What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub • Hacker News Board

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#71

Post by amelius » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:20 AM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #4

The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Companies change leadership, direction and style and it seems odd to suggest that there's some underlying quality which means that, regardless of that, you can never trust them (or in reverse that you should always trust a company you once trusted) There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same co…

Also don't forget that Microsoft Research has published an enormous amount of papers, whereas Apple Research ... (does it even exist?)

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#72

Post by discreteevent » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:21 AM UTC

I don't disagree with any of what he says. But he only includes the negative things they did. It's also worth remembering that ms also helped democratise computing. In the late eighties, early nineties Unix was an ivory tower. Only large organisations could afford it. Apple was expensive and closed. Windows was cheap and open. It worked with every kind of hardware and peripheral. And with dev tools like VB a lot of software was written and systems built for people that otherwise would just have had to stick with paper.

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#73

Post by oldcynic » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:21 AM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #4

The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Companies change leadership, direction and style and it seems odd to suggest that there's some underlying quality which means that, regardless of that, you can never trust them (or in reverse that you should always trust a company you once trusted) There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same co…

I see no evidence that they are a better company.

They are currently embracing open source and Linux, very visibly.

Phases two and three will be along soon enough. (Extend, Extinguish)

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#74

Post by Miraries » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:21 AM UTC

Well.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214257

Unrelated, is this standard practice when sharing a link to the HN Discussion?

  javascript:window.location=%22http://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=%22+encodeURIComponent(document.location)+%22&t=%22+encodeURIComponent("What%20is%20wrong%20with%20Microsoft%20buying%20GitHub")

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#75

Post by riezebos » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:21 AM UTC

Mononokay wrote: post #20

tekproxy wrote: post #10

Microsoft used to be bad (M$) but if you haven't noticed you can now run Linux on Windows and sql server runs on Linux. We're in the twilight zone bro; all bets are off.

Running Linux on Windows solely benefits Microsoft and Canonical, not the Linux community. We're not in the twilight zone, we're in the zone where Microsoft realizes it's more profitable to leech off of others' efforts.

Wouldn't it benefit the Linux community if switching from Windows to Linux becomes easier? Also at the moment SLES, OpenSuse, Kali and Debian are available in WSL.

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#76

Post by cecja » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:22 AM UTC

dfcowell wrote: post #39

RyanZAG wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 is really recent though. That said, since I like controversy: I'm happier to see Microsoft buy Github than I would be to see Google or Facebook buy it. And also! A big shoutout to Linus for helping to make source control distributed and open, which means swapping between git providers (for the code at least) is simple, easy and impossible to block. The amount of good Linus has done for the world is incredi…

Realistically, out of all of the BigCorps who could have bought it (and who have deep enough pockets to sustain its bleeding,) Microsoft is one of the best of a bad bunch. I'm not quite as cynical as the author of the OP when it comes to Microsoft's recent apparent change of direction, but who knows, that may just be naivety speaking.

the best out of a bad bunch... what does this even mean. They are killing a neutral force in the market space there is nothing good coming from it.

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#77

Post by oldcynic » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #71

raesene9 wrote: post #4

The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Companies change leadership, direction and style and it seems odd to suggest that there's some underlying quality which means that, regardless of that, you can never trust them (or in reverse that you should always trust a company you once trusted) There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same co…

Also don't forget that Microsoft Research has published an enormous amount of papers, whereas Apple Research ... (does it even exist?)

I can appreciate some of MS Research's papers and former personalities whilst still having zero trust in MS Corp.

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#78

Post by Aaargh20318 » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #4

The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Companies change leadership, direction and style and it seems odd to suggest that there's some underlying quality which means that, regardless of that, you can never trust them (or in reverse that you should always trust a company you once trusted) There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same co…

The biggest problem with the acquisition is that it's yet another core piece of infrastructure gobbled up by one of the big players.

Do we really want to move towards a world where there will be just one huge tech company that owns everything ? Because that's where we're heading.

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#79

Post by setquk » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #4

The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Companies change leadership, direction and style and it seems odd to suggest that there's some underlying quality which means that, regardless of that, you can never trust them (or in reverse that you should always trust a company you once trusted) There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same co…

Personally I believe that the only difference is the marketing. There is little two way communication going which is the same old Microsoft. Are they listening to their customers complain about telemetry, enterprise licensing, support and product stability and dependability? No. They're blinding everyone in an attempt to cover up the decrease in privacy, data collection ramping, gouging of enterprises to force them into the cloud, the declining quality of support and declining product quality. Even targeting the platform is like hitting a moving target that is on fire.

But it's ok because someone said they're a new company and they have a new figurehead.

I don't buy it. I'd be an idiot to buy it. I've been around a long time and this is a typical corporate cycle. They run like the sunspot cycle. We're at a solar minima at the moment.

Re: What is wrong with Microsoft buying GitHub

#80

Post by sametmax » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

raesene9 wrote: post #4

The idea that some companies must be forever tainted by their misdeads in the past seems odd to me. Companies change leadership, direction and style and it seems odd to suggest that there's some underlying quality which means that, regardless of that, you can never trust them (or in reverse that you should always trust a company you once trusted) There seems to be a trope with Microsoft that they're still the same co…

First, MS hasn't stop its bad behavior. When did you think it stopped ? They became better at PR (their teams even pop in HN, Reddit or ...Imgur, they are very good), and they can get away with less BS because they have better competition. They did not get better.

Secondly, with your point of view, as a society, you just promote abusing entities. Politicians, companies, anything with power really. They make a lot of bad things, on a lot of years, then benefit from it, and now boom, what ? Stairway to heaven, along with the loot they got from the misdeeds ?

This is how you end up with corrupted systems and unfair societies.

You don't have to punish them again and again for the crimes of yesterday. But yes, it's perfectly fair, and actually sane, to remember, and say you don't want to have more relationship with them now.