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Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

linuxfoundation.org

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Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#61
post #26
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why people downvote this post. It's like everyone completely forgot about Halloween documents[1]. We should be very careful with Microsoft. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents

Or everyone very much remembers the Halloween documents and it doesn't add anything to the conversation to, without an attempt to say anything substantive about the documents or the current event, remind all of us about something that nobody has ever forgotten. You see four or five of these posts at least on any major Microsoft thread on HN, and they add nothing to the discussion.

They add a reminder of history, for those of you who are quick to forget.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#62
This. All the Visual Studio stuff (shame, as their tools have long had a good reputation). .NET . Etc.

It's a trap.

Been around long enough to have formed that singular impression of such Microsoft initiatives and to have it confirmed, repeatedly.

They failed in mobile. They are losing mindshare elsewhere.

It's a trap.

I'm not going to try to back up my statement, here and now. Just keep it in mind. The more wary you remain, the quicker you can move away when the noose tightens.

Cheers

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was 1998. Eighteen years ago.

Many of us were practicing professionals then and it's far from healed. People need to understand history.

In 1998 I'd been a professional developer for over five years. I remember the Halloween documents. I agree with you that it is important to understand history - but things change and I also think its healthy to eventually move on.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#65

Everytime I see a big corporation donate money to a software project, I like to imagine what the software project would do with 10 or 1000 times that amount. What would a Billion Dollar funded Linux Foundation do?

As the Mythical Man-Mnth says, you can't build software faster by adding more programmers. So not much, unless the work they have to do is highly parallelizable (i.e. can be broken up), and would truly benefit from more developers. I can imagine KDE benefiting from this, because KDE is an umbrella organization with hundreds (if not thousands) of projects underneath it.

? Thats a pretty negative/limited view. Tons of open source projects could benefit from additional roles/resources aside from programmers: project management, graphic design, UI/UX, technical writing, QA engineering. Additionally, longer-term funding for the main contributors to a project might allow them to elevate a project's status beyond a nights-and-weekends hobby, with likely improvements for code quality/overall quality.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#66
post #57

The company has become an enthusiastic supporter of Linux Curious to know from any users out there: How well does Mono work, especially on Linux?

Works fine for me in the server-side backend apps I've done. Telecom processing, routing/call records. Handled billions of messages a week. Code/debug/etc. on Windows, copy exes to Linux and run it. There's a few discrepancies here and there but overall it was fairly easy.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#67
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was 1998. Eighteen years ago.

Do you really think they have changed? They got this "We are good guys now" talk going on recently and I'm not against it, but I have lost all trust in them, they have to gain it back and can only prove themselves with actions now. On a side note, I'm also displeased with microsoft's products I'm almost forced to use. Can you imagine that uninstallation of Visual Studio 2015 from SSD takes 20 minutes? And it doesn't…

Yes, I do think they changed. People come and go and corporate culture changes with them.

> I have lost all trust in them, they have to gain it back and can only prove themselves with actions now

Question: what actual actions could they take that would cause you to change your mind about them?

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#69
post #20

Apparently, being a platinum member entails donating $500k [1], so it's not that big a deal for Microsoft ($85B revenue[2]). And as the article states, there has been negativity in the linux community regarding the old arch-enemy joining their ranks. Looking at the new Microsoft however, I think it's fair to assume that the days of "embrace, extend and extinguish"[3] are over and they are genuinely interested in coop…

> and they are genuinely interested in cooperation.

In my opinion, they are not at all interested in cooperation until they port Office and Visual Studio to Linux or open source them.

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