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Microsoft Sticks With Controversial 'GVFS' Name Despite Backlash (medium.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the there's-more-than-meets-the-eye dept.

New submitter DuroSoft writes: It has been over a year since Microsoft unveiled its open source GVFS (Git Virtual File System) project, designed to make terabyte-scale repositories, like it's own 270GB Windows source code, manageable using Git. The problem is that the GNOME project already has a virtual file system by the name of GVfs that has been in use for years, with hundreds of threads on Stack Overflow, etc. Yet Microsoft's GVFS has already surpassed GVfs in Google and is causing confusion. To make matters worse, Microsoft has officially refused to change the name, despite a large public backlash on GitHub and social media, and despite pull requests providing scripts that can change the name to anything Microsoft wants. Is this mere arrogance on Microsoft's part, laziness to do a quick Google search before using a name, or is it something more sinister?

25 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. We don't care by rastos1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We don't care. We don't have to. We are Microsoft.

    1. Re: We don't care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't work there anymore, but having spent over a decade on the team that produced this all I can do is shake my head at all these crazy comments. BHarry's group is one of the most customer focused teams at the company and has a rampant following in the community. We fought a number of battles against the "old guard" to get features like a web client and java/*nix clients for TFS.

      Naming things is hard - there are only so many 3-5 letter acronyms that can be made from sensical words, especially when terms like "file system" are so common. Even within the company there is TLA reuse (VSS = Volume Shadow Service or Visual Source Safe).

      You seem to be missing the larger point here - WINDOWS IS USING GIT! That would have never happened in the old days.

  2. Given this is Microsoft... by ChodaBoyUSA · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My money is on this being something sinister. Microsoft has a long history of this.

    1. Re:Given this is Microsoft... by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      The bad guy in this is Wim Coekaerts, supposedly a veteran of the Linux community, but obviously a poser without a clue. Should be no surprise, to be honest. Matthew Wilcox should also have known better.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    2. Re:Given this is Microsoft... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Informative

      Personally I think Micosoft hit 'peak evil' in the 2000s. The company at that point was aggressive in fighting against not just specific open source software, but the movement as a whole. This is the era when Ballmer described open source software as 'cancer.'

      One of the more aggressive things I saw from them back then was the "identified software" clause in the license for supporting Windows media technologies. It specified that any software developed under that license may not be published in source code form, as you might imagine, but it went a lot further than that - it forbade the developer from using any software with source code openly available during the development process of their software, or using libraries with published source. It even forbade them from allowing their software to be distributed on the same physical media - if you made your software open source, you couldn't even allow it to be shared on a PC magazine cover disc in case there was something open source on there. It also stated that, if your software supports windows media, it may save *only* in Windows media: Once a movie goes into WMV format, there was supposed to be no way out of it.

      One notable piece of software ignored the license conditions by reverse-engineering the container format, thus never needing to look at the specification which was only available by agreeing to this super-restrictive licence. Virtualdub. In response threatened legal action, which is why versions after 1.3C dropped support for opening ASF files and instead display a message explaining why.

      They haven't done anything quite so blatantly aggressive in more recent years, but there are more subtle actions they still take. They lag behind in support for open standards - they were the last major browser developer to support transparent PNG, and still do not support APNG, and were the last browser developer to support VP8, Vorbis or Opus codecs - doubtless because these are direct competitors to Microsoft's favoured h264 and AAC codecs, both of which feature Microsoft in the patent pool.

      Windows likewise is very restrictive in filesystem support - when it became apparent that the FAT32 format was ageing, Microsoft invented their own replacement, ExFAT, rather than support any of the several viable open-standard options. A filesystem upon which Microsoft holds patents, and the licence for which specifically forbids the publishing of source code. As a result of this, most Linux distributions are unable to read ExFAT formatted media - which means many USB sticks and SD cards - out of the box, and require the installation of dubiously-legal FUSE modules developed by people in countries where software patents are not recognised.

      So while microsoft may not be as aggressive as they once were, I think it's safe to say that there are still many at the company who regard open source software as a threat that must be suppressed.

    3. Re:Given this is Microsoft... by epine · · Score: 2

      Nice post.

      It's true that Microsoft hit peak evil long ago, it's just that I'm still far from reaching peak forgiveness, so the GitHub news makes my stomach grind.

      The best you can say is that recent Microsoft has acquired a pragmatism of old age — if pretty much at gunpoint. It was either change or stand pat, as four other corporate megaliths zoomed past. I will probably never fully eclipse my worry that reluctant pragmatism makes for a fickle creed.

      Back in the day, with utmost reluctance, I paid for software that I reviled. And Microsoft (who never returned that money) surely used it to grow their empire, fuck you very much.

      Once extorted, thrice shy.

      Yes, I know that modern Microsoft operates at a baseline evil not so different from their four equally glutinous silicon siblings, but how did you get here? One of the back stories is worse than the others, by a slam dunk.

      If I were more pragmatic myself, I'd put some work into getting over these aged, obsolete feelings. But nobody is presently holding me at gunpoint, so I guess I won't.

  3. Just acronym collision by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 3, Informative

    Both names are reasonable acronyms. I don't think there's anything malicious, just the normal problem when two entities pick entirely reasonable names and the acronyms collide. It'll work itself out like it always does: people will modify one or both acronyms to clear it up and MS and the Gnome project will live with it.

