Apparently, being a platinum member entails donating $500k [1], so it's not that big a deal for Microsoft ($85B revenue[2]). And as the article states, there has been negativity in the linux community regarding the old arch-enemy joining their ranks. Looking at the new Microsoft however, I think it's fair to assume that the days of "embrace, extend and extinguish"[3] are over and they are genuinely interested in cooperation.
It's an important political gesture that Nadella goes in this direction. Since they also added a linux subsystem into the latest Windows release[4], I get the impression that he wants to leave the cloud to linux and try to position Windows as a user-facing client. This is a difficult decision to make, but it makes sense. Microsoft without Ballmer is seeing its position in the Corporate world as it is and I hope we will continue to see more openness as a result.
Half the HN frontpage right now is MS articles. Seems oddly coincidental.
We can't forget about the bad MS is still doing: forced Win10 upgrades, Win10 spyware, Android patent extortion, FAT/VFAT/exFAT patent suits and licenses, etc.
The developer arm seems to be working hard, which is commendable. But looking at the rest of the org, this just seems like another Embrace round of the EEE cycle.
It's not "oddly coincidental", it's Microsoft's developer conference today, which is where the announcement was made. During WWDC and I/O the front page is filled with Apple and Google news too.
well since steve jobs died there wasn't anything noteworthy.
I mean seriously, was there any new device or and WORTHY feature? I can't think of any.
And old devices like the mac series or others weren't overhauled with something that made it more interesting. I mean everything since then was the touchbar from mac, which many weren't seeing as that feature, they basically removed more than they added noteworthy stuff.
That's why they probably will suffer soon. They need a leader to bring them forward and not a businessman.
Yes, sadly MSFT PR drones invaded HN since BUILD 2015. They are worse than the were during Ballmer days, their current CEO is bad for end consumers, the spyware in W10 and many other shady actions like forcing DRM EFI are very bad. Who (developer) in the right mind would fall again for their shit? Only noobs fall for them - you will get burned sooner or later, remember that. Their software aren't a good fit for startups, so why are they fearured on HN nowadays? Usually you don't want to burn your money on software licenses, or you will fall like MySpace. Read PG articles.
You're right, it doesn't take much skepticism, because that sort of conspiracy theorising is basically the opposite of skepticism, it's uncritical thinking.
So what? It's a big deal for the Linux Foundation. And that's what matters. It's not about everyone paying "their fair share". It's about ensuring a good future for the high-quality very popular open source OS Linux. The circumstances of the donor doesn't affect the efficacy of their donation.
I hope we focus more on the outcome than the drama.
The operating system's technical name is GNU/Linux[1]. Many people call it Linux incorrectly, but it is actually a serious distinction[2]. I would agree however that Linux is the most widely used OS kernel.
To make the distinction more obvious, can you explain what the difference is between "Linux" and Android (which uses the Linux kernel). [ Hint: the difference is that Android doesn't contain GNU. ]
Linux is a class of operating systems which use the Linux kernel. Referring to Linux as an OS, is a perfectly fine thing to generically mean 'an OS which uses Linux as a kernel' and has an agreed common meaning.
Almost no Operating System is precisely GNU/Linux - most have vim, an X server, GNOME or KDE, 7zip etc. And the argument that GNU is a more principal argument is incorrect.
Even more hair splitting here. Your arguments would matter in court but in general I think it is fairly easy to understand what a user means when he says Linux. For example I say Android is based on Linux.
Except that is exactly the terminology fudging that makes the conversation opaque. Android uses a forked Linux kernel, and uses none of the GNU toolchain that appears on Linux distributions. Android is based on Linux, but not GNU/Linux, and if you use just Linux as an interchangeable term for both kernel and OS including user-space, you could have gotten away with that a decade ago, but today there are enough divergent systems using Linux and not the GNU system that the distinction is required to make sense.
Alpine doesn't use GNU by default. And it would fit into what I call "Linux".
The "operating system" is not "technically" "GNU/Linux" - that's just what Richard Stallman wants it to be.
Stallman wants the definition of "operating system" to be the fully usable system. In which case Linux won't work. You need GNU coreutils. But you need a lot of other things too, why are the other things omitted from the naming?
Windows on the other hand is clearly an "operating system." Does this mean that the OS is "Ubuntu" or "Alpine"? Or are they just distributions still? In this case GNU/Linux is still not the OS.
