

Meet Bill Gates, the Man Who Changed Open Source Software - ageektrapped
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/01/meet-bill-gates/

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bad_user
So as evidence that Microsoft changed Open Source Software, the example of
Azure was given, having built-in support for some open-source platforms.

However, this is a reaction that didn't change anything: Windows Azure came
after Amazon's AWS. The business of hosting your own software was already
shifting to the cloud in a big way. Azure isn't even that successful anyway,
being used more for keeping Microsoft's customers from switching from their
own Windows servers to the more convenient EC2 (and it's children, like
Heroku), which is cheaper and better if you're running Linux.

Microsoft also hasn't stopped attacking Open Source. They're just taking the
indirect approach of threatening companies that rely on open-source, making
them pay royalties, with the ultimate purpose being to make open-source
software more expensive then their own alternatives. They also can't attack
open-source directly, as other big companies rely on it (e.g. IBM).

Also, taking a good look at their strategy regarding Open Source, you can
clearly see that it's all for marketing and defensive purposes (i.e. doing the
minimal amount of work required for them to be considered open-source
friendly, but without actually being so). For instance, they open-sourced
ASP.NET MVC, but not Razor.

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freehunter
Baby steps, my friend. Microsoft is a big company, and getting everyone and
every project to buy in is a complex and political process. They're not going
to switch to open source overnight. The very fact that they're working and
contributing even a little is a good step.

It's too early to tell where this will go, but I'm willing to hear them out
with cautious optimism.

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larrik
What a load of crap.

He changed open source software because of one meeting in 2008?

Maybe he changed Microsoft, but I don't buy the idea he is "the man who
changed open source software." Nothing in the article convinces me otherwise.

Overblown, linkbait title (and it IS the original Wired title, not the fault
of the submitter).

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bwarp
It's Wired - what do you expect? Nothing quality has come out of them for at
least a decade.

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moondowner
What a misleading title indeed. Bill Gates: the man who said that Open Source
software is "A New Communism"[1].

MS now embraces Open Source because they can't fight it (and hopefully they've
seen the benefits of it?).

[1] <http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/spip.php?article319>

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ryanbrunner
The article seems to be more about how Open Source changed Microsoft than how
Microsoft changed open source.

I do think Microsoft is doing many things that should be viewed as admirable
around open source - they've opened up portions of the .NET framework such as
ASP.NET MVC, they (as this article states) contribute back to open source
projects, they support projects like Mono, and they started initiatives like
the Outercurve Foundation. Most of the negative opinion about Microsoft and
Open Source is really outdated. But I'd hesitate to say that Microsoft has had
a signficant enough impact to say they've "changed" open source in any
substantial way.

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DrHankPym
What kinds of negative opinions about Microsoft and Open Source are really
outdated?

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fsniper
This headline is misleading. Article is about, "How Bill Gates changed
Microsoft's perspective about opensource software.".

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xcthulhu
Isn't Microsoft's schizophrenic relationship with FOSS old news? The same
company that claims "Linux is a cancer" also employs K.Y. Srinivasan, a topic
linux kernel contributor [1], and Simon Peyton Jones of Haskell fame.

Microsoft's competitors Apple and Google have dealt with OSS much more
gracefully. While I don't approve of this approach, these companies 'embraced'
open source with projects like Darwin and Android OS, and then twisted the
efforts in proprietary directions. I don't know if this strategy was ever
really available to Microsoft, however.

[1] <http://lwn.net/Articles/451243/>

~~~
pjmlp
Yes they are quite schizophrenic and it is funny that you mention Simon Peyton
Jones.

There are actually many open source technologies, whose development is done by
Microsoft Research employees or mainly funded by Microsoft, Haskell and Ocaml
being two of them.

But working for big corporations was taught me that they are quite
schizophrenic usually.

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boubountu
I don't like the fact that people either love Microsoft or don't. The same
applies to Google and Apple. As developers, we should always objectively
question all big companies and give them credit when they deserve it. I, for
instance, hate Microsoft for not living up to its potentials. I don't hate
because it sells its software, but because, it creates a vendor-lock set of
software, preventing integration of third party tools and making their clients
completely dependent on them.

