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Microsoft Buys Teamprise, Will Ship Linux Tools
spongman writes "Microsoft's Senior Vice President, Developer Division, S. Somasegar has announced that Microsoft has acquired Teamprise from Sourcegear, LLC, and will be shipping it as part of the upcoming Visual Studio 2010 release. Teamprise is an Eclipse plugin (and related tools) for connecting to Team Foundation Server, Microsoft's source-control/project-management system. What's most interesting about this is not only that Microsoft has realized that heterogeneous development platforms are important to their developer customers, but the fact that Microsoft themselves will now be developing and shipping products based on those heterogeneous platforms, including 5 versions of Unix."
I rather have the equivalent of VS on Linux than just another Eclipse plug-in. Here comes the Embrace...
It isn't the first time. Microsoft used to provide tools for accessing Visual SourceSafe repositories from UNIX. Needless to say, these tools were utterly terrible yet allowed them to claim that VSS "supported UNIX". I don't expect Microsoft to go out of their way to "support UNIX" this time around any more than they did previously.
"If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won." - Linus Torvalds
This is software for accessing repositories stored in Microsoft's "Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server " from Linux and Eclipse. I have never seen a usable Microsoft POSIX or Linux product; even if they don't deliberately sabotage it, they apparently don't have the expertise to produce such a thing. Teamprise may have some capable Linux developers now, but how long do you think those are going to stay?
You're much better off throwing out Microsoft's crappy server software and replacing it with a nice, high quality open source solution. Not only do you get better version control and team software, you're also assured that the Linux and Eclipse clients will keep working.
Microsoft doesn't need to control open source. Microsoft just needs to put it in a pretty box that someone is willing to pay for.
When they have shown by their actions, over seven years, that they have changed, than and only than will I consider purchasing Microsoft products again.
For each violation, I reset my 7 year clock from that day. Just reset it this week.
Basing my purchase decisions on their actions ONLY and not their marketing FUD, is the only way I can be sure not to ever be vendor locked-in ever again. So much time and money has been wasted by me, my friends, my family and other IT professionals over the last 20+ years...wasteful and unnecessary.
I will believe it when I see it. To date it has always been FUD!
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Much like Apple did. This isn't a poor attempt at a troll -- if Microsoft want a hold on open-source software they could do worse than follow the kind of approach Apple took. Leave many of the guts the same, but pay professionals to fully sculpt the UI that the open-source programmer is less likely to be interested in designing. This wouldn't necessarily have to be an operating system (why would Microsoft want an open-source OS to compete with Windows? As a replacement, perhaps, but given the money they make from Windows I'd doubt they'll concede defeat in selling operating systems easily) but any software at all. I'm sure most people here are well aware that presentation and useability are two of open-source software's failings. Too many people say "But I don't care how it looks. If it works, what more do I want?" and forget that this isn't how the vast bulk of people think...
> but the fact that Microsoft themselves will now be developing and shipping products based on those heterogeneous platforms, including 5 versions of Unix."
Are you sure? You may find Microsoft do the same thing here and just strip the Linux functionality out. When Microsoft took over Connectix and their excellent Virtual PC Software and proceeded to strip Linux functionality (that was already there) out of the product. On the Connectix version there was a Linux utility that handled control back to Windows when the CPU was idle. On the Microsoft version they took that out, so the CPU always ran at 100%. It made Virtual PC useless for Linux.
Microsoft has a policy to not use open source, because they can't guarantee it's pedigree. If a malicious person puts stolen code into an OSS project (or more realistically, if a programmer uses company resources to develop the code, without permission from the company; or somebody pastes GPL code into a BSD project) then people who rely on the code might be vulnerable to lawsuits. http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2007/05/02/why-microsoft-can-t-ship-open-source-code.aspx
At least, that's their excuse.
If open source was such a dangerous thing to touch, then I think Google, IBM and Apple would have been hit already.
Would you buy a used horse from a convicted horse-rapist?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Wrong reasoning for IBM and Google.
Some time ago (don't know if it is still this way) IBM was divided basically in two separate blocks, one working on OSS and the other on proprietary closed source software with the veto of the two sharing any piece of code for fear of accidenta infringement.
Google, instead, offers basically no proprietary, closed source software. The software is either on their server (and thus allowed to contain GPL code and still be kept private because it is not distributed) or OOS (Chrome). Possible exception: Picasa, I have to check :)
Surely any code could have code copied in breach of copyright in it?
Lemme guess: Home, Ultimate, Pro, Pro-er, and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Microsoft has the manpower and the money to deliver. Their problem is backwards compatibility cruft and hardware support if they would start over.
Given the fact that Linux already poses a thread to Windows, it would not hurt for Microsoft do develop and releasy a Unix(y), free software OS alongside of Windows. Why?
A) To prove that they can actually make a good OS. Press and restecpa right there.
B) They can offer a stable and advanced OS to people/companies that do not care about legacy compatibility.
C) They can always port over a closed source version of Office and make it compatible with exchange and whatnot (and release that code under a free software license that is like the GPL, but isn't so that Linux projects can't take over that very code
D) Keep marketshare. If people don't want to use Windows anyway; they can use their other OS.
Everybody would probably be happy.
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