During a recent online event the current Microsoft President, Brad Smith, opened up a little bit about open source and their previous failures with it.
Sadly, their history with open source is a rather tumultuous one. Previous Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, famously said years ago how "Linux is a cancer" and no one really forgot. It's interesting now though because of how Microsoft has changed over the years, as they finally warmed up to open source.
In a chat hosted by MIT CSAIL, President Brad Smith mentioned:
Microsoft was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the beginning of the century and I can say that about me personally. The good news is that, if life is long enough, you can learn … that you need to change.
They now own GitHub, a website built around code sharing and their own Visual Studio Code editor is also open source under the MIT license. Expanding there, GitHub also recently acquired npm (the company behind Node package manager) too. That's merely scratching the surface, as they're even integrating Linux more and more into Windows itself with their Windows Subsystem for Linux. Heck, they're even going to put their own web browser Edge onto Linux which is now being built with the open source Chromium.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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slaapliedje May 16, 2020
Quoting: LinasTL;DR They only love open-source and Linux because they have to.Windows Subsystem for Linux is terrible, the performance on it is just bad... everything on it takes far longer than it should...
I have had a chance to work with Microsofts open-source technologies. And to be fair, some of it is quite nice.
.NET Core is a pretty nice programming platform, like a more lightweight Java. BUT it's only partially compatible with .NET Framework.
PowerShell Core can allow easier interaction with Windows systems. BUT it's only partially compatible with PowerShell which is actually shipped with Windows, and can do only a fraction of what PowerShell on Windows can. It is also really slow. Like bash through a laggy SSH connection slow, but locally.
Microsoft SQL Server is not open-source, but has a Linux version. Even a containerized Docker version. BUT it lacks many advanced features of the Windows version.
Their Linux packaging is also lackluster. Like missing dependencies. Or putting Ubuntu and Debian packages in the same repository and having "ubuntu" and "debian" in the version number, so that when you upgrade, you get Ubuntu version, because it sorts as a higher version alphabetically.
Then there is Visual Studio Code and claiming that Visual Studio now supports Linux, whereas it is a fork of Atom editor with custom plugins, and has absolutely nothing to do with Visual Studio.
So they are going in the right direction, but in a clumsy, backhanded way.
Like for example the proper Windows version of Docker (that runs Windows containers, not Linux) is especially half-assed, and only makes Windows users think that Docker sucks. Whereas it's only Windows version that sucks. Even running Linux containers on Windows works better than Windows containers on Windows.
And I am sure that is why Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) exists. Not because they actually want their users to use Linux, but because they know that they lost to Linux in the server market, and cannot pull off a compelling Windows-proper alternative.
So don't be fooled. They only love open-source and Linux because they have to.
No offense to all the brilliant people at Microsoft who are working on all of this. I am sure a lot of people there are just nerds who think that open-source and Linux are cool, and want nothing to do with all the shenanigans of managers and executives.
I really cannot imagine a developer going like "yeah, let's put all of this telemetry in Windows and collect all this data that is in no way relevant to identifying technical problems in the system." But while management can get their way, there will be shenanigans, there will be lobbying, and there will be shady anti-competitive deals.
(damn, I said Windows a lot)
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Quoting: Mountain ManI don't trust Microsoft. Their response to open source has been a typical "embrace and extend" strategy. They're not trying to coexist with open source, they're trying to control it.
Yep. You can see that by the companies they're buying. Buying... not contributing to, you know, like you would do with open source. Same old MS.
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In case you're wondering what ol' M$ is up to... here are some recent articles. See if you can spot the trend here. By the way, M$ stock has not suffered during the current pandemic.
July 2019 Microsoft wins multibillion-dollar cloud deal from AT&T
July 2019 Microsoft acquires BlueTalon to bolster its Azure Data Governance group
August 2019 Microsoft takes big gulp of Java with jClarity acquisition, further boosting Azure’s open-source cred
September 2019 Microsoft acquires cloud migration startup Movere to help companies transition to Azure
October 2019 Microsoft makes another cloud acquisition, swoops up file migration startup Mover
March 2020 Microsoft acquires Affirmed Networks, which helps telecoms grow their networks, ahead of 5G rush
May 2020 Metaswitch acquisition: Microsoft aims to emerge as a platform for telecom innovation
May 2020 Microsoft to invest $1.5 billion in Italian cloud business
May 2020 Microsoft announces a $1 billion digital transformation plan for Poland, including access to local cloud services with first datacenter region
May 2020 Microsoft to Buy Israeli Cybersecurity Startup CyberX
Casually mentioning that M$ has also bought Skype, LinkedIn, GitHub, Citus Data (developer of the open-source PostgreSQL) as well as countless gaming studios. There's no stopping this monster.
edit: forgot one.
May 2020 Microsoft to open first data center in New Zealand as cloud usage grows
We can't know how many datacenters M$ have since they won't tell us, but the M$ cloud has more than 100 datacenters serving ~60 regions covering 140 countries. Probably more.
