Some pretend Microsoft has turned into this benevolent corporation lately with their "Microsoft <heart> Linux" and adopting Android and Chrome. Well all those were done because they'd lost market share in servers, mobile OS and desktop browsers despite being the dominant player and forcing their offerings the whole time.
Microsoft used to run smear campaigns (remember Scroogled?) when they hired Hillary Clinton's strategist. This last case shows they don't even care if it means everyone can be sued for not paying for a hyperlink. Say whatever you want about AMP or Google reader or whatnot but when was the last time Google spent their money on smear campaign and negative ads on a rival?
Microsoft's corporate tactics have remained the same.
I try not to complain when proper competition causes improved behavior.
I’m a fan of “the new MS”. Do I trust them? Not any more than a massive company.
But do I love all the open source software they’re producing now? Yes! Do I pretend that it’s because MS has seen the light and become penitent? No!
But at least this time when MS turns its back on their users, we can fork .net, edge, and vscode and go on with our lives. MS can’t unmerge their contributions to the Linux kernel or other open source projects they’re selfishly contributing to.
My interpretation of "Microsoft <3 Open Source" is that MS has realized that their power in the tech industry is not dependent on their source code being a secret, and that in fact making your stuff open source makes you more popular and influential.
In my opinion, MS didn't really cede much power to the community when open-sourcing .NET, for example. It would still be incredibly painful for a company to unhook itself from Microsoft's version of .NET, and .NET is still influential for all the same reasons is was before, because of MS's position in the software industry. I think the move was just MS moving the framework into the current paradigm of software development. All(?) popular frameworks are open source these days: React, Electron, ... It just doesn't fit with the times to have .NET be closed source.
It think is interesting to think though about Google directly providing the source code base for its competitors, Edge and the other Chromium clones. Maybe the lasting message of US v. Microsoft was that if you open-source your software, you're less likely to be perceived as controlling. Or maybe your software simply becomes more influential if it's open source! Chrome being open source allows Google to be enormously influential as far as web standards go. It would probably be a lot less so if Chrome was closed source.
> MS has realized that their power in the tech industry is not dependent on their source code being a secret, and that in fact making your stuff open source makes you more popular and influential.
It has been a huge boon for .NET as well. Serious contributions started pouring in almost immediately. Code from Mono being ported over; linux support. Fixes to really old issues that were not getting attention because .NET was essentially put "in a box".
C#, .NET and the CLR are pretty great tech that could have been a true Java alternative if not for the fact the vision for it was so narrowly scoped to Windows.
It's not had time to stabilise. Many of the multi-platform features are still developing and there's some stuff in there that can trip you up if you're just reading the documentation.
A big problem I ran into recently is that the documentation for some methods indicate they can throw a "PlatformNotSupported" exception but don't link to anything that lists which platforms/versions actually support the method.
Some new features like single file executables will break existing code in subtle ways, a common method of getting the application directory was to use Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location, when running as a single file executable that returns an empty string.
I still think it's a big improvement over the older .NET Framework stuff that I'm mostly using, but I can see why it isn't so appealing to the Java crowd.
Microsoft simply realized what current Open Source really is -> free labor. People will willingly work for free in their own free time using their own hardware on projects of other people or corporations. And they are proud to do that!
Anyone not taking advantage of that must have brain damage.
Original ideas of open source (free as in speech) are long forgotten.
> MS has realized that [...] making your stuff open source makes you more popular and influential.
You've got to be kidding. Microsoft isn't about to open source Windows, Office, or any of its crown jewels. They are only opening the source for bits that aren't profit centers and where widespread use would benefit them. And it is a trap... Think Oracle Java. As soon as they see an opening, they'll close it back up and fragment the user base between the open source and proprietary versions.
No. Oracle opensourced features that was only available on paid version of Oracle Java like Java Flight Recorder. OTOH Oracle stopped distributing their own Oracle Java distribution for free.
Red Hat is the known company that opensourcing acquired company's products.
Pretty much every large company will play nasty when it suits them and if they think they can get away with it. That’s why they call it “corporate warfare”, not “corporate hugs and kisses”.
I never found much sense in this line of reasoning. MS as a corporation is an abstract legal concept with a name. Every action taken under this "umbrella" is an executive's decision (or a group's), not the actual abstract corporation doing it.
