
Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative - Dinux
https://opensource.org/node/901
======
Sir_Cmpwn
What signs of change are you expecting? Microsoft is a _huge_ organization and
change comes slowly to different products.

Here's the thing - if we see Microsoft making tangible changes to their
behavior, and we reward that with more derision and distrust, then we aren't
exactly incentivizing them - or anyone wathcing - to do more. I personally
applaud Microsoft on their dramatically increased involvement in open source
in the past couple of years and I encourage them to keep it up and explore
other ways they can improve. Yes, Windows still sucks, and is getting worse.
Keep putting their feet to the fire for it. But that doesn't mean we have to
demean the legitimately good work they're doing - let them enjoy the success
from that so they can apply it across the rest of the org!

~~~
bad_user
> _if we see Microsoft making tangible changes to their behavior, and we
> reward that with more derision and distrust, then we aren 't exactly
> incentivizing them - or anyone wathcing - to do more_

Well, if we are speaking of incentives, then here's one ...

Don't screw with open source or open standards or your legitimate competitors
by _unfair competition_ , because many people will _never_ forget it, so don't
be surprised if 10 years later you still have a negative image that lingers,
in spite of your huge marketing department that keeps paying shills.

This is much like in society really. If somebody screws me or my family, I'll
probably cut all ties with that person forever. Being marginalized is a
natural reaction. Why should companies have their cake and eat it too?

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Microsoft can't undo the past, and they aren't going away. Your choice boils
down to a single question: do you want the Microsoft of tomorrow to be
different from the Microsoft of yesterday? If so, then quit hating and start
celebrating the victories.

~~~
vetinari
Their past makes their starting position now more difficult. They have to make
up for their past deeds, after all.

Someone, who didn't do thing like Microsoft did, has it easier now. It sounds
only fair to me.

~~~
Delmania
They have nothing to atone for, and they don't owe you anything. Either you
appreciate the steps they're taking, or you keep on living in the past.

~~~
vetinari
Yes, they do. They used every dirty trick in the book, and invented a few new
ones. They damaged the computing environment we all have to live in.

I have no problem pointing out, that this is the company that to this day
possesses (and still abuses) advantages gained by playing dirty. If they want
to have an image of a good guy, they have work hard on it. Harder, than any
random company that appears out of the blue.

The standard they are judged by is and will be definitely affected by their
past.

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tyfon
This is all fine and good. I hope their efforts are sincere. All money and
support to free software is most likely good.

However, I've been part of the open source community for 25 years, and I
remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of open source.

It will take a lot to convince me that there is not some underlying goal here
that is not beneficial to free software.

How much has Microsoft really changed? I have windows on my gaming PC, and
every day i have to ALT+F4 a stupid message to "review my privacy settings".
There is no option for full privacy so i keep ALT+F4'ing the message and block
all the telemetry stuff in my openbsd firewall.

I have a powershell script called deleteapps that removes all the apps that is
reinstalled everytime there is an update. It also appears to be impossible to
uninstall the xbox app. Onedrive keeps turning on even if I choose that I do
not want to sync during the installation, set the option in onedrive to not
start at launch.

Why fight the user to this level? Have they really turned "good"?

~~~
voltooid
I just spent a few minutes this morning trying to figure out how to turn off
Cortana on my windows 10 virtual machine. I don't want to have to spend 45
minutes of my morning trying to figure out the ins and outs of elevated power
shell to just turn one freaking app off on an operating system that I bought
and therefore should have control over. In my view, this is very obviously
tailored to deter most people from removing apps. I would say, this is not my
idea of "good".

~~~
cjsuk
Add to that the clearly missing quality control and it's just eye poke after
eye poke for me. I rebuilt my daughter's laptop a couple of weeks back after
her MS account got hosed due to an unresolvable billing problem that just
threw errors galore and MS support is like talking to Cortana now. It took me
3 hours to get it into a workable, secure and privacy respecting state with a
local account. And it's still unreliable with random stupid failures like the
start menu not responding to keyboard without a reboot, the wallpaper
disappearing etc.

And them I'm greeted with an advert for Cortana as a notification. And when I
installed it, at the start, the entire installer uses Cortana now and shouts
at you at full volume. And at every step it wants me to sign in to a Microsoft
account over and over again or half the OS decides it's not going to work.
What the fuck?

It's a mess. A total undeniable crapfest which just needs to walk itself off a
cliff.

I'm a recent switcher to macOS after dabbling for a decade on a second
machine. There just isn't this shit to deal with on the platform. It mostly
just works and is incredibly boring. Which is what I want from a tool. Yes I
sign in with an Apple Account but in the decade I've had one, I have had zero
problems. MS account ownership is hell from billing problems, xbox live sign
in problems, data loss, crazy authentication fragmentation, the lot.

~~~
czechdeveloper
Good thing is, that a the good stuff they do (C#, TypeScript, Visual Studio
Code) is not limited to Windows use.

~~~
cjsuk
You're right but this puts me off among other things:
[https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/3093](https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/3093)

(even though I've been writing C# for 15 years now)

~~~
czechdeveloper
I wonder for past few years about backup language/stack/job for me, because my
technical life has been MS only. And quite often discontinued tech
(Silverlight, WebForms).

I should get that going I guess. I just can't decide what to learn and it's
difficult to find time (nodejs? Go? Python?).

~~~
fdchn2016
Rust or Erlang/Elixir

~~~
cjsuk
I really like Erlang. Python seems to pay the bills though ;)

------
l0b0
The obvious advantage for Microsoft is that they can now influence OSI. Even
if they don't get voting rights immediately (which I would expect them to push
hard for) there will now be the everlasting threat of pulling the funding to
keep OSI in line. Organisations sponsored mostly by companies can't be
expected to be bold about upholding users' rights and keeping the moral high
ground, because most organisations are willing to compromise to keep
themselves alive. Now it remains to be seen if this is a dark day for FOSS or
just for OSI.

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hah-muh-rabbi
I do mind the perception that OSI is some pristine and error-less patron of
open source. They're not, they are a business and they will do anything to get
more donations.

OSI has been known to accept money from anyone. They took money from the
company that's known to abuse open source. It’s a kind of “indulgence”, where
you pay the church of open source to wash away your sins. OSI certainly
doesn't care about anything other than publicity.

------
MikeTaylor
From the press-release: "Microsoft's history with the OSI dates back to 2005
with the submission of the Microsoft Community License"

Well, that is not exactly true. For those who have forgotten the history, or
weren't around at the time, this leaked internal document from Microsoft was
the proximate cause of OSI taking off:
[http://catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html](http://catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html)

TLDR: Microsoft's loud opposition to, and deep fear of, open source software
provided a catalyst and a point of unification for those who supported it.

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kelvin0
If I had a crystal ball back in the 90's that would have predicted this, I
would simply had thrown it away thinking it was broken. Simply astounding. MS
went from the 'monopoly' everyone loved to hate to this. Bravo!

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vog
I would have preferred to see this money go to FSF instead of OSI, but of
course sponsoring any of these organizations is better than not sponsoring.

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kemonocode
So I hear it's been rather chilly in Hell as of lately, some report below-
freezing temperatures.

That being said, Embrace, Extend, Extinguish and all that. Besides, there's a
market for free software now they've become a cloud computing company too.
Fits perfectly into their long-term plans.

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nepotism2018
Don't large companies sponsor or become members of such initiatives or
organizations just so they can have a say on its future?

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cJ0th
Does anyone know what Microsoft's objectives are here?