Last edited by dpanter on 16 May 2020 at 3:48 pm UTC
July 2019 Microsoft wins multibillion-dollar cloud deal from AT&T
July 2019 Microsoft acquires BlueTalon to bolster its Azure Data Governance group
August 2019 Microsoft takes big gulp of Java with jClarity acquisition, further boosting Azure’s open-source cred
September 2019 Microsoft acquires cloud migration startup Movere to help companies transition to Azure
October 2019 Microsoft makes another cloud acquisition, swoops up file migration startup Mover
March 2020 Microsoft acquires Affirmed Networks, which helps telecoms grow their networks, ahead of 5G rush
May 2020 Metaswitch acquisition: Microsoft aims to emerge as a platform for telecom innovation
May 2020 Microsoft to invest $1.5 billion in Italian cloud business
May 2020 Microsoft announces a $1 billion digital transformation plan for Poland, including access to local cloud services with first datacenter region
May 2020 Microsoft to Buy Israeli Cybersecurity Startup CyberX
Casually mentioning that M$ has also bought Skype, LinkedIn, GitHub, Citus Data (developer of the open-source PostgreSQL) as well as countless gaming studios. There's no stopping this monster.
edit: forgot one.
May 2020 Microsoft to open first data center in New Zealand as cloud usage grows
We can't know how many datacenters M$ have since they won't tell us, but the M$ cloud has more than 100 datacenters serving ~60 regions covering 140 countries. Probably more.
Last edited by dpanter on 16 May 2020 at 3:48 pm UTC
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Kimyrielle May 16, 2020
I don't trust ANY big business, because every sufficiently large corporation in history has turned out to be evil. That being said, saying "sorry" goes a long way with me. It's certainly appreciated!
Let's be honest, MS won't open-source Windows anytime soon. It won't go THAT far. But with their focus now being cloud-services, they are well aware that the open source community is no longer a threat to them, because it no longer directly competes with them. On the contrary, they might even find a lot of OSS projects useful to them. Also, MS is probably aware as well as we are that they have lost the OS war. Yes, yes, they still have a near-monopoly on the desktop, but if you look at the ENTIRE devices market (which includes smartphones, tablets wearables etc.), they have a laughable market share these days.
So it makes sense, really. MS is probably better off embracing OSS these days than actively fighting it. It's the better business decision and they are a business.
Let's be honest, MS won't open-source Windows anytime soon. It won't go THAT far. But with their focus now being cloud-services, they are well aware that the open source community is no longer a threat to them, because it no longer directly competes with them. On the contrary, they might even find a lot of OSS projects useful to them. Also, MS is probably aware as well as we are that they have lost the OS war. Yes, yes, they still have a near-monopoly on the desktop, but if you look at the ENTIRE devices market (which includes smartphones, tablets wearables etc.), they have a laughable market share these days.
So it makes sense, really. MS is probably better off embracing OSS these days than actively fighting it. It's the better business decision and they are a business.
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Quoting: scaineThat is why Copy Left (GPL and the like) FOSS licensing is so important in my opinion. With FOSS they have to share improvements they use back with with the community and upstream projects. With Permissive OS (MIT and the like) licensing they do not.Quoting: Mountain ManI don't trust Microsoft. Their response to open source has been a typical "embrace and extend" strategy. They're not trying to coexist with open source, they're trying to control it.
Yep. You can see that by the companies they're buying. Buying... not contributing to, you know, like you would do with open source. Same old MS.
Additionally when companies like Apple and Microsoft support Permissive OS licensing they co-opt good will as if they're supporting FOSS as well. This is because, in my opinion, FOSS and Permissive Open Source is generally so conflated now. Many (maybe most) people I interact with don't even perceive a difference between the two.
So when Microsoft says they see the errors of their ways with Open Source, I think they mean the kind of Open Source that primarily benefits them, not the FOSS that benefits the community. Yet, the message that is heard is that Microsoft loves GNU. They don't. If they did they would donate their patent portfolio to the FSF and GPL everything they own. Ha ha, yeah, that's a pipe dream.
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I was never a fan of Microsoft. But starting a few years ago, i must admit that they made good progress in the right direction. In opposite to companies like Apple or Google...
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Quoting: LinasAnd I am sure that is why Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) exists. Not because they actually want their users to use Linux, but because they know that they lost to Linux in the server market, and cannot pull off a compelling Windows-proper alternative.
I'm quite sure that WSL only exists in order to keep Linux Server developers and Administrators using the Windows desktop, and not loosing them to a Linux desktop like they lost on the server side.
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I know there are a lot of Microsoft haters in the Linux world. I really don't like running Windows myself, either. However, I actually have a positive attitude about their acquisition of npm. It is super popular and needs some... stability and security expertise to take control.
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Quoting: F.UltraI don't think so. It's to make it easier to manage Linux services that run on Azure. Now, admins and developers don't have to run a VM. I don't think MS was "losing" anybody to Linux that is now satisfied with WSL.Quoting: LinasAnd I am sure that is why Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) exists. Not because they actually want their users to use Linux, but because they know that they lost to Linux in the server market, and cannot pull off a compelling Windows-proper alternative.
I'm quite sure that WSL only exists in order to keep Linux Server developers and Administrators using the Windows desktop, and not loosing them to a Linux desktop like they lost on the server side.
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Mountain Man May 16, 2020
Quoting: randylThat is why Copy Left (GPL and the like) FOSS licensing is so important in my opinion. With FOSS they have to share improvements they use back with with the community and upstream projects. With Permissive OS (MIT and the like) licensing they do not.Of course if Microsoft does happen to "borrow" from Copy Left projects, we would never know it because they'll never let anybody outside of their headquarters take a peek at their code.
Last edited by Mountain Man on 16 May 2020 at 6:21 pm UTC
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