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Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

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Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#121

Post by Analemma_ »

nitrogen wrote: post #117
bomdo wrote: 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…

Half the HN frontpage right now is MS articles. Seems oddly coincidental. We can't forget about the bad MS is still doing: forced Win10 upgrades, Win10 spyware, Android patent extortion, FAT/VFAT/exFAT patent suits and licenses, etc. The developer arm seems to be working hard, which is commendable. But looking at the rest of the org, this just seems like another Embrace round of the EEE cycle.

It's not "oddly coincidental", it's Microsoft's developer conference today, which is where the announcement was made. During WWDC and I/O the front page is filled with Apple and Google news too.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#122

Post by xenihn »

cwyers wrote: post #26
ss248 wrote: 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.

I'd never heard of these documents before.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#124

Post by brongondwana »

oedenfield wrote: post #22
vvdcect wrote: post #6

Embrace(check), extend(check), and extinguish(?)

MS employee here - the new Microsoft is: Enable (make sure open source runs well on MS platforms) Integrate (make sure MS platforms work well with open source) Release (release key MS technology into open source) Participate (commit MS engineers to participate in communities)

Hi there MS employee - can you tell me if you're ever going to send anyone to CalConnect events again? We've been struggling to get contact with anyone we can talk to about making sure IMIP interoperates, even just the basics.

Of course there's still the licensing situation of FAT32, ActiveSync, etc - it's hard to interoperate when the other party will only speak restricted protocols.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#125

Post by astrodust »

executesorder66 wrote: post #69
bomdo wrote: 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.

You can cooperate without having to give up all your proprietary tools.

How do you think the internet was made? By setting aside proprietary protocols and agreeing on open standards. Each vendor's free to do whatever they want so long as they use those standards.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#126

Post by bisby »

cyphar wrote: post #92
paulddraper wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) That's hair splitting of common usage. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux "Linux was originally developed as a free operating system for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture" "Linux has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems." "Linux is not the only such operating system" "Linux is also the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems" I'm…

> (1) That's hair splitting of common usage. The operating system's technical name is GNU/Linux[1]. Many people call it Linux incorrectly, but it is actually a serious distinction[2]. I would agree however that Linux is the most widely used OS kernel. To make the distinction more obvious, can you explain what the difference is between "Linux" and Android (which uses the Linux kernel). [ Hint: the difference is that A…

Alpine doesn't use GNU by default. And it would fit into what I call "Linux".

The "operating system" is not "technically" "GNU/Linux" - that's just what Richard Stallman wants it to be.

Stallman wants the definition of "operating system" to be the fully usable system. In which case Linux won't work. You need GNU coreutils. But you need a lot of other things too, why are the other things omitted from the naming?

Windows on the other hand is clearly an "operating system." Does this mean that the OS is "Ubuntu" or "Alpine"? Or are they just distributions still? In this case GNU/Linux is still not the OS.

Dennis Ritchie once referred to the kernel as "the operating system proper", albeit when describing various parts of unix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVQTPbD6UY#t=1m28s). I think Ritchie's opinion is much more valid than Stallman's. [edit: this doesn't prove that the operating system is just the kernel, but that it's not far fetched to refer to the kernel as an operating system, or in that case to refer to an operating system by the kernel]

The short of it is that when people say that Linux is an operating system, perhaps they mean "a family of operating systems based on the same kernel" but that's a mouthful. And since most people would include things like Alpine in there when they say "linux", they clearly arent just referring to GNU/Linux. Thats one of those things where "Windows 10" is a different version of "Windows" than "Windows 8" because the bundled user space is different... but theyre both "Windows". If something requires Windows 10, I can say "requires windows 10". If it just generically works on windows 3.11 until present, I can say "works on windwos". "Alpine" is a version of "Linux", and so is "Ubuntu". Ubuntu just also happens to fall under "GNU/Linux". If something requires GNU, i can say "requires Linux with GNU" and otherwise "requires Linux" is absolutely correct. If something requires a specific distro, then you can specify that, otherwise you go for the lowest common denominator. (a lot of things that "require linux" will work on unix/BSD too, but no one throws a fit over that).

Also, the most important factor is that communication is about conveying thoughts effectively. If you understood "Linux" well enough to try to correct it, then you understood and thoughts are conveyed. That also means insisting on GNU/Linux for colloquial use is just pedantic.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#127

Post by astrodust »

executesorder66 wrote: post #85
Zyst wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Microsoft knows if they open source or port MS Office to Linux, they will lose a massive market share and millions of people will stop using Windows. That's a huge assumption. There's no real indication that people would stop using Windows if Office existed in Linux. If that were the case, then porting Office to OS X would've had a similar effect, don't you think? Ultimately I believe the reason Microsoft doesn't bo…

> That's a huge assumption. There's no real indication that people would stop using Windows if Office existed in Linux. Except for basically every thread I've seen about switching to Linux, where people say the only reason they won't switch is because they still want to use Office and Photoshop. >If that were the case, then porting Office to OS X would've had a similar effect, don't you think? No. Cost is a major rea…

> Cost is a major reason people don't switch to OS X.

Cost is a lot more than the physical machine.

This is why Linux machines while technically less expensive (no OS license) are actually more expensive in terms of support. Until that nut can be cracked it's hard to get wide-scale adoption (e.g. 50% deskops vs. 5%).

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#129

Post by SEJeff »

cyphar wrote: post #98
SEJeff wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the same could be said for the Linux foundation. They're not really pro GPLv3 either. Linux is GPLv2 and will stay that way. Open Source != Free Software

And note that many of the new Linux Foundation projects (kubernetes, runc, etc) are under Apache licenses.

Precisely! The Linux Foundation is fundamentally convinced open source creates the best software in the long run and doesn't much care about philosophy or "freedom".

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#130

Post by mynameisvlad »

ss248 wrote: post #59
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #39

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…

> Can you imagine that uninstallation of Visual Studio 2015 from SSD takes 20 minutes?

Go visit the VS2017 thread. You'll see that install/uninstall is much faster now.

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