
Azure IoT Loves Open Source - dluc
https://azure.microsoft.com/blog/azure-iot-loves-open-source
======
LyalinDotCom
This post was very short and specific but in regards to what Microsoft (Where
I work) contributes to open source, well there is a lot of traction in the
last few years with Satya at the helm, who has helped really enable a lot of
this.

So just in case anyone is curious here are a bunch of links to just how much
we're doing in the open now:

(1) Azure repo collection:
[https://github.com/Azure](https://github.com/Azure) (2) Microsoft general
repo collection: [https://github.com/microsoft](https://github.com/microsoft)
(3) .NET Core open source repo:
[https://github.com/microsoft/dotnet](https://github.com/microsoft/dotnet)

------
NicoJuicy
Here we go again.. Just like the post in Github (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12558053](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12558053)
) some people are so hatefull on companies because they had some bad press (
github vs gitlab ( github didn't do anything new for a long time and then
gitlab came in) and the past of Microsoft vs linux.

For all the haters here below, who "actually" blame one developer, who shares
his code ( because he posts a project) and he hasn't got another contribution
on his new account...

Let me remind you, Microsoft is the #1 contributer on Github now, topping
Google and Facebook together.
[https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/09/15/2255241/microsoft-h...](https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/09/15/2255241/microsoft-
has-more-open-source-contributors-on-github-than-facebook-and-google)

Please, now let's go back to IoT and ontopic. Too bad i don't know a lot of
IoT on Azure, but i have viewed some projects about IoT of Microsoft on
Hackster, their project page:
[https://www.hackster.io/microsoft/products/microsoft-
azure](https://www.hackster.io/microsoft/products/microsoft-azure)

Thanks dluc for sharing, i hope i have topic worthy stuff to contribute next
time ;) - one point of discussion would be to link to the project page instead
next time - [https://github.com/azure/toketi-
iothubreact](https://github.com/azure/toketi-iothubreact) or
[https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/developer-s-
introduct...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/developer-s-introduction-
to-azure-iot/), it would probably fuse some less discussion - we like code :p

~~~
joezydeco
I just finished a prototype IoT node project for a customer using Azure.

Azure was their choice, not mine, but by the end of the development I was
pretty pleased with the level of security they built into the data acquisition
side.

Before the Azure project I worked with some other IoT/Cloud providers and it
was a lot shakier. As in, am HTTP GET with the device serial ID in the URL and
that's it.

My customer showed me the dashboarding they've already built with BI on the
backend, it was even more advanced than the stuff I've seen from the others.
Azure is no cakewalk to set up, but it seems to work really well once it is.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Any insights, blog post about this?

------
bizzleDawg
Slightly tangental, however I've been waiting for months for an Azure IoT
thread to post this mini rant on...

My team and I spent a few weeks working with Azure IoT before instigating a
switch to an alternative.

The problem with Azure IoT as a platform is that they provide SDK
documentation (which is relatively good for languages they like), but not API
documentation for the AMQP interface which is their preferred method of
connecting devices. Their support for python clients and servers (in
particular servers) left me and my team spending circa 10 days digging through
AMQP logs and wireshark in ever more desperate attempts to integrate our
existing python server with Azure IoT. Eventually it became clear that our
only option was to wrap the C library for a really brittle integration and
that we could switch to a different platform with far less effort! Both Amazon
IoT and Watson IoT have been far smoother to integrate with since they provide
both SDK and API docs!

The tough thing about it is that on the surface it looks as though it's really
well documented and it's not until you hit your first big problem that you
start looking around for API docs to try and debug what exactly it is that's
wrong!

Currently really fond of Watson IoT for the decent python SDK's (we've only
got 2-3 patches in a fork!) and the really handy device management features
which can make rebooting etc much easier from the server side. The MQTT
implementation they've worked on is great too.

------
ddorian43
So they open sourced, a client ? who cares?

Good example: [https://github.com/BitFunnel](https://github.com/BitFunnel)
(full-text-seach from bing)

------
faragon
Is there any compromise about Microsoft not going to sue Open Source projects
anymore? (FAT patents, etc.)

------
ausjke
When I thought about MS could potentially buy Redhat and Canonical and such
and swallow the major open source companies with cash, I woke up sweating.

~~~
oridecon
If they bought RH or Canonical at least we would have one less vendor to add
to the fragmentation. At least in my eyes, the moment something like this
happens it would be like a black hole vanished with that entire "distro"
ecosystem.

~~~
meira
And then they will have killed Linux. Don't let they read this.

~~~
oridecon
What do you mean? I don't see how that can happen. Maybe a few "power moves"
here and there, and companies already poach OS devs anyway. There's also
licenses, CLAs.

Worst-case scenario people would just rewrite parts of the stack to move
around it. There's people salivating at this very moment just thinking about
rewritting core stuff in Go, Rust, or something else, and making a blog post
about it. Imagine if they had an actual motive to do it.

------
eveningcoffee
What they actually love here is to crab as much data as possible.

~~~
mc32
So kind of like almost every other large outfit out there?

Not sure there is a solution where that isn't the case, but it'd be nice to be
wrong.

~~~
eveningcoffee
Hard to say. Naturally this is growing cynicism in me that is talking.

I believe that in most cases data from smart device should not leave their
local network.

Making a product that leaks data, especially from people homes is dangerous
for the their users (I do not say owners, as who owns the data is an actual
owner in my opinion) and even more dangerous for the society as whole.

------
3327
Microsoft PR arm again on HN. We all known what Microsoft loves.

~~~
soared
You weren't kidding. OP's profile:

> Working on Microsoft Azure iot

and this post is his only contribution.

~~~
dluc
@soared, sorry if I gave that impression. I'm actually a software engineer,
enthusiast HN reader. I thought this was a good opportunity to join the
community and share some work :-)

~~~
soared
Not holding it against you, but generally you'll want to follow some sort of
80-20 or 90-10 rule. Share/contribute 90%, promote your [employer's] stuff
10%.

------
meira
Now M$ loves open source? What a joke. Most developers still don't like it and
the fresh ones almost don't need to pay much attention. Farewell, M$. Now it's
time to make Google and Facebook to "loves privacy", in regrets.

