[29athrowaway]

All core MS products are the result of some level of backstabbing.

Apple + Microsoft. Expected: Macintosh apps. Actual: Windows

IBM + Microsoft. Expected: OS/2. Actual: MS NT kernel

Sybase + Microsoft. Expected: Sybase SQL server. Actual: MS SQL Server

Sun + Microsoft. Expected: Sun Java. Expected: .NET Framework

OpenGL ARB + Microsoft. Expected: OpenGL. Actual: Direct3D.

Also see what happened with Xamarin and Corel Office for Linux, DR-DOS, etc.

But hey, they bought Github and open sourced an Electron based editor so we have to worship them now.

Imagine you hire someone to do something for you and they end up stealing your business model and market share. That is Microsoft in a nutshell.

[Kipters]

> Sun + Microsoft. Expected: Sun Java. Expected: .NET Framework

Well, they tried doing Java (in their own way), we got .NET because Sun sued them (rightfully so). I'm happy we got .NET though.

[29athrowaway]

All the technologies listed above are good from a technological standpoint. My critique is about corporate ethics rather than whether or not those technologies are good or convenient.

Many years ago I worked developing on Windows 7, using C# and MS SQL Server, and had a satisfactory experience at that time. I can see how that convenience has captivated many users.

But knowing how those technologies came to be makes a difference for me.

For example, Direct3D can be great, but the resulting vendor lock prevents other operating systems like Linux from getting game releases. There was a time where OpenGL was the most popular graphics library, but Microsoft frightened OpenGL users and told them that in future Windows releases, OpenGL would go through a compatibility layer with a significant performance cost and that they should switch to Direct3D. As a result, now everyone uses Direct3D.

Fortunately, projects like dxvk have implemented Direct3D on top of Vulkan and now many projects like Wine and Proton use it to run games using Direct3D on Linux.

[pjmlp]

> There was a time where OpenGL was the most popular graphics library

Contrary to urban myths it never had a place on the game consoles.

[j0057]

> open sourced an Electron based editor

VSCode may be open source, but the .NET Core plugin bits inside aren't, so in practice the open sourceness is debatable.

[stevefan1999]

> IBM + Microsoft. Expected: OS/2. Actual: MS NT kernel

Not entirely true, because in fact NT is heavily "inspired" by VMS, that Dave Cutler, the main architect of NT kernel, used to work in DEC as a technical fellow. This is also one of the reason DEC Alpha can run Windows NT out of the box, as it is quite similar to VMS in nature.

[chenzhekl]

I cannot call those backstabbing. They are more of the results of market competition.

[beagle3]

It’s not happening anymore, partly because of reputation and partly because they’re no longer the 800lbs gorilla they once were - but the “Microsoft kiss of death” was a thing - cooperating with Microsoft often resulted in great damage to the other company.

SGI; Nokia; Sando; Spry; there were many others through the years.

[pjmlp]

Nokia have themselves to blame, with the internal teams competition and the board promising an hefty bonus to Elop if he managed to do what he did, selling the mobile business unit.

Similar examples can be given for other IT giants.

[29athrowaway]

This wasn't team 1 vs team 2.

It was one team splitting half-way and taking everything from the other.

[kyberias]

Explain how it was like that in the case of NT.

IBM went their own way with OS/2 and Microsoft hired Dave Cutler from Digital to develop NT over several years. Windows NT is not OS/2. It never was.

[29athrowaway]

That is a mischaracterization of what happened.

Microsoft unilaterally changed the OS/2 3.0 API to the match the Windows API, IBM did not approve of that, and then the project split, with the Microsoft version of OS/2 3.0 becoming Windows NT.

[merb]

to be fair, apple stole the technology that they gave microsoft.

[29athrowaway]

Apple lawfully licensed technology from the Xerox PARC from Xerox. Xerox knew they were licensing the technology, with the likely objective of copying it. That's a substantial difference with respect to what Microsoft did.

Xerox's decision is considered dumb, but they were told exactly what was going to be done. The executives were stupid enough to agree because they did not want to hear about anything other than photocopiers and toners.

Microsoft on the other hand was initially a close Apple partner, developing the Z-80 SoftCard for Apple II and then helping develop applications for the Macintosh. Once they gained enough trust, they used that trust to clone the Macintosh (Windows 1.0).