc802 1y agoI agree that Electron is an abomination. As for open sourcing software. Is it even possible for them to do something that you would view favorably here? To me it seems like remain closed and they'll get criticized but open up at least some of it and ... they get criticized? As far as I'm concerned, regardless of other factors the more source code that's out in the open the better off everyone is.
- eviks 1y ago> They build more and more of their own UIs on Electron. That's not a cool guy thing
- goosejuice 1y agoIE and it's embedded derivatives are still used in many US healthcare institutions. So dead and buried, not so much.
- ekianjo 1y ago> Microsoft runs the biggest org on github and has open sourced a lot of their own code under permissive licenses. two things can be true at the same time. MS doing some open sourcing and being truly evil too in many other ways. why do you need to settle on one or the other?
- herbst 1y ago> And they have behaved relatively nice for so long that some young adults don't know any other side of MS now. Only if you have no soul or morals
- Lutger 1y agoNot really. They still have the same sales tactic as they always have: make an inferior product that barely ticks the boxes, then manipulate everyone to ditch their competitors in all kinds of ways except for making a better product. These manipulative tactics are sometimes fair game, most are quite unethical and some even illegal. You can make a product that pleases its users, or just cater to the interests of the ones with the buying decision, for enterprise users they are almost never the same. Microsoft, like Oracle, leans heavily on the second strategy. Their developer tools are often (not always) an exception to this principle. I think this is the true reason Microsoft is so disliked as a brand.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y agoHaving gotten tired of subjecting windows users to a phishing campaign to trick them to use edge under the auspices of it being chrome, they're now moving on to obsoleting all windows machines without a TPM so they can cryptographically secure their right to use their users' need to authenticate as an opportunity to sell data about that user to the third party. They have no respect for the agency of their users. We're no different than cattle to them, an asset to be squeezed until no more money comes out of it.
- whoknowsidont 1y ago>Microsoft runs the biggest org on github and has open sourced a lot of their own code under permissive licenses. It's so sad that this is all it takes for some of you lol. A collection of public relations code bases.
- materialpoint 1y agoYou should be aware that Microsoft's idea of open source is very much at odds with everything open source before Microsoft boldly slapped a "Microsft <3 open source" right and left. They may have progressed beyond Ms-PL, but they have tried to coup and steal open source projects several times. But, altho understandable, the simple fact that their primary products, Visual Studio, Office, Windows, and even worse: former versions of any of these, are simply not open source in any way precisely contradicts the expression of loving open source.
- tracker1 1y agoWhile I mostly agree, I will say they're leaps and bounds better than a couple decades ago. Windows now accounts for less than 10% of MS revenue, and definitely lacks in attention by all indications. Linux on Azure outweighs their Windows use by an increasingly wider margine, and a significant amount of the progress that has occurred on Windows has been to make Linux development easier. .Net and a lot of other tooling and projects are on Github under BSD licensing, and that's pretty cool... almost everything they do outside Windows/Office works in Linux these days. I do think they should at LEAST get a version of office (offline) that works in Linux... even if it's a bastardized web version that runs in Electron. Aside: I couldn't say how much I appreciate the work Valve has done to improve gaming on Linux, and have no expectations of ever moving back to Windows. MS seems to want to extract literally every cent of value out of every Windows user, and it sickens me.
- HeyLaughingBoy 1y ago> simply not open source in any way What do you mean by this? I've traced code into the Windows OS to debug a problem by downloading the source.