Dennis Ritchie once referred to the kernel as "the operating system proper", albeit when describing various parts of unix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVQTPbD6UY#t=1m28s). I think Ritchie's opinion is much more valid than Stallman's. [edit: this doesn't prove that the operating system is just the kernel, but that it's not far fetched to refer to the kernel as an operating system, or in that case to refer to an operating system by the kernel]
The short of it is that when people say that Linux is an operating system, perhaps they mean "a family of operating systems based on the same kernel" but that's a mouthful. And since most people would include things like Alpine in there when they say "linux", they clearly arent just referring to GNU/Linux. Thats one of those things where "Windows 10" is a different version of "Windows" than "Windows 8" because the bundled user space is different... but theyre both "Windows". If something requires Windows 10, I can say "requires windows 10". If it just generically works on windows 3.11 until present, I can say "works on windwos". "Alpine" is a version of "Linux", and so is "Ubuntu". Ubuntu just also happens to fall under "GNU/Linux". If something requires GNU, i can say "requires Linux with GNU" and otherwise "requires Linux" is absolutely correct. If something requires a specific distro, then you can specify that, otherwise you go for the lowest common denominator. (a lot of things that "require linux" will work on unix/BSD too, but no one throws a fit over that).
Also, the most important factor is that communication is about conveying thoughts effectively. If you understood "Linux" well enough to try to correct it, then you understood and thoughts are conveyed. That also means insisting on GNU/Linux for colloquial use is just pedantic.
> Alpine doesn't use GNU by default. And it would fit into what I call "Linux".
I'd have no problem calling Alpine musl/Linux or whatever.
> You need GNU coreutils. But you need a lot of other things too, why are the other things omitted from the naming?
Calling GNU/Linux also reflects the history of the operating system. This is actually the main reason that Stallman objects to calling it "Linux" -- because you're ignoring the fact that GNU came first (and the reason why GNU exists, which lead to all of the other projects you're talking about). You wouldn't have X.org, vim or many other projects without GNU -- simply because the community wouldn't have existed.
> If something requires GNU, i can say "requires Linux with GNU"
... no. Because you can run GNU/kFreeBSD, GNU/kNetBSD or even GNU/NT. How would you describe GNU/kFreeBSD to someone (remembering that to users it is basically indistinguishable from GNU/Linux)? "It's like Linux but doesn't have Linux in it?"
> How would you describe GNU/kFreeBSD to someone (remembering that to users it is basically indistinguishable from GNU/Linux)? "It's like Linux but doesn't have Linux in it?"
Exactly like that. I've heard people refer to all posix systems blindly as "unix" and its not worth correcting. If someone knows what GNU/kFreeBSD is, or cares to discuss it, we can discuss it. But generally speaking, I try to keep things concise. When I say "linux" im not trying to go into details, otherwise I'd specify that I'm using arch, ubuntu or whatever. I'm trying to lay down a generic concept of a group of operating systems. And saying "GNU/Linux" doesnt help me convey that idea any better to 99% of people. "linux" is just slang for "gnu/linux".
So if you want to say gnu/linux out of respect for stallman, sure. go ahead. but im not going to.
Stallman's definition is correct. The operating system for everyone else includes the userland and libc. Luckily this is what made LX and the Windows equivalent possible, though.
Ok then my second point stands. If I bought a new car and you said "Nice wheels" (is this slang still in use?) and I said "What you're referring to as wheels is actually car/wheels", you'd think I was an idiot.
If someone says just "Linux" they colloquially mean "Linux based operating systems" or perhaps even "Linux based operating systems like those in the most common distributions".
If I say "IE only runs on Windows", people dont argue that it doesn't run on Windows 3.11. They just know that "Windows" means "modern Windows" in this case, or at the very least, the implication that IE DOESNT run on competing operating systems. I mean, if I'm in a debate about Microsft vs Apple and I say "but for DirectX 12 and games you need Windows!" - here I specifically mean Windows 10, but "Windows" is enough to distinguish it from competitors.
If I say a game is for "Windows and Linux" or "Windows and Mac, but not Linux", its safe to say you understood what I'm talking about. And arguing otherwise means you're being pedantic.
If we're not currently in a discussion about differences between kernels or even libc implementations (in those discussions, it's safe to assume we're not using a colloquial definition), then it is safe to say that "Linux" means "Linux based operating system"
Redhat is not pushing developers into producing software incompatible with anything but their own system. They are actively involved in the development of almost all core software common to all distros, and even flatpak, which is meant to tear down barriers between distro package formats rather than prop up the wall.
