If I had a crystal ball back in the 90's that would have predicted this, I would simply had thrown it away thinking it was broken. Simply astounding. MS went from the 'monopoly' everyone loved to hate to this.
Bravo!
Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
61–70 of 165 posts
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#62This is all fine and good. I hope their efforts are sincere. All money and support to free software is most likely good. However, I've been part of the open source community for 25 years, and I remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of open source. It will take a lot to convince me that there is not some underlying goal here that is not beneficial to free software. How much has Microsoft really changed? I…
I also remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of Microsoft.
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Open-source is used broadly to define a way of developing software, but it says nothing about the rights it gives users. That is totally wrong and a myth spread by people who like to call their products "Open Source" while they aren't. The Open Source Definition is very clear: https://opensource.org/osd Practically there is no difference between Open Source licenses and Free Software licenses. The difference is mer…
So, there _is_ a difference. But it's _not_ true that open source (as defined by OSI) says "nothing" about the rights it gives users. It says something. "free software" says something else/more (which may or may not be a good thing, that's a value judgement). "free software" is indeed an (intentionally) confusing name meant to discredit "open source".
> "free software" is indeed an (intentionally) confusing name meant to discredit "open source".
That's factually wrong. The word "free software" was invented before.
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Open-source is used broadly to define a way of developing software, but it says nothing about the rights it gives users. That is totally wrong and a myth spread by people who like to call their products "Open Source" while they aren't. The Open Source Definition is very clear: https://opensource.org/osd Practically there is no difference between Open Source licenses and Free Software licenses. The difference is mer…
So, there _is_ a difference. But it's _not_ true that open source (as defined by OSI) says "nothing" about the rights it gives users. It says something. "free software" says something else/more (which may or may not be a good thing, that's a value judgement). "free software" is indeed an (intentionally) confusing name meant to discredit "open source".
You've got the directions of the arrow of time and cause and effect backwards.
"Free Software" and "Copyleft" came WAY first. "Open Software" came later, and was meant to intentionally and personally discredit RMS, "free software" and "Copyleft".
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the quality of the tool chain has everything to do with their attitude to open source software and whether they can be assumed to be a friend or enemy of open source software? We began couching the argument about the company and its businesses practices and we ended on the implementation detail of needing to change a registry setting in a windows deployment. If that isn't tangential muddying of the waters, what is…
No, the quality of the toolchain is emblematic of their attitudes towards FOSS. There is a difference, totally, their sinking ship needs a little help to stay afloat and OSS is that buoy IMO.
sounds to me like you've already made your mind up about everything about them. You're not commenting, you're soap boxing.
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#66So I hear it's been rather chilly in Hell as of lately, some report below-freezing temperatures.
That being said, Embrace, Extend, Extinguish and all that. Besides, there's a market for free software now they've become a cloud computing company too. Fits perfectly into their long-term plans.
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically, I see the attitude you describe in the open-source community quite often, specifically the BSD community is quite vocal about being more 'level headed' than the GPL community and more 'mature'.
As someone who has zero contact with anyone BSD and have no idea about their community, I have no idea. As far as I am concerned, there is no open source community as single entity. There are comunities around concrete projects, some better then others. Anyone pretending to represent whole open source is usually doing it for politics and ego.
>Anyone pretending to represent whole open source is usually doing it for politics and ego.
Please don't judge the whole open source community by ESR.
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#68Don't large companies sponsor or become members of such initiatives or organizations just so they can have a say on its future?
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#69This is all fine and good. I hope their efforts are sincere. All money and support to free software is most likely good. However, I've been part of the open source community for 25 years, and I remember the brutal marketing against the "cancer" of open source. It will take a lot to convince me that there is not some underlying goal here that is not beneficial to free software. How much has Microsoft really changed? I…
You can Uninstall the XBOX app, actually. It takes like five seconds in Powershell.
You should be able to find the method with a quick search, but give me a few hours and I can tell you what I used to do it.
Re: Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the philosophical difference I was talking about. Doesn't change the fact that all code you release under an Apache license is free software in the sense of the four freedoms as defined by the FSF. Whether you like their ways or not.
That is somewhat debatable I suppose. The freedom (if you want to quote RMS) absolutely includes the so called viral provisions of licenses such as the GPL. RMS is quoted as saying proprietary software should be illegal. As a software engineer myself, I find that sort of demagoguery a bit tiring, and consider a license with less mandatory stipulations as more "free" (admittedly under a different definition than the F…
Yepp, it's a trade off between the rights of the developer and the rights of the consumer / user, you fundamentally can't have both (simplification). RMS goes all on the latter side, essentially.