That it's even possible shows the entire corruptness of the broken patent system and Microsoft's active abuse of it.
They're not just "one of the kids who benefit for misbehavior" they're the poster child.
[1] https://www.quora.com/How-does-Microsoft-make-more-money-fro...
I think people are too eager to claim Microsoft as one of the "good" guys. Microsoft has been around since the 70's and has not been "good" through almost that entire period. So, Microsoft releases a (nice) text editor, releases a Linux subsystem, partially open sources .NET, releases an open source JavaScript framework, has an active GitHub account (filled mostly with nonsense by the way), and we're supposed to forget the 40 years prior? ExxonMobil has been investing heavily in renewable energy lately; would you tell an environmentalist that they're wrong to dislike Exxon now?
Microsoft changed because they had to. That must be the context in which they are evaluated in. Joining a couple organizations, and open sourcing a couple projects doesn't negate the fact that they were forced into this position because they were losing mindshare, developer prestige, and can no longer force everyone into their playground.
> So, Microsoft releases a (nice) text editor, releases a Linux subsystem, partially open sources .NET, releases an open source JavaScript framework, has an active GitHub account (filled mostly with nonsense by the way), and we're supposed to forget the 40 years prior?
And what I heard was, "What have the Romans ever done for us?"
> Microsoft changed because they had to
That's most humans, and just about every corporation ever. The alternative is to die. In the case of Microsoft what it indicates is that the environment has changed sufficiently such that companies that don't start "playing nice with OS" lose out. That's a good thing right?
I also believe that the "cult of personality" era of IT companies is dying - for good or ill. In Microsoft's case, that fact that Gates and Ballmer are gone has ended up net-improving the company. In Oracle's case, the fact that Ellison is still around is like a huge millstone around their corporate neck.
Finally - people can be "good guys" or "evildoers", not companies. Companies are machines akin to ouija boards. Lot's of humans have a hand, yet somehow they act as if they have a mind of their own. BTW, that's why directors of companies should be criminally liable for the actions of their companies IMHO. You wanna direct? Start directing!
The only exception is vscode, in which case I also have geany, vim and pycharm etc in parallel for daily coding, just in case.
And they're still not really doing it.
Skype for Business on Linux? Not happening. Good luck trying to install Linux on Surface Books/Laptops and the like without lots of screwing around as well -- and it probably still won't properly work.
I personally think Skype* is amongst the worst tools in the particular space. (Which is my personal opinion). I find that for messaging, Telegram and Slack work incredibly well. For conferencing, Zoom has a much better experience.
Teams is a confused product where messaging similar to slack is a goal, but it is confused with poor search and a UX based more around posts than conversations.
I'm having trouble parsing that, but am worried you may be suggesting parent's point - that Microsoft isn't releasing tools to run on GNU/Linux operating systems - is because not many enterprises run those OS's on the desktop?
Not that there's fewer free software options.
Also, the web version of Skype is relatively good now... not really excusing what MS has done, however may be better options.
The story has been for about 18 months that Teams is going to eat all the things, but the execution is slow coming.
It's not. I'd say Red Hat is the friendliest open source company. They truly embrace the open source ethos.
Wintel was successful because it was affordable. The alternatives (e.g. our lovely UNIX) were very expensive, fractured, and lacked a good GUI (the fact IRIX was known for its user-friendly GUI says a lot).
That Wintel dominance is coming to an end for a myriad of reasons (the desktop is far less relevant these days because its 'finished' and the innovation lies in other fields such as mobile). Microsoft had market adoption in mobile with Windows Mobile; but it lost that marketshare and its successors (Windows Phone or whatever) didn't catch on. So Microsoft ends up using Android as their target development platform, they end up cloud (Office 365, Azure) and made Xbox cross-platform. Now Microsoft needs goodwill due to what I mentioned above; they hired a bunch of Linux developers, open sourced a bunch of stuff.
It is OK to applaud the actions of your (former) opponent when you agree with these actions as long as you also still hold them accountable for the actions you don't agree with.
Can you elaborate on this - specially your 'nonsense' claim?
Can we look into the history and observed companies with similar behavioral trend? For example, many German companies worked with Nazi party, helping them and facilitating the war. This is evil. Today, those companies are now considered as not evil any longer (exception might be VW and their dieselgate saga). Perhaps Microsoft could follow a similar trend.
To put that another way: the old arcade-game Street Fighter 2, much beloved for tournament play, has certain glitches that everyone takes advantage of in said tournaments. Exploiting those glitches is just what high-level play of the game looks like. The players aren’t “abusing” the game—the rules of a system are defined by what the system allows you to do.
When someone complains that it’s ridiculous that everyone needs to learn how to exploit the game to play in tournaments, you know what they’re told? “You could theoretically fix the game. In fact, the company that made the game fixed the game, and re-released the fixed version. Nobody plays it. People like this version. If you don’t like it, go play the other one—but don’t come over to us enjoying ourselves over here and try to get us to stop playing the game optimally, just because it makes you unhappy.”
Of course, unlike a game, the ethics of a legal system often favor forcing people to play a game they don’t like, if the game they do like harms people. But I think the professional gamer’s refrain holds: don’t blame them for playing a broken game optimally. Just fix the damn game if you want them to play it differently.
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-earns-2-billion-pe...
https://www.wired.com/2014/01/huawei/
Microsoft stay's draining billions out of the Android market in particular with patent trolling for products they didn't support one bit. Their own products were big losers. Thanks to corrupt patent law, they can still suck money out of the winners. I don't trust anything Microsoft says about open-source and patents. If there's money to be made, they might weasel into something good for them and bad for others.
I'm just picking on Google here, but you could make a list like this for any large tech company, which is my point. But somehow this always comes up in the context of Microsoft, as if somehow they are are particularly more evil than just about anyone else.
Did that company use those patents offensively?
> patent novel compression techniques belonging to others
Same question. Also https://xiphmont.dreamwidth.org/84214.html
> completely wipe out a rich and varied mobile telephone industry
Huh?
Your examples aren't very good. The biggest evil thing Google has done is join Jobs's no-poach agreement. It remains to be seen whether their China project will surpass that. On patents in particular, Google has thus far been very reasonable.
> A patent loss in a German court may lead to trouble for Microsoft's Android strategy ... one of Microsoft main Android patent weapons has been rendered harmless for now in the EU. This may sound like a minor patent. It's not. Microsoft has been using this patent since 2003 to pressure Linux and Android companies that use the popular FAT file system for compatibility with other operating systems ... combined with the recent judgment that the US version of this patent, "Common name space for long and short filenames," Patent No. 5,758,352 "invalid for obviousness," may finally blunt this patent's usefulness for Microsoft.