Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 195 posts

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#101

Post by daveguy »

rmc wrote: post #36
aries1980 wrote: post #8

AFAIK Angular is part of Google. But a quite decent improvement from the era when the company bribed government officials to purchase bulk licences for pupils and govn't, distorting the job market. This is a less harmful Microsoft than it was 5-10-20 years ago.

> a quite decent improvement from the era when Or the era of "Linux is a cancer" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_c...

Well, to be fair, he was trying to refer to the fact that GPL is viral (turning other licenses into its own). That is a valid critique of GPL (it reduces developer freedom) and that is why it has been in steady decline compared to more liberal licenses (as a percent of FOSS licenses).

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#102

Post by WayneBro »

bad_user wrote: post #28
jdmoreira wrote: post #5

When I was a script kiddie back in the mid nineties Microsoft was this evil corporate empire that all the linux kids hated. Now I'm in my mid 30s and I respect them a lot and would definitely work for them. I guess we both have changed.

I'm not sure what changed about them. Do you think that dumping some code on GitHub is enough? I disagree. "Linux kids" hated Microsoft because of their dirty tactics, exemplified for example in the "Halloween documents" [1], which shows among other things how they sponsored the SCO lawsuits against Linux. "Linux kids" also hated Microsoft for how they always tried to subvert open standards, like for example the Open…

Meh. Linux would never have replaced Windows on desktop computers back then or ever. Anyway, the great majority of people never cared about Microsoft's behavior towards computer makers, Linux or Open Office. That's just politics.

If I boycotted every company who played hard-ball politics, I would be living alone and naked in the woods. Your priorities are out of whack if you're railing against Microsoft but still living on the grid.

Scott Hanselman's article is a whole 20 paragraphs long, it wasn't ever supposed to be a comprehensive coverage of every action Microsoft has ever taken.

Like most people, all I ever cared about was high quality software and Microsoft has it in spades...which is why almost every business desktop system on the planet is running Windows.

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#103

Post by sillysaurus3 »

daveguy wrote: post #101
rmc wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a quite decent improvement from the era when Or the era of "Linux is a cancer" http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_c...

Well, to be fair, he was trying to refer to the fact that GPL is viral (turning other licenses into its own). That is a valid critique of GPL (it reduces developer freedom) and that is why it has been in steady decline compared to more liberal licenses (as a percent of FOSS licenses).

The GPL reduces developer freedom

Does it?

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#104

Post by partiallypro »

executesorder66 wrote: post #12

It seems to me like they are only open sourcing the products they wish more people are using, and not their actually useful products like MSOffice and the Windows OS. Edit: to be clear, I know it is in their best interest not to open source those products, because that's where most of their money comes from. But it really looks to me like the want to flood the market with random open source stuff, so that they seem m…

> But in reality they are not actually contributing anything very useful to the community

Uhm... .NET? Anyone?

Google doesn't open source their search engine, most larger corporations don't open source some key products that they make money from. They are in the business of making money, afterall.

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#105

Post by daveguy »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #103
daveguy wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to be fair, he was trying to refer to the fact that GPL is viral (turning other licenses into its own). That is a valid critique of GPL (it reduces developer freedom) and that is why it has been in steady decline compared to more liberal licenses (as a percent of FOSS licenses).

The GPL reduces developer freedom Does it?

Yes, it restricts you from integrating with proprietary software (and some others). Here is a breakdown of license compatibility:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/License_compatibility

Note that more permissive licenses (MIT/BSD) allow more freedom for the developer.

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#106

Post by mikegerwitz »

douche wrote: post #92
mikegerwitz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking an incredibly harsh (and coming across as almost vengeful) position on the GPL advocating a position that misses the point of the GPL. Software that chooses a copyleft license like the GPL cares for freedom more than broad adoption of their software. I would never want you to help you create non-free software---that's antithetical to everything I stand for. Many feel that way. You say "trace back and m…

I'm really not trying to shit on the GPL and free software, or pooh-pooh any philosophy. You just can't touch anything that's GPL if you build closed-source commercial software. That's kind of my job, and I have to be pragmatic and practical about it. I'm glad Microsoft is cognizant of the fact that they have legions of partners, vendors, and independent developers that have built their businesses on top of Microsoft…

Microsoft has chosen a proper license for their audience, yes.

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#107

Post by FT_intern »

edpichler wrote: post #83

This is very good, with this I learned that it's never too late to a company change. A very slow and large company like MS took decades to make this change, but they did well. And, they do that not because they are "good guys", but because this is the strategy to make them grow on their business. They are thinking on themselves.

It's because they're bleeding engineers like crazy. Anyone with offers from Google, FB and MSFT would choose Google or FB 99/100 times

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#108

Post by bad_user »

WayneBro wrote: post #102
bad_user wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what changed about them. Do you think that dumping some code on GitHub is enough? I disagree. "Linux kids" hated Microsoft because of their dirty tactics, exemplified for example in the "Halloween documents" [1], which shows among other things how they sponsored the SCO lawsuits against Linux. "Linux kids" also hated Microsoft for how they always tried to subvert open standards, like for example the Open…

Meh. Linux would never have replaced Windows on desktop computers back then or ever. Anyway, the great majority of people never cared about Microsoft's behavior towards computer makers, Linux or Open Office. That's just politics. If I boycotted every company who played hard-ball politics, I would be living alone and naked in the woods. Your priorities are out of whack if you're railing against Microsoft but still liv…

Anti-trust laws and governments exist for a reason: such that "the majority of people" don't have to concern themselves with matters that affect them but for which they've got no competency.

You've just made an appeal to popularity, an obvious fallacy.

Microsoft killed BeOS and almost killed Apple through anti-competitive behavior. Whether Windows was superior, that's irrelevant to our discussion, because they engaged in anti-competitive behavior, which hurts the market and consequently the people. And this is a fact, because Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and they got lucky with the Bush administration.

> If I boycotted every company who played hard-ball politics, I would be living alone and naked in the woods.

That's odd, given that consumers exercising choice is how capitalism is supposed to work. If you boycotted every company who played dirty, that's called "voting with your wallet" and it works surprisingly well ;-)

> Scott Hanselman's article is a whole 20 paragraphs long, it wasn't ever supposed to be a comprehensive coverage of every action Microsoft has ever taken.

My point is that Scott Hanselman's article is pure PR bullshit because he never addressed any important problems.

Re: Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub

#109

Post by lake99 »

amelius wrote: post #93
edpichler wrote: post #83

This is very good, with this I learned that it's never too late to a company change. A very slow and large company like MS took decades to make this change, but they did well. And, they do that not because they are "good guys", but because this is the strategy to make them grow on their business. They are thinking on themselves.

Um, Microsoft has also been a steady producer of academic research papers. Just as an example: http://jeffhuang.com/best_paper_awards.html (Scroll to the bottom, and see that MS is #1, ahead of e.g. MIT, which is #3 on the list, and far ahead of Google which is #17 on the list)

Not to mention, they employ many stalwarts of CS, like Simon Peyton Jones and Leslie Lamport.
Post reply on HN