[jacquesm]

I'm not. The biggest enemy of Linux/FOSS should never have been in charge of the biggest repository of open source software.

[gtirloni]

> The biggest enemy of Linux/FOSS

Have they outdone Oracle? Impressive! :)

On a serious note, is your comment based on historical or recent events?

[tough]

For the historical you have all the EEE tactics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

For recent events, you could look at stuff how VSCode is supposedly Open Source and yet fully ridded with spyware and also propietary plugins...

On github, having MS at the realm has certainly affected too how DMCA's and such are deal with vs the old Github.

[gtirloni]

The VSCode situation could be improved but isn't there VSCodium to remediate that?

As for DMCA, I think you have to talk to the government officials about how badly it works.

Are there any other recent events that I'm forgetting that make MSFT the biggest enemy of FOSS?

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> The VSCode situation could be improved but isn't there VSCodium to remediate that?

That's a great example, actually, because they'd like you to think that VSCode is open source... but then if you actually use that you can't access a rather lot of the most useful extensions, which is a completely artificial limitation that appears to be there only to prevent people from actually using any fork.

[nyanpasu64]

VSCodium is specifically incompatible with Microsoft's proprietary extensions like SSH development, and now the official VS Code Python extension has now switched to a proprietary Pylance language server.

[teddyh]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29579994

[teddyh]

Also: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36492329>

[deciplex]

He gave you a recent event and you conceded the point then suggested he use something else.

And, DMCA is bad law but many companies make it worse in their overzealousness to "comply" with it.

[tough]

I also couldn't find sources to care to respond to him but I remember about some little terminal app which FOSS code was basically stolen by MS from the indie dev and then he was gaslighted about it. I can't find the source in reddit thanks to the going dark thing now lmao. Can't find it now, so maybe I hallucinated it better than some fine LLM's

If anyone else remembers this incident and can link to a source that'd be great for my sanity.

Maybe similar to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214257

I do have a love-hate relationship with MS, but I don't love the fact that they own 80% of my stack (Yes, I know, my choice) between TypeScript, VSCode, NPM, Github, etc..

Also on VSCodium, it only fixes the telemetry bullshit, the custom LSP Plugins that microsoft keeps for themselves or whatever are not available there. so If you want to use for example copilot or other -microsoft official- plugins you can't do so on VSCodium

Also let's add the whole Github Copilot WhiteWashing non-FOSS proprietary code into anyone to steal. Basically breaking the current status quo in favour of the megacorps that can steal it all and respect no licenses

[pentium166]

> If anyone else remembers this incident and can link to a source that'd be great for my sanity.

This incident was Casey Muratori raising an issue about Windows Terminal performance:

https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362

https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1522471966929653761

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1687287343&dateRange=custom&...

[ayewo]

You might have been thinking of AppGet which got killed by Microsoft's WinGet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23331287

[6c696e7578]

Couldn't find what you were looking for, but did find this one:

  https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/inside-story-how-microsofts-open-source-code-theft-was-discovered

[gtirloni]

> He gave you a recent event and you conceded the point then suggested he use something else.

Not really. It was a good point but it wasn't clearcut.

Of course I don't think the VScode situation is great but it's far from being "the biggest enemy of FOSS".

That's why I was wondering if there were any other recent events. I've not been keeping track, truly.

[tough]

I think there's enough recent events pointed by other commenters to at least be able to say with certain grade of truth to it that Microsoft isn't the biggest friend of FOSS as much as they pretend to be with stuff like WSL or whatever

[dingnuts]

It doesn't matter, the only difference between Nadella era and Ballmer or Gates era is marketing. It's the same Microsoft that it's always been.

[jacquesm]

> is your comment based on historical or recent events?

Why would I need to choose between those two? How about 'both'?

[hoherd]

FYI they also acquired NPM. https://itsfoss.com/microsoft-npm-acquisition

[EduardoBautista]

Microsoft earns a significant amount of money from hosting Linux servers and even makes contributions to the kernel.

How are they an enemy?

[orangepurple]

https://web.archive.org/web/20050922005808/http://news.zdnet...

https://web.archive.org/web/20180523190053/https://www.econo...

[arp242]

This is more than 20 years old...

[jacquesm]

So is Microsoft. And everybody that is currently controlling the company was there when this happened.

[arp242]

And? Are they still doing this kind of stuff or not? If they are, then it would be easy to come up with more recent examples.

[jacquesm]

Yes, they are still doing this kind of stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

What surprises me is that the tech crowd is so ready to bend over for one of the worst companies on the planet in the software domain. These are the very same people that abused the legal system in every way that they could in order to slow down the adoption rate of open source. They are still doing this today but quietly, for instance by incentivizing municipalities and other government layers to use their software (for free if necessary) just to stop adoption of equivalent open source solutions.