It's fair to assume most of the leadership from '90s MS has moved on. So is your concern with the current leadership or the abstract concept of the corporation? Is it that "they did it once so they might do it again" the real worry? Do we assume the corporation has hysteresis and the executives of today will take similar actions to those of the past because of operating under the same "umbrella" named MS? If so how far back do you go with this record of bad or good deeds?
I see a lot of people sort of bragging with being old enough to remember evil '90s MS (so around 35+). How far back do you look at a company to judge them? I can think of a lot of companies who flip-flopped several times because the leadership changed and the market demanded it. So once they go bad do they stay forever bad?
Your worry should be MS's current leadership and their ability to execute in the future, not what Gates did 20 years ago. Similarly you don't judge today's Google by their actions of 20 years ago. Saying "I don't trust MS because Gates in the '90s" tells me you might be stuck on the actual name and that's the only aspect that will ever matter to you (a simple "if MS then Bad").
You've seen Google go from do no evil to whatever they are now. Apple from whatever they were to champions of user privacy. MS from whatever they were to embracing open source and such. None of it because corporations are sentient beings with intentions but because of leadership and market imposed necessity. If anything you (and I) are more rsponsible for what MS, Google, Apple, etc. do than those companies themselves. They do what we allow them and what we reward simply because their leadership acts in the interest of profits.
Some people are too young to remember. I recently worked with new grads in a startup, and for these 20-somethings Microsoft has always been somewhat cool, and Bill Gates has always been this benevolent old guy that cures diseases. They were very surprised where I shared the articles where they were saying literally LINUX IS CANCER.
With a mixture of time passing and billions of dollars, it looks like they've successfully "cleaned" their image :(
High-end, (long-term) consistent PR management works very well. (Remember how everyone used to hate George W. Bush with the passion of a thousand burning suns?)
It's not about PR, it's about some fundamental changes in their business goals. Azure allowed them to embrace Linux and open source in a way where they benefitted. Also they are no longer ran by that shithead Steve Ballmer. Microsoft isn't perfect but as far as massive corporations go they're no where near that bad.
I've learned from experience: There is no way on HN to successfully comment negatively on something like that. Good luck with whatever you are doing with the the Microsoft platform.
On a related note I'm 25 and am bitter about how older generations lived through Watergate / Iran-Contra / etc, and not only let everyone involved off the hook, but then let them all pull the strings behind the scenes throughout the 2000s and into the Trump era.
Including during the Obama era? That would be a ballsy statement. I might have misunderstood you though - I'm not a native English speaker. (And also, we are drifting off-topic.)
Don't confuse politicians with "everyone". To be honest, being an east coast transplant on the west coast, I was shocked that no one remembered Trump during the Clinton era, or when he was pulling real estate cons. Either way, this isn't the place for me to get into politics. I hope that isn't what this forum becomes.
P.S. Everyone is bitter about how the "older generation" handled things without the lens of modern values. I'm Gen X and we were angry all the time.
EDIT: phone changed east to easy. They are not equal.
I should clarify that I'm upset that they lived through it but still manage not to let that experience inform their votes today. Hindsight is 20/20, and now they have the benefit of hindsight!
Agreed! I used to work for a Microsoft owned game studio a while back, and during their Microsoft <3 Linux campaign, or shortly after, I noticed that xbox.com wouldn't work on Linux, unless I changed the user-agent to Chrome-windows or Chrome-Macos
Loves Linux but blocks Linux by user agent. Nice.
They changed it tho when we contacted them, so I guess there is some love, at least they were willing to change (when it impeded their own developers).
Microsoft loves Linux in a very specific context—on servers, and as a development environment, in the latter case preferably running as a container or virtual machine inside of... well, you know.
?! sso means no relogin between multiple applications/platforms which works since day 1 on mac and linux. what does not work is seamless sso over the os (logon+browser+logged into office 365), but even that works with a good configured kerberos, but it's wonky and not supported. (only hybrid tough)
I believe you misread the comment, gp isn't saying that Linux doesn't support SSO but rather MS's website doesn't offer that when accessing from Linux unlike when they are using Windows.
Similarly, if you want to directly download the Windows 10 ISO on a Windows machine you need to fake the user agent. In which case the site always claims that you're running an old version of Windows, even if you actually loaded the site on Linux.
