6 ms·

"You're just a bunch of fanatic, Linux obsessed Microsoft haters living in the past. Microsoft are the good guys now." -- ca. everyone here, during the GitHub

by scbrg 6mo ago

"You're just a bunch of fanatic, Linux obsessed Microsoft haters living in the past. Microsoft are the good guys now." -- ca. everyone here, during the GitHub acquisition

Ygg2 6mo ago
Thinking of megacorps as anything other than slimy, amoral, scum honestly requires superhuman levels of mental gymnastics.
- wolvesechoes 6mo ago
  And thinking that megacorps are in any meaningful way different than your last underdog startup darling is another level of copium.
  - Ygg2 6mo ago
    Sure. But a startup could, in theory end up profitable and self-sufficient without a public offering. It's not impossible.
    - wolvesechoes 6mo ago
      Startups are about making money, take they capital with a promise of making more capital, and the logic of capital is uniform, no matter where it comes from. It always, without exception, will end up the same, with the only difference how much time it will take.
      - Ygg2 6mo ago
        That's why I said in theory. Consider that at some point Valve was a startup.
      - Dylan16807 6mo ago
        It really depends on what kind of investment they took. Venture is probably worse than going public with the desire to moonshot. A loan is pretty harmless, since they want you to repay a fixed amount with as much stability as possible.
lynx97 6mo ago
Does it matter these days if a company or administration are "the good guys"? Does "good" even have a meaning anymore? The "good" part of the world rotates in disbelief since Trump was re-elected in a democratic vote. Everyone says Microsoft is evil, since, what, the 90s?! But still, Windows is everywhere. Is anyone still buying this moral bullshit? "Goodness" obviously has no majority.
saaspirant 6mo ago
Relevant thread "Microsoft acquires Github" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286
- ra 6mo ago
  It's funny - many of our greatest concerns back then are things we now accept.
  - yard2010 6mo ago
    There's that old misconception about how to boil a frog..
    - zihotki 6mo ago
      Misconception? That's a playbook, not a misconception.
    - avdelazeri 6mo ago
      Afaik turning up the temperature slowly wouldn't work on an actual frog. But works on people without fail.
      - account42 6mo ago
        That's because you can ignore when the people complain as long as its not too many at once.
st_goliath 6mo ago
Oh, this is just the usual Microsoft Stockholm syndrome. I've been witnessing this for over 20 years now and have been told that it has been a thing for much longer than that. "No, we can't switch to OpenOffice you weird Open Source hippie! I can't e-mail documents to other people anymore, nobody can open them. Besides, the UI is all different, I won't be able to find anything!" Then Office 2007 happened, tossing out the waffle menu for the ribbon and people started receiving e-mails with strange docx/xlsx files that nobody could open. IIRC that was still an issue 3 years later. But no, when Microsoft does it, it is different: "This is progress! Are you against progress, you weird Luddite?" I remember by the time Windows 8 was released ("Kachelofen edition" - "hurr, your desktop is a tablet!"), I was discussing with a Unix graybeard friend in the cafeteria how long it will take until the complainers accept that "this is the way now". I think it was him who suggested that if Microsoft sent a sales rep around to shit on peoples lawns, it would take at most a year until they start defending it as the inevitable cost of technological progress. No matter how slow and bloated the GitHub web UI gets, or how many nonsense anti-features Microsoft stuffs into it. People will accept it and find funny excuses (network effect will be the main one).
- account42 6mo ago
  > I think it was him who suggested that if Microsoft sent a sales rep around to shit on peoples lawns, it would take at most a year until they start defending it as the inevitable cost of technological progress. They would inevitably say that Linux was not viable because you had to buy your own fertilizer.
lopis 6mo ago
"Microsoft loves open source now!" Oh, they adore it. Specially once they figure out how to plaster all open source projects with ads...
- johnisgood 6mo ago
  LOL I remember that stance. A good one! I have never owned a GitHub account post-M$. :/ Mainly because I always knew Microsoft has always been against FOSS.
- Andrex 6mo ago
  Microsoft: "We're EMBRACING open source!" Everyone who remembered Microsoft in the 90s: "Uhhhhh... :concerned_face:"
latexr 6mo ago
> ca. everyone here Every time someone claims “everyone on HN thought X”, I go back to check and find out that it was not true and that the discussions had both people in favour and against. Every time. But this case is particularly bad, I’m checking the top voted comments and so far the feeling is of dread and wariness, the complete opposite of what you claim. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286 I really wish people would stop this silly “everyone thought X” shtick. It’s embarrassing. Verification is trivial. What do you gain from it? It’s just spreading heated reactions based on a lie.
- sph 6mo ago
  This common trend of invoking the goomba fallacy is a thought-terminating way to excuse and justify away any popular opinion. Even if single individuals have different opinions, the common sentiment on the forum was that Microsoft of 2010s was not Ballmer’s Microsoft, and the unsavoury anticompetitive behaviours had been done away with.
  - latexr 6mo ago
    > the common sentiment on the forum was that Microsoft of 2010s was not Ballmer’s Microsoft, and the unsavoury anticompetitive behaviours had been done away with. Maybe it was a common sentiment, but clearly not the. Again, we can see from that acquisition thread that people were wary of it. The second top post even makes Microsoft seem like a domestic abuser.
- kelnos 6mo ago
  So it's true that the several of the top topmost comments are anti-MS or at least worried, but there are plenty of replies to those that are defending MS. A few of them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227447 I don't think it's safe to say that the prevailing opinion there is one of concern.
kelnos 6mo ago
I've had so many discussions with friends over the past 15 or so years where they've praised Microsoft and their embracing of open source, and have given me a hard time for continuing to distrust them. To be fair, I was a teenager in the 90s, and a huge computer nerd who followed the MS antitrust case very closely; quite a few of these friends are 5-7 years younger, rendering them a bit too young at the time to experience that going on in real-time. But damn... I enjoy a good "I told you so" as much as the next guy, but most of the time it sucks to be right.
realaaa 6mo ago
ahahah yes I remember those comments yes