Microsoft could push Windows all they want if they were not also pushing an ecosystem exclusive to that platform along with it. If Windows was "just another unix" and was interchangeable at the user level with other operating systems, particularly those that would respect user freedoms, there would be no issue with its nature as "default" or in Microsofts behavior in regards to its users, because there would be real choice.
Real choice, in exactly the same way Red Hat vs SUSE vs Ubuntu users have right now amongst themselves.
Oh... ok. So because Redhat makes some products that ONLY work on Linux, and are interchangeable between a few distros (although not the supported paid-for versions), you get "real choice".
What's my choice if I'm an AIX user, or a Solaris user, or an HPUX user, or a Windows user, or a FreeBSD user? My choice is to switch operating systems? Sort of like the choice MS provides?
That's completely irrelevant. But "extorting" is more than a BIT of a stretch. They've got valid patents that Android handset makers need. Just like they need licensing to even put a cellular modem in the phone in the first place.
If you honestly think Samsung would willingly hand over $10-15 per handset over bunk patents, I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona you might be interested in.
Lots of companies have "valid patents" that are bullshit and not particularly innovative but they don't use them to attack other companies when they can't compete. See Google for example, they only use patents defensively.
Oh, maybe but I don't see what any of that has to do with the topic at hand.
These patents aren't being used passively. They are being used for royalties. And Samsung wouldn't pay the royalty unless there was a strong legal case.
Many of those patents are directly targeting Linux and all are BS. Samsung earns enough money so that they chose not to enter multi billion dollar gambit where law protects BS software patents.
HP I think it was just an example. In fact all platinum members pay $ 500K [https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/bylaws] to be able to join the meetings and being able to participate in the ballotings.
This is the ultimate embrace, extend move. Hopefully it means MS has reconciled itself to the fact that it cannot easily extinguish Linux. I would expect MS to use this position to divert headlines away from the concept of free software, and toward the MS brand; and to introduce dependencies to third-party software that makes it difficult to extract MS proprietary code entirely from the Linux ecosystem.
The important thing about this news is not the title or the amount. The important thing to notice that Microsoft has moved from extreme hostility to active co-operation with general Linux community. This is a good move and it benefits Linux community lot more than Microsoft.
I always felt that it was needless to paint MS/Linux as some kind of zero some game to begin with. Sad that MS's top leadership fell prey to it in the initial years trying to hurt Linux.
How does this benefit the Linux community even more? Microsofts move to include shells and a kernel compatible with Unix may end up being one of the most damaging things to Linux in a long time.
All of the casual users that don't care about open source will just give in and use Windows as their OS when they hit a driver snag or something since they still get the userspace tools they like.
Which is what "casual users" have been doing with macOS for a while now: getting some of the BSD userspace tools they like in a friendlier overall OS package.
If anything Microsoft is providing a way to encourage Windows users that would never touch a BSD or Linux userspace tool to give it a try. That's a possible way to bring new users to Linux: teach them how to do things with Linux userspace tools and encourage them to dive deeper until they can do everything they want with Linux userspace tools and then maybe encourage them to switch.
If anything, Microsoft has given the Linux community the keys to possibly embrace some "casual users" that otherwise never would have explored Linux.
We must also not forget that other companies have since proven that the idea of a proprietary operating system (or just kernel) as the main base of IP has started to look somewhat obsolete anyway. Now we have proprietary services and systems like Android and macOS have demonstrated that you can take an (at least partly) open source OS and slap most of the proprietary bits in userspace quite successfully. For that matter the "next version" of Windows might as well be a rebranded version of Android or something. Why keep maintaining your own OS kernel when you can have the community do it for you with a modest donation?
NT will be with us for a while yet, though I can't understand the business case for not end of lifing it at some point, especially when most of the engineers you hire don't know it well.
I don't see how this means they have stopped being hostile. For example, they are still suing android manufacturers.
I think they are doing this because they think they have to and not because they have actually embraced anything. I think they are trying to buy goodwill.
All of these companies in the mobile space seem to be constantly suing each other though right? Microsoft is no more hostile than Apple or Google in this regard?
While Microsoft was the effective monopoly, they stayed as a monopoly trying to reap the fruits of the new status quo.
It makes financial sense for them to join the Linux Foundation.
Joining the Linux Foundation does not make them to, for example, start contributing to WINE, since that does not make financial sense to them.
> I think it's fair to assume that the days of "embrace, extend and extinguish" are over and they are genuinely interested in cooperation.
I'd welcome that, but MS still needs to fix several very major issues which stand in the way of such cooperation.
1. Stop the patent aggression.
2. More support for open standards. Especially in 3D graphics (DirectX lock-in), filesystems on removable media (exFAT lock-in), and so on and so forth.
