[iamnothere]

In the end, MS is a profit-seeking entity, as is Google, Apple, etc. It's best to take anything that any tech company does with healthy dose of skepticism, but at the same time it's OK to give them a nod when they do something beneficial. I agree that it can be hard to do this with MS when you are used to Ballmer's more predatory vision for the company.

For the record, I'm very happy with what MS is doing in the development space. I'm less happy with the "cloudification" of Windows and the infiltration of ads there, and I'm not at all happy with how MS continues to fund entities that aggressively pursue patent lawsuits in a sort of protection racket [0]. I'm on the fence (and somewhat nervous) about their embrace of Linux and their growing influence there.

Most people seem to treat technology companies as sports teams. This is foolish to say the least. Every company does bad things, and you shouldn't look past those things, even if you are generally happy with the company's behavior. Ignoring the negatives just ensures that there will be no pushback, and the companies will increase their bad behavior if there is an incentive to do so. At the same time, it's OK to like a good thing that a "bad" company does, and encouraging more of these things may help to shape incentives and behavior over the long term.

[0] http://techrights.org/2018/10/26/texas-intellectual-ventures...