[4lch3m1st]

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.

[crazygringo]

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?

[icc97]

> 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.

[g-b-r]

> 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