3. Stop Windows tax / Windows bundling anti-competitive practices.
Once those are changed for the better, I'd say MS really changed. There is some progress with the above for example in case of the browser. MS joining Alliance for Open Media is one such case. But quite a lot still remains problematic.
> 3. Stop Windows tax / Windows bundling anti-competitive practices.
well bundling is not a problem for me. I mean most people will use windows no matter how much better linux gets.
however the bigger problem is that windows actually allows vendors to create shitty drivers and fix shitty hardware within there kernel, that should not happen. windows should ONLY allow signed drivers for companies that are willing to create specifications for their devices.
3. Are they still doing that though, I don't see any evidence?
Over here (Macedonia) you can buy laptops/PCs from most brands without Windows, cheaper.
4. What really irks me, is a point you missed: they are dealing with corrupt governments everywhere to make sure all government and education computers have Windows and Office, and that is what gets taught in schools.
Reading your comment, I was suddenly reminded of the days when the Windows vs. Linux TCO (=total cost of ownership) debacle was all aflame... ah the sad irony.
But I'd argue that the most used microsoft product in the world (besides Windows) is MS Office. What holds a lot of people back from running Linux is that they don't like dealing with compatibility issues with LibreOffice and MS Office.
Microsoft knows if they open source or port MS Office to Linux, they will lose a massive market share and millions of people will stop using Windows. And I don't blame them, any reasonable business would not do something like that.
But unless they do that, I don't see how they can claim to be cooperating when they refuse to port their main product to Linux.
>Microsoft knows if they open source or port MS Office to Linux, they will lose a massive market share and millions of people will stop using Windows.
That's a huge assumption. There's no real indication that people would stop using Windows if Office existed in Linux.
If that were the case, then porting Office to OS X would've had a similar effect, don't you think?
Ultimately I believe the reason Microsoft doesn't bother porting to Linux is that the market-share is just not worth the cost of re-writing for another platform, and keeping it updated.
Additionally, as a compromise Office 365 runs on browser, which further decreases the incentive to port to Linux. Since you can get a similar experience using Office 365 on Linux, that said I won't be so disingenuous as to imply that the experience is as good as a native application.
In conclusion, Linux has a very small market share, so making a native application for it might not be cost effective. Additionally, Microsoft might see that market share as "served" regardless due to their online Office 365 web application.
> That's a huge assumption. There's no real indication that people would stop using Windows if Office existed in Linux.
Except for basically every thread I've seen about switching to Linux, where people say the only reason they won't switch is because they still want to use Office and Photoshop.
>If that were the case, then porting Office to OS X would've had a similar effect, don't you think?
No. Cost is a major reason people don't switch to OS X. But Linux is free.
> Ultimately I believe the reason Microsoft doesn't bother porting to Linux is that the market-share is just not worth the cost of re-writing for another platform, and keeping it updated.
That is a good point. But as I said, unless they port their main product to Linux, how can they claim to be cooperating when the ONE product that most people agree is a very good MS product is not available natively on Linux?
> Cost is a major reason people don't switch to OS X.
Cost is a lot more than the physical machine.
This is why Linux machines while technically less expensive (no OS license) are actually more expensive in terms of support. Until that nut can be cracked it's hard to get wide-scale adoption (e.g. 50% deskops vs. 5%).
IBM does studies, though they are to be taken with a grain of salt. http://www.cio.com/article/3001871/macbook/switch-to-macs-fr... Thing is they're one of the few companies that are proponents of both Mac and Linux (plus their own UNIX variant) as well as Windows.
It really depends on the company and the nature of work people are doing. Some software is a mess on anything but Windows. Some software is actually better on Linux.
The thing that stuck out to me about the presser was the quote from the VP of Cloud and Enterprise Group, and that someone high up on Azure team is joining the Linux Foundation board of directors. This indicates to me that it's really a desire to compete effectively with AWS and Google Cloud that drives this co-operation, rather than a desire to expand Linux. Nothing wrong with this of course. Azure is a major cloud platform, personally I think it's better for everyone if Linux runs well there.
You can cooperate without having to give up all your proprietary tools.
How do you think the internet was made? By setting aside proprietary protocols and agreeing on open standards. Each vendor's free to do whatever they want so long as they use those standards.
The new game is to use as much open source as possible to build a closed source ecosystem with vendor lock-in.
Microsoft was late to the game, but we gotta give them props for contributing back something more useful than "open core", platform onboarding or "hire me" piles of code.
