[eitland]

> The Facebook outrage mob reminds me of my slashdot days when everyone referred to Microsoft as Micro$oft.

The fight against old Microsoft is a win-win success story (for now, I'm keeping an eye on all big players and so should everyone else.)

Microsoft is nicer and I think more profitable than ever. They don't call our code or favourite OS cancer anymore but actively support us. My understanding is even a lot of MS employees prefer the new Microsoft.

If we can manage to do the same with Facebook then feel free to come up with a similar stupid name for them. Because right now I think they deserve it as much as old M$ did.

[opportune]

It took Microsoft a top-level executive change (Satya) to fix itself. Facebook shows no signs of an executive change until Mark retires and devotes himself to full time philanthropy so the world doesn’t remember him as evil (who else does that remind you of...)

[giancarlostoro]

I feel like this does a disservice to the prior open source efforts that Microsoft slowly went through during the Ballmer era. Sure they were not as impressive but they were the start of it all imho.

[bartread]

Agree. That ball had started rolling before Ballmer's departure. You could see it in efforts like PyTools and NTVS, just for openers.

[finaliteration]

Does that mean they’ll have to go through a “Steve Ballmer” phase first?

[opportune]

Probably when Sandberg takes over

[bilbo0s]

The truth is MS never fixed itself, it just got too fat and lazy for any of us to care anymore.

[emanuensis]

>...come up with a similar stupid name for them...

Farcebook? Been guilty of that one for 8 years. Never had an account, so the label is all hearsay ... but what i kept hearing made me afraid to become a Farce of myself ... so i said to myself "stay away". Hard enough to be self-effacing.

i do still hope we will find a way to communicate easily with relevant others without doing violence to our communication methods for the sake of (what is essentially) a random nudnick's business plan and profit model.

Farcebook likes to go around and break as many things as fast as possible. Before them we had serious people and thought oriented to finding compatible methods. They still exist, but all the oxygen in the room is depleted by Farcebook.

[bartread]

Facebork is the other one I've heard, and occasionally use. Problem is that neither really captures a sense of the rapacious amorality of which facebook is, I believe, being accused.

[emanuensis]

Heh! Ifn i had it to do over i would prolly say FarceBorg. Not only do they encourage their users to make a Farce of themselves but they actively try to assimilate the web, and indeed the internet (the Basics).

[qmr]

... the hell?

Forced updates rebooting critical systems, bricking devices, rampant spying that is difficult to impossible to disable.

How do you fit that with "win-win success story" and "Microsoft is nicer [...] than ever"?