Microsoft is now the leading company for open source contributions on GitHub • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by daveguy » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 2:21 PM UTC

JustUhThought wrote: post #186

daveguy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The GPL doesn't restrict integration with proprietary code. It requires any code you choose to integrate it with to be similarly licensed. That is the same choice you have every time you create code.

So, it doesn't restrict, it just requires you to choose GPL? That is a double plus good interpretation of the facts.

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

#192

Post by aries1980 » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 4:28 PM UTC

wmccullough wrote: post #68

golfer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Scroogled" era wasn't that long ago either. Unbelievably embarrassing. Nor the stealing of Google's search results. I'm not ready to bless Microsoft yet.

How long do they have to pay for their past mistakes before they've done enough to placate people?

Have they ever paid for their past mistakes?

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

#193

Post by aries1980 » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 4:34 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #180

tracker1 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, the only areas that have been specifically mentioned have been surrounding filesystem access and structure, which MS has done a lot with, most of it outside patent protection now though. Not sure what else, as most articles can't/won't say as part of the non-disclosed parts of these contracts.

One of their most potent patent that they're using a lot is the FAT patent. Basically there are filesystems out there that are superior to FAT and not encumbered by patents, but device makers are forced to use FAT because of interoperability reasons. This goes to show that the innovation argument is bullshit.

Isn't FAT that was ripped off from CP/M?

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

#194

Post by aries1980 » Sun, Sep 18, 2016, 5:07 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #30

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.

>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 IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think? >This is a less harmful Microsoft than it was 5-10-20 years ago. The key to that is Microsoft being far less powerful than it was 5-10 years ago. Where MS can throw it's weight around, it still does. The af…

>>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 > IIRC they're still doing that. In India I think?

I wasn't aware of this. At least the IT textbooks in my home country write about “text processor” and “spreadsheet tool” and not explicitly MS Word or Excel. The programming classes don't require MS Visual Studio project files to be submitted either.

In 2008 Hungary paid $162M for the “Clean Software Programme” for 3 years. In 2011 it became $54M for an other 3 years, in 2014 it was reduced to $2.8M. I don't hear stories any more about their legal bullying team called BSA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_(The_Software_Alliance) which with members of the local police they appeared time to time at business offices asking the for proof of purchase. Even they had no search warrant, they used a psychological terror with the presence of the police to threaten the businesses.

This is one of their ads from the past http://img.index.hu/cikkepek/0101/tech/bsaplakat2.jpg It says: “Don't use illegal software! _Users_ of illegal software can sentenced to 2-5 years. _Have you been inspected today?_

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

#195

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #180

tracker1 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, the only areas that have been specifically mentioned have been surrounding filesystem access and structure, which MS has done a lot with, most of it outside patent protection now though. Not sure what else, as most articles can't/won't say as part of the non-disclosed parts of these contracts.

One of their most potent patent that they're using a lot is the FAT patent. Basically there are filesystems out there that are superior to FAT and not encumbered by patents, but device makers are forced to use FAT because of interoperability reasons. This goes to show that the innovation argument is bullshit.

FAT is out of patent protection, I believe FAT32 is now too... exFAT is newer, but imho undeserving of an extension patent. Not sure where NTFS is, but with larger external storage, that's my preferred format these days, even using the devices with mac/linux. The BS with the commercialization of ntfs drivers on osx is kind of weird as well... I usually use the macfuse/free/oss driver.