At this point I really don't think it's useful to cite a Microsoft strategy from the mid 1990s. It's clear at even a cursory glance that their approach has changed dramatically.
I respectfully disagree. MS has spent a long time building up a lot of bad-will. Just because they've done a couple of nice things lately doesn't mean we should forget all that.
I hope they become awesome, and continue to be pro-FOSS, but it's going to take more than a couple of good steps to convince me.
Also, they didn't just stop in the 90's. A lot of their questionable practices have continued on, and are still going on. I'm not basing my mistrust only on the 90's. It's just one factor out of many, but one I still feel should be taken into account.
How many of the employees that were there in the mid-1990s work at companies you adore or support today? Maybe other companies are where Embrace, Extend, Extinguish lives today.
Technology moves at an incredible pace. Acting like any news story from the mid-1990s is relevant today is incredibly silly.
- old IE installs
- PDF printing functionality not included in older versions of Office and Windows
More experienced people/sysadmins can probably bring out lot more issues. And I totally agree with you that Java didn't suffer in the end, but how many lawyer hours were spent on stuff that shouldn't have been an issue in the first place?
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Don't trust Micro$oft. Let them die.