4 ms·
I think this is probably because hackers in younger generations never experienced the beast that was Microsoft in the 90s and have seen the progression of MS as
by yzzxy 12y ago
I think this is probably because hackers in younger generations never experienced the beast that was Microsoft in the 90s and have seen the progression of MS as one from "company that makes boring and/or bad OS" to the embrace of FOSS that's been happening recently.
I'm personally super interested in tech and hacking history, so I've read all the war stories, the pleas on FOSS homepages, the rants on sites like jwz's, books like Microserfs, etc. But even the most talented hackers who are 16-24 right now probably see Microsoft as "the Xbox company."
- silverfox17 12y agoNot true - 21 here, was only born in 1993. I'm aware of the disputes that have happened over time, especially arguments with Netscape / Jobs / etc. Microsoft has a pretty interesting and rich history, and I was extremely surprised about the recent open source announcements. I read somewhere they actually have an open source branch, it's just not widely talked about, mainly because Windows overshadows it.
- yzzxy 12y agoI'm not trying to make an ultimatum - there will definitely be exceptions, as I pointed out myself. But if you ask around, most people in that demographic won't know about the story of MS, won't have seen stuff like the Gates deposition video, etc. The most you'll get is a vague notion of Microsoft being called evil by greybeards.