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Linux Foundation Comments On Microsoft's Increasing Love of Linux
LibbyMC writes Executive Director Jim Zemlin writes, "We do not agree with everything Microsoft does and certainly many open source projects compete directly with Microsoft products. However, the new Microsoft we are seeing today is certainly a different organization when it comes to open source. The company's participation in these efforts underscores the fact that nothing has changed more in the last couple of decades than how software is fundamentally built."
yes actually. What I'd like from MS is an apology and a statement that they will take their company in a new dirrection. After all IBM has supported FOSS for decades, and before MS, they used to be more evil than they were. So far, they've been good corporate citizens. If Big Blue can do it, MS can as well. I am not going forget all of history in one instant, but over time I am willing to see how this shakes out, and if microsoft continues this postive development my opinions of them will change favorably. This is not a whole lot, but a start. Today, my opinion of microsoft has changed a little bit to the favorable. A little bit. Not a whole lot, but a little bit. If microsoft wants my opinion(and everyone elses) to change for the better, they can continue what they've done today in regards to Freedom and Openness.
Step 1: Embrace.
Step 2: Extend.
Step 3: Extinguish.
They see this as step 1.
You know, I really don't think so. I think Microsoft has gotten knocked down hard and learned a little humility. They now have to compete on merit, rather than just leverage their IBM-gifted monopoly to squash any competition. It's even possible that the lesson will sink deeply enough into the corporate culture to effect a permanent change (plus, it's unlikely they'll achieve another world-dominating position to leverage).
But even if you're right, I don't think it matters because their monopoly is eroding fast and without that leverage they can't execute step 3.
(Just to head off some inevitable replies to that last comment, when I say their monopoly is eroding it's not so much that Windows is being replaced on the desktop -- though it is, some, and I think the trend will accelerate -- but that the desktop is becoming much less important.)
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The days when it seemed that Microsoft could have the whole pie all to itself is long gone. I'll call the steps they are taking progress. Office 365 availability on Linux and .Net opening up to Linux as open source sets a pretty good stage for real openness of choice. I hear from regular people all the time how much they like the Surface for work or how they wish they bough a Surface rather than iPad for work. They have stopped trying to hold back change, because that outright failed. They now at least seem to be embracing change. Now the real test is if they can affect change and actually lead at least with the piece of the pie where they can still fit. Windows Mobile may wander the desert without followers for many years, but if Windows 10 is well received they may actually survive the death of the desktop.
I would like to believe you. I really really want to but what's the guarantee?
There are no guarantees.
How do you know that it won't 'extinguish' cross platform support when it defeats the competitive options.
Because Microsoft has failed in the mobile space, and mobile computing is becoming the dominant form of individual computing. Desktops and laptops aren't going away, but they're being relegated to smaller niches, and even in those niches people increasingly expect to be able to work cross-device. I don't expect my tablet or phone to be as convenient for, say, editing a spreadsheet or writing code, as my laptop or desktop, but I increasingly demand that I be able to work on the same stuff on all sorts of devices and to be able to move seamlessly between them.
This inherently means that big chunks of any solution must be cross-platform, because there is no single platform that runs on all devices. Microsoft would like to change this by unifying desktop and mobile Windows, but to be successful at that they'd have to get a dominant position in mobile computing, and they've failed at that. The webification of everything is also making it increasingly impossible to bind users to one operating system.
So, Microsoft is simply not going to have the ability to extinguish cross-platformness, because to do that they'd have to own all the platforms, and they don't, and won't.
This is like we had a bad tyrant and we suffered tremendously under this tyrant and it took a DoJ anti-trust lawsuit and a very long amount of time to see meaningful competition in this space again.
The DoJ suit had nothing to do with it. Microsoft was never meaningfully limited by that suit.
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None of the things you are ranting about are relevant. The issue is whether or not Microsoft is the same company. Is it the same corporate culture?
Chances are that it is.
The fact that the rest of the world has changed really isn't relevant. It's not the rest of the world we're talking about. The world may have changed and it seems at first glance that it's the same old Microsoft being a leech off of Android with it's patent trolling.
Forget about childish insults directed at Unix users. Microsoft has continually botched it's attempts to adapt to the new reality. That's why it makes more money in the mobile space off of patent trolling than it does it's own product.
Even this "gift" is a manifestation of how they couldn't cope with Java.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.