I guess the other thread was the one that became the dupe:
I'm fairly certain all of 2016 is a mass-hallucination. Or something.
In all seriousness though, I don't think this is surprising. Visual Studio on macOS is more surprising to me. Azure runs on Linux and that's a really, really big business for Microsoft. And they've also built a Linux Subsystem into Windows.
Rock on Microsoft, rock on.
Sarcasm? I imagine that they're not emulating the Linux Kernel on Windows... From what I've gathered from job postings and whatnot, their virtualization system is in line with AWS's (Xen) on Linux.
This thread is full of people making the familiar mistake of treating an organization with hundreds of thousands of employees as a single entity with a single mind instead of a vast organization with multiple departments and different teams.
So much has changed in 10 years! The old me would never believe how the future me moved more "Micro$oft sucks" to "wow another great product!"
I am happy to use Office in wine, as it gives me a very stable experience, full unicode supports even with my Xorg keymaps.
I use Visual Studio in wine - not as good as Office, but still very good.
I have a Windows phone, a priced relic since Microsoft abandoned them. Rock stable, last for a week in airplane mode.
I have a Windows 10 LTSB in a separate partition. Initially I just wanted to test it out. Now I consider running it in KVM for Visual Studio, in case I want more than what wine can now offer.
Hell, I am considering replacing my Thinkpad by one of Microsoft surfaces. As soon as it runs Linux as well as a Thinkpad, can get 32G of RAM, a user replacable SSD, wifi and lte module, I buy one. Seriously, even if the keyboard is not as good. And given Microsoft new focus on developpers, I wouldn't entirely dismiss the idea of a Surface Developper, bulkier but sturdier and user upgradable.
People say "hell froze over". I don't care. I look forward for more change from Microsoft. Because their tools are innovative again.
It'd be great if companies would support this sort of use if they're not going to bother creating native versions.
I used to play games using PlayOnLinux but the company, Origin (IIRC), updated their game manager software seemingly in order to break the Linux compatibility. The games were paid for and worked perfectly well.
Annoying as hell when companies appear to be actively hostile to you buying their product.
I also think the shift is genuine. The parallels with how IBM evolved from being the Prime Evil in the tech world to a large but relatively benign tech company are interesting.
Yes, but if your focus is on selling hammers, everything looks like a nail. If your focus is on selling fastener-drivers, you realize that sometimes you need a screwdriver instead.
The Linux Foundation troubles me a little. They have vested interest in making sure Linux's copyleft is not enforced. For example, VMWare is part of it, and has used its clout to refuse funding to Software Conservancy, due to the ongoing GPL lawsuit.
I guess the money from the LF is helping pay Linus' paycheque, but it has also become a bit of a lobbying group to steer Linux into more proprietary software.
The strategy fits perfectly: Embrace Ubuntu into Windows, let the dev community grow. Then add windows-specific hooks and additions for open-source software to build against. At last destroy the backward compatibility to end linux. This is what they have always done, why should this time be different.
It would probably be some proprietary extensions in something like systemD. Increase the complexity to code about 10x to eliminate the small devs, etc. Nothing we haven't seen with the open doc standard, ActiveX, Java portability, etc.
You have to think more business like. Why extinguish Linux when every copy running somewhere can give you licencing income. Maybe they'll partner with redhat and provide them something that has to be paid. Unlimited possibilities really.
Open source means nothing and is same easy to extinguish, it's only more visible when someone is trying to. Microsoft, Google, Apple do open source work for publicity, if you as a single developer want a change in a projects, you submit PR... and wait weeks. First you need to write RFC, at some point RFC will be discussed behind closed doors by corporatisation members, you can have your vote in it on GitHub, but nothing else as we saw once already with MS. All you can do is fix documentation and tests for them, means they get free labour to improve their products, you can have an important repo forked on GitHub.
Nope. In fact, that term is almost always applied to open technology. Right now Red Hat is doing it to Linux and Google is doing it to the Web. See the list of examples on the linked article for more.
Mostly just ignore the parent comment, some people are inherently compelled to link a twenty year old business strategy on EVERY Microsoft-related thread.
I can see you aren't reading the current changes in ms db licencing costs, not moving a finger about Kronos to favour directx and the likes.
What do you think changed in ms after 20 years? Them providing a cute text editor for Linux and now they are the good guys?
I don't think this strategy would work anymore on these fields. Microsoft does not have dominant market share in cloud, server operating systems, development platforms or databases and it does not look like they could gain it. The dominating position is key for the embrace, extended, extinguish because that's the way to push your own stuff to market.