by scbrg 6mo ago

"You're just a bunch of fanatic, Linux obsessed Microsoft haters living in the past. Microsoft are the good guys now." -- ca. everyone here, during the GitHub acquisition

Ygg2 6mo ago

Thinking of megacorps as anything other than slimy, amoral, scum honestly requires superhuman levels of mental gymnastics.

wolvesechoes 6mo ago
And thinking that megacorps are in any meaningful way different than your last underdog startup darling is another level of copium.
- Ygg2 6mo ago
  Sure. But a startup could, in theory end up profitable and self-sufficient without a public offering. It's not impossible.
  - wolvesechoes 6mo ago
    Startups are about making money, take they capital with a promise of making more capital, and the logic of capital is uniform, no matter where it comes from. It always, without exception, will end up the same, with the only difference how much time it will take.
    - Ygg2 6mo ago
      That's why I said in theory. Consider that at some point Valve was a startup.
    - Dylan16807 6mo ago
      It really depends on what kind of investment they took. Venture is probably worse than going public with the desire to moonshot. A loan is pretty harmless, since they want you to repay a fixed amount with as much stability as possible.

lynx97 6mo ago

Does it matter these days if a company or administration are "the good guys"? Does "good" even have a meaning anymore? The "good" part of the world rotates in disbelief since Trump was re-elected in a democratic vote. Everyone says Microsoft is evil, since, what, the 90s?! But still, Windows is everywhere. Is anyone still buying this moral bullshit? "Goodness" obviously has no majority.

saaspirant 6mo ago

Relevant thread "Microsoft acquires Github" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286

ra 6mo ago
It's funny - many of our greatest concerns back then are things we now accept.
- yard2010 6mo ago
  There's that old misconception about how to boil a frog..
  - zihotki 6mo ago
    Misconception? That's a playbook, not a misconception.
  - avdelazeri 6mo ago
    Afaik turning up the temperature slowly wouldn't work on an actual frog. But works on people without fail.
    - account42 6mo ago
      That's because you can ignore when the people complain as long as its not too many at once.