    1. Re:Just acronym collision by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Not malicious", uh huh sure sure. Like Office Open XML when their direct competitor had Open Office XML.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:Just acronym collision by lhunath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You trivialize name disputes. If the significance of a name conflict were as shoulder-shrug as you aim to convey there would be absolutely no existential reason for or value in trademarks.

      The reality however is a little more complicated and requires us to admit that names are significant and we should not just shrug them off.

      --
      ``OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?''
    3. Re:Just acronym collision by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      0 != strcmp("Office Open XML", "Open Office XML")

      Cute. Not very bright, though, are you?

    4. Re:Just acronym collision by lhunath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well of course. This is nothing unique or specific to acronyms. The same applies to any kind of situation where you would choose to name a certain thing. Names are overloaded all the time. That is obvious and expected.

      The topic here is not, "oh, how odd, two separate objects were referred to by the same token, I never saw that happen before, it is therefore newsworthy!". The topic here is that the fact that two objects are being referred to by the same name in a shared space (the tech world) where one has a strong and settled history and another is a disruptive newcomer is creating a situation whereby honest people are getting confused and mislead, and whereby information is getting lost and distorted.

      The topic here is that names have value in the fact that they aid people in communicating and collaborating on something, and when people intentionally or otherwise disrupt the value of one name by overloading it with their own, showing an utter disregard of the lives and frustrations of the people whom they are fucking with, this is something that we should raise awareness on and discourage as much as possible in the interest of common good.

      This is the legal framework and justification for trademarks. Obviously not every open-source initiative has taken out trademarks on their every collaborative project and every term used within those projects, but just because a legal trademark was not purchased does not mean that the moral reasons for which those trademarks exist are somehow irrelevant for this project.

      Please be a little more mindful before you speak. Your utter disregard for morality by turning a blind eye on people and their lives by simply pretending that the obvious technicalities that we are all fully aware of are the only thing that exists in the world.

      --
      ``OK, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?''
  4. Really really easy solution by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Change the name of Git's GVFS to Microsoft Virtual File System. See how long it takes for microsoft to change their tune. Then after they sue change the name to MSVFS. Where MS stands for Mother Suckers. Let the lawyers make the argument that Mother Suckers could be confused with MicroSoft.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Really really easy solution by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2

      Change the name of Git's GVFS to Microsoft Virtual File System. See how long it takes for microsoft to change their tune. Then after they sue change the name to MSVFS.

      That acronym is too long. Shorten the name to Microsoft Virtual System with the acronym MVS. MVS is surely not taken already.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Really really easy solution by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, change it to Not Their File System.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    3. Re:Really really easy solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Change GVFS to GOD (GNOME Object Drive). He surely wouldn't mind and there should be fewer search conflicts on stack overflow.

    4. Re:Really really easy solution by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2

      This one deserved a link, only mainframe old timers know what MVS was. Nowadays it's called z/OS.

      Well, Microsoft already has Microsoft Office 365. So round up the number to a multiple of 10, and call it Virtual Microsoft, so we then get:

      VM/370 . . . that shouldn't bother anybody . . .

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  5. Turnabout is fair play by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Announcing the GNOME NTfs filesystem: a high performance filesystem tailored for our new HYPer-V virtual container system, part of the new GNOME EX-change server platform.

    1. Re:Turnabout is fair play by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hard to see that doing a damned thing unless somehow GNOME's "NTFS" became immensely popular for some reason. The problem here is a dominant organization destroying support for a smaller organization's product by giving it the same name.

      Now, if Google (1) created "NTFS" for Android/ChromeOS, and (2) deliberately modified their search engine (which may or may not have legal issues associated with it) to favor search results referring to the Android/ChromeOS version, then that might work. But GNOME? GNOME doesn't have the market power. That's the problem. GNOME calling something a name already in use by Microsoft would punish GNOME users, not Microsoft.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  6. MS sucks at naming things by TekBoy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Microsoft sucks at naming things. That's nothing new. These are the people that named their Java like framework ".Net" and named their sql server "Sql Server" making both a pain in the rear to do Internet searches on due to overly generic naming. We're just lucky they didn't name it GIFS.

    1. Re:MS sucks at naming things by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Funny

      My favorite is still the infamous "Critical Update Notification Tool". Yes, they really released that.

  7. Re:why they should care? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    > acronym colides with gnome thing

    "gnome thing" which happens to share 75% of the exact same fucking terminology in the acronym. If somebody else ever dared to name anything after something Microsoft had already done, I wonder what would happen?

    Oh wait, we already know!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft

  8. Re:Windows by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    This is pretty typical MS.

    Agreed. However I don’t think this is “Sinister Microsoft”... if anything, this is the much more common “Tone-Deaf Microsoft”.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  9. Re:Windows by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They instead trademarked Windows and started threatening to sue anyone else who used the term.

  10. Re: Never Assume More than Lazy Stupidity by Brockmire · · Score: 2

    No, inflammatory and usually wrong end to summary to inflame /. is par for the course. WTF are you getting on with? Are you secretly msmash?

  11. Re:VGFS by DuroSoft · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or that they are literally so arrogant that it never occurred to them to google it until I raised the issue with them, which they basically admit in the original GitHub issue.