I believe Microsoft is doing these moves, because they have decided that the old business model where all products are required to support the sales of each other is too risky. It served them well, but now there are too many good alternatives on many areas. If Azure does not support Linux, customers are not going to migrate to Windows because of that, they just pick another cloud. The old way was risky, because it meant that if customers moved away from Windows, they also had to move away from .NET and SQL Server.
Microsoft loves Linux (the kernel), but they hate with passion anything userland that could ever have the dreaded "GNU" or "GPL" letters anywhere mentioned.
WSL is an implementation of (some of) the Linux kernel APIs on top of the Windows kernel. The userland that you run in WSL is technically independent of WSL itself, but Microsoft provides direct support for installing Ubuntu there.
Everytime I see a big corporation donate money to a software project, I like to imagine what the software project would do with 10 or 1000 times that amount. What would a Billion Dollar funded Linux Foundation do?
?
Thats a pretty negative/limited view.
Tons of open source projects could benefit from additional roles/resources aside from programmers: project management, graphic design, UI/UX, technical writing, QA engineering.
Additionally, longer-term funding for the main contributors to a project might allow them to elevate a project's status beyond a nights-and-weekends hobby, with likely improvements for code quality/overall quality.
The vast majority of the kernel code is a massive number of drivers and subsystems that can be worked on independendly.
A better funded Linux Foundation could also invest in better tooling (better compilers, better test rigs), and in research on speculative improvements to pretty much every subsystem.
> But on that note, I never understood why they track the drivers in the same git repo as the kernel.
Because the advantage of Linux drivers is code sharing, cooperation between different companies include competeting one, hierarchy of maintainers and developers. No driver code can be merged into upstream driver until subsystem maintainer, Linus and planty other developers see it.
So companies that maintain drivers in same subsystem improve and fix each others code. They also can't just merge some mess into upstream and have to follow certain rules that benefit kernel as whole. E.g for instance at least in GPU drivers it's not allowed to add any code upstream if it's only used by proprietary components in userspace.
> They should just develop a stable kernel API for drivers, and have extract the drivers out and track them separately from kernel development.
I can't imagine how much great software KDE could produce with another 50k, let alone 500k, in corporate sponsorship. It has fewer developers with a broader reach than Gnome and an even older legacy.
Just a really easy example is how they now have the Kirigami UI framework, and they released their software store redone in it a few months back (Discover) but the man hours and work required to port more of the collection to that toolkit would be immense. And even Discover is missing a lot of polish since its primarily a demo product at this point.
Throw another 10 developers in there (at 50k a pop?), and all those complaints about "it looks like Windows" with toolbars and dropdowns would be abated.
uh, well, redhat is worth $14B and i'd say at least $1B of that value has been dumped into its open source projects over the years (of which there are a LOT), so we already know what that looks like.
i think the frontier you are speculating about is currently at 2 or 3 times that magnitude. what does a $100B-$1T of market capitalization behind linux and its ecosystem look like?
i think the major players are aligning to answer that question... we'll find out soon enough.
Precisely! The Linux Foundation is fundamentally convinced open source creates the best software in the long run and doesn't much care about philosophy or "freedom".
Microsoft has $85B of revenue[0] and joining as a platinum member costs $500k. Even if Windows licences are the only ways Microsoft makes money (they're not, by a longshot), every copy would only account for 0.000008% of the donation.
Mono works really well. But, Mono's not the future. The future is Roslyn, CoreCLR, and CoreFX, basically the compiler, runtime and standard library for .NET applications.
They all work really well on Linux. They're part of the .NET foundation (https://github.com/dotnet).
Works fine for me in the server-side backend apps I've done. Telecom processing, routing/call records. Handled billions of messages a week. Code/debug/etc. on Windows, copy exes to Linux and run it. There's a few discrepancies here and there but overall it was fairly easy.
Microsoft are doing good by supporting Linux and shipping Ubuntu as an option in Windows 10 which is good for developers. In the past Microsoft has released a UNIX based operating system called Xenix and there has also been a subsystem for Unix in previous Windows NT versions.
MS is going all Oracle-y on us, they'll probably release a full fledged MS Linux distro soon.
(Social game: what will they call it? I'd say something like Unsinkable Linux ;-)
They should also have their own filesystem - ow, right, NTFS. I was thinking they could take another go at the database FS that stalled Vista a decade ago ...