st_goliath 6mo ago

Oh, this is just the usual Microsoft Stockholm syndrome. I've been witnessing this for over 20 years now and have been told that it has been a thing for much longer than that. "No, we can't switch to OpenOffice you weird Open Source hippie! I can't e-mail documents to other people anymore, nobody can open them. Besides, the UI is all different, I won't be able to find anything!" Then Office 2007 happened, tossing out the waffle menu for the ribbon and people started receiving e-mails with strange docx/xlsx files that nobody could open. IIRC that was still an issue 3 years later. But no, when Microsoft does it, it is different: "This is progress! Are you against progress, you weird Luddite?" I remember by the time Windows 8 was released ("Kachelofen edition" - "hurr, your desktop is a tablet!"), I was discussing with a Unix graybeard friend in the cafeteria how long it will take until the complainers accept that "this is the way now". I think it was him who suggested that if Microsoft sent a sales rep around to shit on peoples lawns, it would take at most a year until they start defending it as the inevitable cost of technological progress. No matter how slow and bloated the GitHub web UI gets, or how many nonsense anti-features Microsoft stuffs into it. People will accept it and find funny excuses (network effect will be the main one).

account42 6mo ago
> I think it was him who suggested that if Microsoft sent a sales rep around to shit on peoples lawns, it would take at most a year until they start defending it as the inevitable cost of technological progress. They would inevitably say that Linux was not viable because you had to buy your own fertilizer.

lopis 6mo ago

"Microsoft loves open source now!" Oh, they adore it. Specially once they figure out how to plaster all open source projects with ads...

johnisgood 6mo ago
LOL I remember that stance. A good one! I have never owned a GitHub account post-M$. :/ Mainly because I always knew Microsoft has always been against FOSS.
Andrex 6mo ago
Microsoft: "We're EMBRACING open source!" Everyone who remembered Microsoft in the 90s: "Uhhhhh... :concerned_face:"

latexr 6mo ago

> ca. everyone here Every time someone claims “everyone on HN thought X”, I go back to check and find out that it was not true and that the discussions had both people in favour and against. Every time. But this case is particularly bad, I’m checking the top voted comments and so far the feeling is of dread and wariness, the complete opposite of what you claim. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227286 I really wish people would stop this silly “everyone thought X” shtick. It’s embarrassing. Verification is trivial. What do you gain from it? It’s just spreading heated reactions based on a lie.

sph 6mo ago
This common trend of invoking the goomba fallacy is a thought-terminating way to excuse and justify away any popular opinion. Even if single individuals have different opinions, the common sentiment on the forum was that Microsoft of 2010s was not Ballmer’s Microsoft, and the unsavoury anticompetitive behaviours had been done away with.
- latexr 6mo ago
  > the common sentiment on the forum was that Microsoft of 2010s was not Ballmer’s Microsoft, and the unsavoury anticompetitive behaviours had been done away with. Maybe it was a common sentiment, but clearly not the. Again, we can see from that acquisition thread that people were wary of it. The second top post even makes Microsoft seem like a domestic abuser.
kelnos 6mo ago
So it's true that the several of the top topmost comments are anti-MS or at least worried, but there are plenty of replies to those that are defending MS. A few of them: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229625 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17227447 I don't think it's safe to say that the prevailing opinion there is one of concern.

kelnos 6mo ago

I've had so many discussions with friends over the past 15 or so years where they've praised Microsoft and their embracing of open source, and have given me a hard time for continuing to distrust them. To be fair, I was a teenager in the 90s, and a huge computer nerd who followed the MS antitrust case very closely; quite a few of these friends are 5-7 years younger, rendering them a bit too young at the time to experience that going on in real-time. But damn... I enjoy a good "I told you so" as much as the next guy, but most of the time it sucks to be right.

realaaa 6mo ago

ahahah yes I remember those comments yes