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Microsoft Open Source

opensource.microsoft.com

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11–20 of 36 posts

Re: Microsoft Open Source

#11

Post by mehrdadn »

nix23 wrote: post #9
mehrdadn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the prettiest word, but just saying he called it cancer leaves out important context. He wasn't trying to bash Linux itself so much as (his interpretation of) its GPL license. If its license had been different (say, MIT or BSD) I don't think he would've described it like that. https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_ca...

True, but on the other hand, did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time? I think it was especially against the GPL, but against a complete different Business model too.

No, but I didn't claim they would've actively embraced MIT/BSD either.

Re: Microsoft Open Source

#12

Post by mhh__ »

gregmorton wrote: post #7

Think you're old? I'm in my 50s and the only thing that will make me trust microshit is senility.

Trust but verify, as the saying goes.

I'm not that worried in the long-ish term about microsoft, but I worry that the new generation (my generation) have grown up post GPL in that there is an open source tool for everything now but generally under a corporate-friendly license - I worry the pendulum will swing back the other way.

Re: Microsoft Open Source

#13

Post by Hokusai »

kanobo wrote: post #3

I don't know about you youngsters, but I'm in my thirties and it's amazing to watch Microsoft evolve since the 90s. As a teenager I would never have imagined the words 'Open Source' would ever be in a tag on a Microsoft-branded website.

I agree (not a youngster). I guess that Microsoft has also changed business model. Nowadays they are way more into hardware, cloud and services than just selling software.

Still a nice move. Other similar companies (Oracle, Amazon) are less kind with Open Source. So, kudos to the new Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft Open Source

#15

Post by sgift »

nix23 wrote: post #9
mehrdadn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the prettiest word, but just saying he called it cancer leaves out important context. He wasn't trying to bash Linux itself so much as (his interpretation of) its GPL license. If its license had been different (say, MIT or BSD) I don't think he would've described it like that. https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_ca...

True, but on the other hand, did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time? I think it was especially against the GPL, but against a complete different Business model too.

Afair the first IP stack of either Windows 95 oder Windows 98 was the one from FreeBSD(?). They rewrote it later, but there was an acknowledgement in the docs for a while. So, they at least used it when needed.

(My memory may be fuzzy, it's been a long time after all ..)

Re: Microsoft Open Source

#16

Post by nineteen999 »

nix23 wrote: post #9
mehrdadn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the prettiest word, but just saying he called it cancer leaves out important context. He wasn't trying to bash Linux itself so much as (his interpretation of) its GPL license. If its license had been different (say, MIT or BSD) I don't think he would've described it like that. https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_ca...

True, but on the other hand, did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time? I think it was especially against the GPL, but against a complete different Business model too.

> Did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time?

Many of the TCP/IP utilities (telnet, nslookup etc) in earlier versions of Windows were based on BSD code.

Re: Microsoft Open Source

#17

Post by johannes1234321 »

sgift wrote: post #15
nix23 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but on the other hand, did Microsoft any MIT/BSD Software at that time? I think it was especially against the GPL, but against a complete different Business model too.

Afair the first IP stack of either Windows 95 oder Windows 98 was the one from FreeBSD(?). They rewrote it later, but there was an acknowledgement in the docs for a while. So, they at least used it when needed. (My memory may be fuzzy, it's been a long time after all ..)

Yes, the IP stack was derived from BSD as well as Internet Explorer was derived from NCSA Mosaic however they didn't publish those things under open licenses. (Which isn't required by BSD etc.)

Re: Microsoft Open Source

#18

Post by johannes1234321 »

Hokusai wrote: post #13
kanobo wrote: post #3

I don't know about you youngsters, but I'm in my thirties and it's amazing to watch Microsoft evolve since the 90s. As a teenager I would never have imagined the words 'Open Source' would ever be in a tag on a Microsoft-branded website.

I agree (not a youngster). I guess that Microsoft has also changed business model. Nowadays they are way more into hardware, cloud and services than just selling software. Still a nice move. Other similar companies (Oracle, Amazon) are less kind with Open Source. So, kudos to the new Microsoft.

Oracle certainly has a different approach, but they contribute to the Linux kernel (i.e. bttrfs originates from Oracle), Oracle also runs MySQL, OpenJDK, GraalVM, Fn Project, ... https://github.com/oracle/ has a few more projects.

Re: Microsoft Open Source

#19

Post by pydry »

kanobo wrote: post #3

I don't know about you youngsters, but I'm in my thirties and it's amazing to watch Microsoft evolve since the 90s. As a teenager I would never have imagined the words 'Open Source' would ever be in a tag on a Microsoft-branded website.

I'm in my thirties too and I'm not at all amazed by the way MS evolved. The three MS open source offerings I have tried where MS has something that resembles a non open source competitor - Azure MySQL, Azure Postgres and WSL are all horrendously slow (I'd go as far as to say deliberately crippled). It's a trap.

Every time they've released something big as open source or on Linux (e.g. .NET/vscode) it's been something where they're losing ground quickly and fighting off irrelevance.

Moreover it's just as irritating as ever to get Linux installed on laptops (the OEM stranglehold is still there).

I am amazed that Microsoft did a PR push on how they've turned 5 or so years around and people bought it. They acknowledged some new realities but they didn't fundamentally change tactics. They still (correctly) view open source as a threat to their profits and act accordingly.

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