401–410 of 840 posts
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I can understand those concerns, but what can they do to convince you they have changed?
* Drop Windows and contribute to WINE * Drop OOXML and make ODF the default format * Drop the patents * Drop the telemetry * Drop Xbox * Drop DirectX * Drop the cloud garbage * Drop or open MSVC * Drop or open Edge * Actually open .NET
We don't need to open the .NET Framework... We have .NET Core. It's better, faster, and cross-platform...
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Microsoft is one of the most valuable companies on the planet because it is destructive? What’s that even mean?
Microsoft makes all of it's money from PC sales and software licensing. Meanwhile, they basically invented the "buy your competitor and tank their business" strategy. That's probably what this person is referring to.
"Buy and trash competitor" isn't a real strategy. When an acquisition fails, it's usually poor management or vision, or just a lack of synergy in the first place, not a purposeful tanking.
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> Haven't they spied on Windows 10 users? Do they not engage in patents racketeering? Have they not killed Nokia or ruined Skype? I don't think one can say they killed Nokia. Nokia's phone business was basically doomed after Android gained traction, and Microsoft just helped the company to pivot by overpaying for that part of the business, while leaving Nokia with everything that actually was making money.
They killed Nokia twice! First by forcing them to use Windows Mobile (or Windows Phone, or whatever it was called) when it was clear to all they needed to go with Android, and then by actually buying it and killing it when even Microsoft couldn't refuse Windows Mobile was going nowhere.
There's no way that Microsoft bought Nokia to concentrate on making that tiny hardware subdivision profitable (MSFT's market cap is $700B+ and they bought Nokia for $7.6B). They wanted a hardware platform to promote Windows Phone. For Microsoft, the dying entity in need of a Hail Mary was Windows Phone, not Nokia.
Friendly reminder: this is the same Microsoft that "empowered" skype and once called open source a cancer. Its the same Microsoft that ruined open document standards and started the browser wars. I wouldnt be surprised to see next years release of "Github Pro Platinum with Minecraft 3D and Windows Store integration" For those looking to move, https://gitlab.com is an excellent open source alternative that can easily…
Friendly reminder: Skype was pure garbage before MS acquired it. I have no idea from where people got the idea that MS ruined Skype. Started the browser wars? Too bad the browser wars have been too small, because we obviously haven't learned anything from them.
Anecdotally, I stopped using Skype for iOS shortly after it was changed because it went from a solid, reliable internet-calling service to probably the most buggy / laggy interface I could have expected.
[0] - https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-updates-skype-after-...
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I am much more unhappy about the quality of their operating system. They had decades to turn it into a user friendly simple system like macos is, and failed every single time. It is outrageous that I have to delete half of the operating system to get something barely useable and the first thing when you run windows update is to put back the games and other crapware that I do not need on my devices. Is there any hope…
> It is outrageous that I have to delete half of the operating system to get something barely useable Seriously? Windows 10 is a perfectly usable OS out of the box. I can open up the included web browser and go to whatever website I want. I can install Office, Visual Studio, a Linux subsystem, VLC, a VNC client, VirtualBox, Chrome, Firefox, and every other piece of software I need without any hassle. Yes, there is so…
Ditto for dozens of Linux distro's.
> Yes, there is something called "Bubble Witch 3 Saga" in my start menu that I did not install. I understand why people are upset about things like that even if I don't care.
What other things have they installed that is difficult to find out about? How about all the spying? Some game you don't use is the tip of the iceberg.
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Keeping in mind, of course, that it's an opinion, and not a fact. I happen to have the opposite opinion, although I documented it a lot more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17225290 History does not help with trusting them. So let's wait and see. But I talked about MS PR team before, and I can already see it at work everywhere. Here, the first HN links were not warmly welcomed, so we had another one published,…
I had a serious dislike of MS under Ballmer, and every single one of your examples in that post was under his reign. But the argument that "they used to be bad, so they still have to be bad" is just silly. Ballmer may have screamed "developers" on stage, but he was the one who lost them - which cost them dearly (mobile, cloud). Shareholders and the board pushed him out for that reason, so the new management had no ch…
Their updated terms of services are a treat:
https://professional-troublemaker.com/2018/03/25/microsoft-b...
If you disable telemetry in Windows, the OS __still__ calls home:
https://social.nah.re/@alex/99699321529592263
MS prompting his users to not think too much about what it's doing :
https://shelter.moe/@fenarinarsa/99472223904930838
Bitlocker sends you private key to microsoft (and questions about it, said they were to be trusted, but you could request deletion individually if you wanted):
https://www.undernews.fr/libertes-neutralite/windows-10-vs-v...
I have sane doubts about this new microsoft.
We got another new microsoft every year. I have this argument every year.
And since I do see they are getting way better at PR, I think that now I just miss worse scandals because they deal with them much better.
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That's why the "extend" phase is there in the embrace/extend/extinguish strategy - to make it an insurmountable pain to migrate elsewhere, after first having lured the users in with the "embrace" phase. Letting it play out is just what they need to move from phase 1 to phase 2.
But "extend" hasn't happened yet. There's no need to cry foul until it does, because until it does there's no evidence of anything nefarious going on. "Embrace" on its own is perfectly normal and acceptable behavior. Vendor lock-in is an important concern regardless of who owns the platform you're being locked into.
People keep mentioning how "Microsoft changed" due to VS Code, the Linux subsystem, .NET Core. I say that they are the same company, only with different cash cows. Haven't they spied on Windows 10 users? Do they not engage in patents racketeering? Haven't they killed Nokia and ruined Skype? " But Mom, some of the other companies are doing it too ", well yeah, but some of us don't have double standards, in spite of wh…
Why not let things play out a little before predicting chaos? Github doesn't have the vendor lock-in that other companies have. It starts to go downhill? Just push your repo to another Git host. Yes, you'll need to figure out how to port some of your workflows, but it won't be an insurmountable pain.
There is a wiki, a bug tracker, a platform for pull requests and distribution, etc...
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You’ll see the same thing with Google. I’ve found quite a few Google shills on here
Well yes, they all have huge com departments with people creating accounts and maintaining it for years to get organic reputations. We stopped trusting TV and starting trusting each other more. So they started disguising as us. It's the natural evolution.
I still see Microsoft's predictable behavior in 2018. I have a friend who owns a Surface, and I was thinking it would be useful to put Linux on it (it was older ARM hardware). Well you can't, it's a Surface RT and Microsoft not only locks the bootloader but it also only runs Microsoft approved apps. That's their endgame whenever possible. Apparently people didn't like having fully locked down computers and they disco…