You cannot trust Microsoft or any other big company with a similar track record.
Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
61–70 of 121 posts
Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#62The thing about open source is that you can just fork it. You don't need to trust them. If the question is actually "Can we trust Microsoft with an Open Source Community?" then it get's more interesting.
That's what I've always thought of Open Source... until I found out Open Source projects that are not in the spirit of Open Source. Signal is a big example of that. It's hostile to forks, didn't publish its source code for a year and doesn't have a good documentation.
Same thing for Nvidia, big browser projects like Chromium, and Android. Many Chromium forks died because they couldn't keep up with upstream, except for ungoogled-chromium.
Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#63Can we trust Facebook with Fediverse (2024)?
Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am. It's been on my radar for a long time and I have prototypes for one that are bitrotting on gitlab. There are three major design pieces of it. First, It has an executable that runs in your development container (environment/etc) which means you can load libraries/typelibs/girs/etc just like the app would without crashing the IDE (or Glade in the old days). Second, everything is an AST node so doing fun manipulat…
Tell us about your Audis!
In the profile details
Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#65The thing about open source is that you can just fork it. You don't need to trust them. If the question is actually "Can we trust Microsoft with an Open Source Community?" then it get's more interesting.
That's what I've always thought of Open Source... until I found out Open Source projects that are not in the spirit of Open Source. Signal is a big example of that. It's hostile to forks, didn't publish its source code for a year and doesn't have a good documentation. Same thing for Nvidia, big browser projects like Chromium, and Android. Many Chromium forks died because they couldn't keep up with upstream, except fo…
That is why Free(dom) software is better than "open source".
Free software is committed to sharing values.
Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> The thing about open source is that you can just fork it. You don't need to trust them. That's not always true, particularly for things where a company is the primary developer. You can prevent takeovers by using GPL license with no CLA.
No license, GPL or otherwise, can prevent the situation you describe. If the project is licensed under the GPL, and the company decides it's not turning sufficient profit while remaining open source, then they'll simply stop working on the project and the outcome is the same. Any open source project can only thrive if the community puts the effort in. Choosing GPL does not prevent or even lessen the risk that a compa…
But with GPL you are warranted the freedom to fork and even build your own company on top of that.
Look at MariaDB. It was forked from MySQL once oracle decided they didn't want to invest heavily on a competitor from their product.
In the same vein Percona built a succesful product and company on top of MySQL
Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#67Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#68> Yes, that is right, Visual Studio for Mac is a closed source version of the formerly open source MonoDevelop IDE after Microsoft acquired Xamarin. Having all of my GPL code ripped out of MonoDevelop so it could become Visual Studio for Mac was the straw that made me write GNOME Builder, GNOME's flagship IDE.
"On August 30, 2023, Microsoft announced that Visual Studio for Mac is in the process of discontinuation, with 17.6 being the last version supported until August 31, 2024"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonoDevelop#Visual_Studio_for_...
https://killedbymicrosoft.info/
Also, that article about .NET drama is from 2021.
Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230315200925/http://antitrust.... What did changed since Microsoft used ACPI as tool against Linux? Enforced Auto-Updates, Ads, Cloud Account enforcement, Blocking Firefox partially in Teams [1], Setting Teams as Browser (Edge?), WSL (intent is not compatibility, it is to prevent migrations to Linux), Azure is a giant security problem and finally the deal with Qualcomm (hinder Linux on A…
"yOu cAn cHaNgE sEtTinGs" I watched my computer reinstall edge, reinstall/hijack my drives with onedrive, re-add ads... But I left Windows for Fedora. I felt offended that I didn't know about Fedora before. Like, there was some hatred toward Microsoft and Canonical for hiding a 10/10 OS. Angry at M$ for bribing schools. Angry at Canonical for free CD marketing that made crappy Debian-family the standard for 10+ years…
What makes Fedora better (apart from having more recent packages)?
Re: Can we trust Microsoft with Open Source? (2021)
#70> Yes, that is right, Visual Studio for Mac is a closed source version of the formerly open source MonoDevelop IDE after Microsoft acquired Xamarin. Having all of my GPL code ripped out of MonoDevelop so it could become Visual Studio for Mac was the straw that made me write GNOME Builder, GNOME's flagship IDE.
I still miss XamarinStudio (MonoDevelop variant). I pay for JetBrains Rider now because it's the closest thing to my memories of the good ol' days.