> If you change the leadership and change employee incentives, it might as well be a different company.

Exactly. Which is why the idea of "trusting" a corporation, or treating them like you would a human being on any level, is ludicrous. They're a plane crash and a stock dip from becoming a totally different entity.

A person is a midlife crisis[1] or a railway accident[2] away from being a totally different entity. There is no absolute trust, just risk assessment and reevaluation.

[1] I thought it was just a cliche until I saw it happen to someone. She went through some things and upended her whole life.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

The story of Phineas Gage is a lot less common than that of a company undergoing routine changes in leadership, so it's a bit of a silly comparison.

But incentives are still very much in the hand of shareholders who have been rewarding and continue to reward Microsoft's predatory stance on the market (including its continuous abuse of patents against open-source projects like Android and Linux).

So yeah, they are "all in on Open source", right.

It may sound like a harsh statement, but exactly because corporations are not like people, they seem to be harder to change, in my opinion. I'm not saying Microsoft can't change, but it's easy to forget that the main goal of any corporation is profit, specially when it's so big.

I think the profit motive is exactly why change happens.

As soon as a company realizes it can make more $$$ with new strategy B than their original strategy A, then boom -- changed. (Sometimes you have to get rid of the old believers, but that already happened at Microsoft.)

If you look at MSFT's stock price, it's ~tripled since Satya became CEO, after being stagnant for years. He seems incredibly committed to open-source -- because in the long run it will ultimately be more profitable for Microsoft, no?

> I think the profit motive is exactly why change happens.

I agree. They don't actually care about open source it's purely because it's profitable to their business. They'll close it without caring if it's not making them enough money or good will.

But I still hope this works. As long as maintaining open source projects is profitable to Microsoft then it gives incentives for other FLOSS projects to show that if such an anti open source company as Microsoft is willing to embrace it then there's good reasons to join in.

> He seems incredibly committed to open-source -- because in the long run it will ultimately be more profitable for Microsoft, no?

I think it's just because in the short run Microsoft ran a very high risk of getting pushed in a corner.

They are embracing what's hip most of all to improve their image, especially so as to be more attractive for talented technical people.

The "Windows everywhere" vision is not pursuable at this time, so it makes sense to let some things go and focus on what can get you the most money right now (cloud, IA, individual profitable products and services).

And maybe, just maybe, surreptitiously spread your patents everywhere... =0

Yes, but the argument that they have changed is an equally compelling argument that we can't be confident they won't change again in the future.

True, but you can say that for any company. At least in this case, you can consider their past 5 years, see what moves they make and what statements they have released, and judge whether their words and matching their actions.

I'd argue that the incentives of a company who made their fortune and moat on deliberately incompatible lock-in OS/software are permanently broken, so I agree with you but come to the opposite conclusion.

The thought that Satya Nadella, who joined Microsoft in 1992 and then steadily climbed his way (in extremely fierce competition) to the top would be a better, more moral person than the "old guard" is kind of funny.

He's just younger and less out of touch than Gates (and particularly Balmer). Many people seem to mistake ascribe this aspect of him (more in touch with modern tech) with some higher moral standards etc than e.g. Gates/Ballmer. I don't see why he should be any less fierce/brutal.

No CEO of a company of that size is not fierce and brutal.

I agree with your assessment. For me MS motives are pretty transparent and in my opinion will have a positive net result for GitHub.