Microsoft is all-in on Open Source

I will believe that MS is really committed to open source when they open source something they don’t actually need to in order to sell it. An open source DirectX would be revolutionary for cross-platform games. An open source Office would make everyone’s life easier developing integrations and cement OOXML as the standard document format for another lifetime. An open source AD would make Okta and Auth0 shiver. An open source Remote Desktop would over night put every other competing product out of business. An open source Hyper-V would completely change the market and there would be a serious competitor to KVM.

There’s so much potential and wasted effort building around all MS’s tooling because of the lock-in and iron sales grip. And it makes them bank so I don’t expect it to change any time soon but MS could have owned a whole generation of developers if they had focused more on community and openness. Now there’s two completely separate worlds where you’re either a MS dev or an “everyone else” dev.

> Open source is about creating an open mindset—collaborating and contributing to software knowledge to create added value and build on the work of others.

Weird. I thought it was about the source being open. Pretty simple.

Complicating simple ideas is a common technique in controlling a narrative.

Ok, give us the complete Windows source code then.

Really, all Microsoft does is hire some of the most obnoxious, power hungry and and political OSS devs.

Whenever I've a problem with and OSS dev, it's either Microsoft, Google, Instagram, RedHat (in that order).

Apple, Amazon, Facebook (minus Instagram), Netflix OSS devs are entirely unproblematic and often even actually nice.

I was beginning to like the new Microsoft, but the Bing censoring of The Tank Man was a major reality check.

I don't think that a corporation as large (structurally, not financially) as Microsoft can sustainably optimize for anything other than profit. With that and their track record, I find it very hard to believe Microsoft has good intentions.

Still remember 3 years ago vscode launch keynote where the presenter was like "most open source software gets abandoned because open-source developers don't care about their projects. But this one is backed by Microsoft which makes it better and trustworthy..." something around this lines. The contempt for open-source was disgusting

Never used vscode again

this is an obvious trap. avoid big tech companies bearing dubious questionable gifts. there is always a catch.