Lobbying is like the prisoner's dilemma. If you don't do it but your rival does then you'll end up with these extortion laws that hands Murdoch free money as we saw in Australia
That's totally fair, and I understand that Google isn't unique in that respect. My point is that just because Google isn't doing flashy ad campaigns doesn't mean that they're not surreptitiously doing everything they can to continue to establish and cement their position as an unavoidable toll-taker on the internet.
They provide much more value than what they capture, and what they capture is pretty much necessary to serve those services (in the search space, not Android etc). The only way to make them capture less value is by tax, as we have seen. Other big tech companies are much more rent-seeking and can actually unlock swaths of value with proper regulation.
Because there is no real difference between lobbying and bribing. And I think a lot of us have a problem with companies bribing politicians to get laws passed; especially companies that have enough money to bribe <the number of politicians needed to pass the law regardless of what anyone thinks about it> of them.
I question your premise that lobbying = bribery, but let’s let it stand unchallenged because it’s irrelevant here.
If Google, Apple and Microsoft are all competing with each other and also doing business with each other in different markets, and they’re also all lobbying legislators, whose metaphorical bag of money is the winner and gets all of their hopes and dreams fulfilled when Congress starts meddling?
What, the Americans working at Apple and Google and Microsoft and own stock in them suddenly aren’t citizens? What about the Board of Directors at each of them?
Legislative bodies is where politics is supposed to happen, and legislators don’t live in a vacuum. We don’t elect them and send them up to the top of an ivory tower for two years to philosophize about policy with the occasional edict sent down. So how do legislators know what kinds of policies people actually want when there’s about 700K people in their districts (and 39M constituents if you’re a California Senator) unless people show up and say, “Hey, this is what I want from you, this is why I elected you.”
You get a mixed bag because legislatures are a mixed bag representing a larger mixed bag, and sorry, newspaper polls aren’t a good stand in for showing up and putting your name down for consideration. Your interests as a citizen are not identical to the other 699,999ish of your neighbors, and the guy or gal representing you is just one person of a larger body.
1. What does the politician think is best for the people he represents
2. What the people he represents think is best for themselves
3. What is actually best for the people he represents
Whereas it appears to be
1. What will get the politician re-elect (party line + avoiding even addressing any topics that will upset their base)
2. What will make the politician the most money (lobbying/bribes)
It doesn't seem like "what's best for the people the politician represents" even comes into the discussion a lot of the time.
^ Bear in mind, I know there are good politicians. However, just like in the rest of life, it's the bad ones that _tend_ to succeed, the ones that don't care who they hurt.
You’re getting into inventing better people territory, politicians and constituents both.
And your 3-point list scares the crap out of me because while it might look fairly reasonable to you, it looks to me like you’re looking at the government for a source of paternalistic love, something it can never provide.
Congress isn’t in the business of doing what’s “best”, they’re in the business of politics, which involves a lot of talking, a lot of positioning, a lot of negotiating, and a lot of communication with their constituents (whether you’re paying attention or not, a disturbing trend recently has seen Congressmen downsizing or not investing in their policy shops in favor of investing more in their constituent services).
The people they’re going to be negotiating with are the ones that show up, not the ones making wishes on a falling star on the other side of the country while scrolling their phone till death do they part.
> And your 3-point list scares the crap out of me because while it might look fairly reasonable to you, it looks to me like you’re looking at the government for a source of paternalistic love, something it can never provide.
I was more talking about things like deciding what the right tax rate is. The people might want low taxes, but if those taxes can't support all the things those people need (roads, etc), then low taxes are not what those people need.
> Congress isn’t in the business of doing what’s “best”, they’re in the business of politics
And I see that as a problem. The point of government is to make life better for everyone being governed. Making life better just for the large companies that can pay for it is not the way government should work.
> I was more talking about things like deciding what the right tax rate is. The people might want low taxes, but if those taxes can't support all the things those people need (roads, etc), then low taxes are not what those people need.
If that’s all legislatures did, that would be nice. Unfortunately people can always invent a need where they perceive one.
> And I see that as a problem. The point of government is to make life better for everyone being governed. Making life better just for the large companies that can pay for it is not the way government should work.
Problem or not, you don’t have the “should” in charge, you have the “is”, so now you can only try to shape its scope: expand or contract governmental powers within a jurisdiction. That’s what it means to be a self-governing society, you don’t have to participate in the process, but if you don’t, you are intentionally limiting your own political power. If more people participate, they are also reducing your political power.