Pride gets in the way of many things, especially progress and innovation, in Microsoft's case, it's holding on to the Window's O.S. If I were the new man at Microsoft, I would immediately set course to release two versions of Windows, and let people make the decision: One with the standard Window's filesystem and one built on the Unix/Linux kernel, like Apple has done. And above all lead with design. The possibilities of what they can do at that point would be endless. But you gotta let go of that pride first!!!
This. All the Visual Studio stuff (shame, as their tools have long had a good reputation). .NET . Etc.
It's a trap.
Been around long enough to have formed that singular impression of such Microsoft initiatives and to have it confirmed, repeatedly.
They failed in mobile. They are losing mindshare elsewhere.
It's a trap.
I'm not going to try to back up my statement, here and now. Just keep it in mind. The more wary you remain, the quicker you can move away when the noose tightens.
Yes, it's a trap, but not much different than the traps other companies are attempting to lay for you.
Remember that the majority of people working at Microsoft today probably have little to no memory of the tech world of the early 2000s. They don't seem too much better or worse than others in attempting to shape open-source projects to their benefit - that's something you should always be wary about.
MS employee here - the new Microsoft is:
Enable (make sure open source runs well on MS platforms)
Integrate (make sure MS platforms work well with open source)
Release (release key MS technology into open source)
Participate (commit MS engineers to participate in communities)
That's encouraging, and it's fantastic that MS is moving in that direction and that new stuff like VS Code runs Linux. But outside of Silicon Valley, a lot of the world still depends on old stuff like MS Office and SharePoint. Outside of the startup scene the biggest challenge for many of us running Linux is still working around Microsoft's proprietary protocols and file formats.
Please continue moving in this direction. There's still a ways to go.
Yeah, but turning workstations into spyware platforms is not the direction anyone outside of big data would consider anything close to the right direction. They are looking to make large inroads into server side where they have historically struggled, and are succeeding, until they control and dictate that market, too. They are patient and calculating, give it time.
Obviously Kaspersky isn't open source, but the tiger's stripes certainly haven't changed.
Also, Microsoft bundling Windows 10 upgrade malware into its security update channel has turned me off Microsoft, probably forever. Still don't understand why installing 10 after being told not to isn't a CFAA violation.
Kaspersky's claims that Microsoft doesn't give them enough time to ensure their software is compatible doesn't really ring true for me, because between the Release Preview, Slow, and Fast rings, people can get their hands on Microsoft OS versions long in advance of Microsoft pushing them out to consumers.
Having a limit on the number of antivirus products a computer has makes sense, antivirus software often causes conflicts with other antivirus software, and a large amount of security software on a PC causes it to run very slowly, as duplicated scanning efforts take up a majority of drive performance on the slow 5400 rpm hard drives shipped with most consumer PCs today.
To be clear: Antivirus companies have acted like a plague on Windows computers for a long time. They use scare tactics to convince people to spend money on placebo-effect tools that rarely protect them from the type of malware they actually are likely to encounter.
One of the favored strategies is to bundle on new PCs with a short trial, and then tell people they won't be protected unless they subscribe. People aren't told that if they just remove the third party product that was preinstalled on their PC, they'll have perfectly serviceable antivirus.
That isn't to say Windows 10 doesn't have issues that still bother me, but let's just say that Kaspersky crying about them doesn't bother me much.
That's actually an example of Microsoft making Windows better and offering standardized APIs for anti virus companies.
Of course not everyone of them likes it, they have a tradition of messing with the OS in bad ways.
Not the grandparent, but I think the issue is that people want clients to have an uptime that is comparable to a server.
Windows Server has controllable updates and reboots. Win 10 - is a client OS and wasn't designed with the same level of hardening and shouldn't have the same uptime requirements.
The challenge is convincing the general public of this; people want a Ford Fiesta with the speed and features of a Audi R8, meaning they want the best of all worlds at reasonable cost and no penalties.
By forcing updates on clients, MS has eliminated a generation of machines being owned by various botnets. They've also made it relatively cheap to get a server in Azure should you have a temporary need for uptime (like a research project for a week).
That aside, some portions of those updates are bad (like removing functionality, pushing telemetry, etc), but the overall strategy of auto updating isn't a bad idea if they can convince people to adjust to it and use Server when they need stability.
Hi there MS employee - can you tell me if you're ever going to send anyone to CalConnect events again? We've been struggling to get contact with anyone we can talk to about making sure IMIP interoperates, even just the basics.
Of course there's still the licensing situation of FAT32, ActiveSync, etc - it's hard to interoperate when the other party will only speak restricted protocols.
