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

Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

linuxfoundation.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–195 of 195 posts

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#191

Post by ionised »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #63
spacemanmatt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's healthy to move on if given enough time wounds have healed. Moving on without a good reason is naive and asking to be made a fool of again. Corporations are not people, they are borderline sociopathic like people though and need to be brought to task and constantly hounded and harassed to prevent them becoming complacent in their social responsibility.

In Microsoft's case, many people believe they keep showing their true colours from time to time.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#192

Post by paulddraper »

hueving wrote: post #116
tw04 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's completely irrelevant. But "extorting" is more than a BIT of a stretch. They've got valid patents that Android handset makers need. Just like they need licensing to even put a cellular modem in the phone in the first place. If you honestly think Samsung would willingly hand over $10-15 per handset over bunk patents, I've got some oceanfront property in Arizona you might be interested in.

Lots of companies have "valid patents" that are bullshit and not particularly innovative but they don't use them to attack other companies when they can't compete. See Google for example, they only use patents defensively.

Oh, maybe but I don't see what any of that has to do with the topic at hand.

These patents aren't being used passively. They are being used for royalties. And Samsung wouldn't pay the royalty unless there was a strong legal case.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#193

Post by hueving »

paulddraper wrote: post #192
hueving wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of companies have "valid patents" that are bullshit and not particularly innovative but they don't use them to attack other companies when they can't compete. See Google for example, they only use patents defensively.

Oh, maybe but I don't see what any of that has to do with the topic at hand. These patents aren't being used passively. They are being used for royalties. And Samsung wouldn't pay the royalty unless there was a strong legal case.

Exactly, they are being used offensively to rent seek. Not defensively (only used to sue companies that sue you).

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#194

Post by sullyj3 »

canada_dry wrote: post #171
nitrogen wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> We can't forget about the bad MS is still doing This. It doesn't take much skepticism to suspect MS has the ultimate agenda of eliminating all things Linux (as it exists today).

You're right, it doesn't take much skepticism, because that sort of conspiracy theorising is basically the opposite of skepticism, it's uncritical thinking.

Re: Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member

#195

Post by richardwhiuk »

bonzini wrote: post #146
richardwhiuk wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is a class of operating systems which use the Linux kernel. Referring to Linux as an OS, is a perfectly fine thing to generically mean 'an OS which uses Linux as a kernel' and has an agreed common meaning. Almost no Operating System is precisely GNU/Linux - most have vim, an X server, GNOME or KDE, 7zip etc. And the argument that GNU is a more principal argument is incorrect.

Uhm, you're saying GNOME, the GNU Network Object Model Environment, isn't GNU?

GNOME is developed by the GNOME project, which as far as I can tell isn't actually part of the FSF.

I don't considered everything licensed under the GNU license, or formerly associated with the GNU project / FSF to be 'GNU'.

Post reply on HN