It’s not just large companies that participate either. Small businesses and constituents of all stripes do. If your participation begins and ends at the ballot box, that’s only a step up from a bystander because someone else is choosing who and what goes on those ballots you fill out. Whether you choose to treat your ballots as the tail end of your civic engagement or the face of it, that’s a personal choice, and I won’t tell you any choice you make is illegitimate, it just is whatever you choose to do.
It sounds like you're saying that we cannot change the way things work and that it's not even worth discussing how we think it could be better. I would say that is patently false (the statement that we cannot change things) and downright horrifying (the statement that we should not even discuss how it could be better). We should always be looking for ways to make our government (and civil employees) perform their roles (both by limiting the bad actions and facilitating the good).
1. Recognize human nature.
2. Plan for human nature; both mitigate it and incorporate it where possible.
3. Expect people to eventually break whatever you come up with because they’re people.
4. Take part in that system; don’t expect others to think of you on your behalf.
Legislatures and governments are made up of people, and any system which doesn’t recognize this is doomed to failure. You go through life doing what is best for yourself, your family, your community, why should you expect any different from people with more (or less) power than you? Why should they care about you if you’re not even there asking them to care about the things you care about?
> Why should they care about you if you’re not even there asking them to care about the things you care about?
Because they were elected to their position specifically to do what's best for everyone they represent. That is, quite literally, their job.
And yes, I care more about me and my own than I do for others. But I do care for others. Plus, caring for my own means I need to care for others because society as a whole must survive and be better tomorrow than it is today if I want the best for my own in the future.
All that being said, we do create laws to make sure people act in the best interest of "people", not "person", and that includes limits on what lawmakers and those that interact with lawmakers can do. They are part of that mitigation you spoke of. We can change how humans behave, counter to their human nature, via those laws and their enforcement.
In what way do you see Alphabet getting raked over the coals? They obviously are a monopoly in both search and in the Android app market and should be broken up according to antitrust law. That isn't even being considered.
How is calling the CEO to come testify before Congress so members of the House and Senate can score talking points not taking a company over the coals? Or passing disturbing crony-handout legislation like the Australian Parliament did to the clear detriment of specific companies?
Or all the nonsense going on in the EU? Or the political discussions to do as you suggest, breakup Alphabet, by people with the power, though not the moral standing, to do so?
> Or passing disturbing crony-handout legislation like the Australian Parliament did to the clear detriment of specific companies?
Or all the nonsense going on in the EU? Or the political discussions to do as you suggest, breakup Alphabet, by people with the power, though not the moral standing, to do so?
Most people seem upset that they said / did mean things to competitors or bundled IE with Windows. Meanwhile the FAAG (facebook, amazon, apple, google) is being investigated for antitrust not in the distant past, but right now.
Does Duck Duck Go not still run smear campaigns against Google? Their sites in my opinion are exaggerated to the point of being close to misinformation. At least misleading to the lay person. Yet Duck Duck Go is beloved far more than Microsoft.
The bulk of Microsoft's income is not from hoarding user data and serving ads. Microsoft makes most of it's money by making good products that people pay for.
I've got my eye on them, but they aren't the same company under Satya.
Most big tech companies have been investing to diversify their income sources. Whether those investments have had a massive return to take over their original cash cow is a separate concern. Google has been investing in hardware and cloud, Apple in building online services, Amazon in pretty much everything.
What good products are they making? Haven't used any of their products in ages but I still get the impression that no one really enjoys their products (excluding excel maybe?)
Xbox, Azure, Office365 and Hotmail, C# are all good as far as I know. I've heard Bing search is good in some areas (supposedly it's actually made to be the best at searching for adult content…)
I'm surprised at some of their products that don't get enough criticism. Like Windows is still bad of course, you can't expect anything out of a PC with any 3rd party system software on it, but also Bing Maps is worse than Apple Maps, and nobody complains because nobody uses it.
That list mostly strengthens my impressions tbh. Aside from Xbox, can't say I know any person that is really excited by any of those products.
I am surprised that MS seems to fly under the anti-trust radar nowadays and I wonder how much tax payer money goes into MS pockets via government contracts.
Microsoft used to run smear campaigns (remember Scroogled?) when they hired Hillary Clinton's strategist. This last case shows they don't even care if it means everyone can be sued for not paying for a hyperlink. Say whatever you want about AMP or Google reader or whatnot but when was the last time Google spent their money on smear campaign and negative ads on a rival?
Microsoft's corporate tactics have remained the same.