Or everyone very much remembers the Halloween documents and it doesn't add anything to the conversation to, without an attempt to say anything substantive about the documents or the current event, remind all of us about something that nobody has ever forgotten. You see four or five of these posts at least on any major Microsoft thread on HN, and they add nothing to the discussion.
Do you really think they have changed? They got this "We are good guys now" talk going on recently and I'm not against it, but I have lost all trust in them, they have to gain it back and can only prove themselves with actions now.
On a side note, I'm also displeased with microsoft's products I'm almost forced to use. Can you imagine that uninstallation of Visual Studio 2015 from SSD takes 20 minutes? And it doesn't even fully uninstall it. Windows updates are no better. Really makes you wonder if it's still 1998 at Microsoft.
I think it's foolish to believe someone, who lied to you before, only based on words. I agree, people come and go, but if you are "new blood" you can only do so much.
But I not against Microsoft in particular. They are rich and powerful. It would be good, if they are really good guys now. I give them a chance to prove themselves. But i don't expect much.
>what actual actions could they take that would cause you to change your mind about them?
Maybe start making good products? What more can they do? And going back to "new blood" point again, do you think noone in Visual Studio devteam noticed that uninstallation taking 20 minutes? I'm 100% sure that there is guy who did, but he just cannot do anything. He have no power to change things. "It's working now somehow, so don't even think about touching it." And everything is like that at Microsoft.
And that whole telemetry stuff in win10. Every single option (telemetry/internet search/ads etc) is turned off, yet i open up wireshark and still see it calling home every time i type something in start menu. It's like they don't respect me and think that i'm stupid. Why it has to be this way?
"We are different now, but we are still the same." And nothing has changed. Pretty sad.
I've worked at MSFT since 2011, on developer tools and Azure. (My opinions are my own, of course).
When I first joined Microsoft, it was prior to the launch of Win8, and I saw a lot of complacency throughout many parts of the company. I found it frustrating, because I came from an open-source background on the Java stack, and I wanted to see more innovation.
In just a few years, things have changed dramatically, and that is because the market has changed. As others have said on this thread, Windows is no longer the key to Microsoft's business success, it is the ecosystem of products that Microsoft sells.
That is why there have been all of these cultural changes, because the industry has shifted, and there are some really smart leaders at Microsoft (e.g. Scott Guthrie) who realize that we have to change to stay viable.
So, the terrible practices you once saw just don't even make sense anymore. Microsoft is being challenged in every market it operates in, which means that we're forced to innovate. This turns out to be better for everyone, including employees like me. (I came from an academic research background, and I'd never want to work somewhere that was happy with the status quo.)
And yes, the Visual Studio 2015 uninstall takes a really long time. Some installs also take forever. They've made a ton of improvements in the new preview VS 2017.
The reason this wasn't done previously was not that a few engineers couldn't change things (though sometimes that is true), but rather that it was a hard engineering problem. It's easy to think that a big company has infinite resources, but the reality is that you can't build a product with too big of a team (see: Mythical Man Month), so you have to choose what you focus on. If you were to ask most customers, they'd rather have new features than have a better installation experience. That is, until the install experience got in people's way.
I don't work on anything related to the Windows client, so I can't speak to the telemetry, but what you're describing does sound pretty annoying. It is all anonymized (I know this because I'm familiar with the privacy reviews that all code has to go through), but I can see the case for wanting to opt out completely.
Obviously, one post is not going to change your mind (and I'm not looking to do so), but I'd suggest you look at leadership and philosophy changes, not just individuals.
Their approach to tricking users into upgrading to Windows 10 by the use of repeated deceptive updates and dark patterns in ther GWX spyware convinces me that no, they haven't changed a bit.
In 1998 I'd been a professional developer for over five years. I remember the Halloween documents. I agree with you that it is important to understand history - but things change and I also think its healthy to eventually move on.
It's healthy to move on if given enough time wounds have healed. Moving on without a good reason is naive and asking to be made a fool of again. Corporations are not people, they are borderline sociopathic like people though and need to be brought to task and constantly hounded and harassed to prevent them becoming complacent in their social responsibility.
In Microsoft's case, many people believe they keep showing their true colours from time to time.
It's an important political gesture that Nadella goes in this direction. Since they also added a linux subsystem into the latest Windows release[4], I get the impression that he wants to leave the cloud to linux and try to position Windows as a user-facing client. This is a difficult decision to make, but it makes sense. Microsoft without Ballmer is seeing its position in the Corporate world as it is and I hope we will continue to see more openness as a result.
[1] http://www.slashgear.com/hp-pays-500000-for-linux-foundation...
[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12234735