[eastbound]

> Why would I contribute free dev work to a billion dollar corporation?

The billion dollars company contributed more to your startup than you do to them. Microsoft provides:

- VSCode,

- Hosts all NPM repositories. You know, the ones small startups are too lazy to cache (also because it’s much harder to cache NPM repositories than Maven) and then you re-download them at each build,

- Typescript

[wkat4242]

Meh it depends whether you use those things of course. There's other IDEs, other languages. And Microsoft isn't doing this out of charity. A lot of the really useful plugins are not working on the open source version, so people that use them provide telemetry which is probably valuable. Or they use it as a gateway to their services like GitHub Copilot.

If a mega corporation gives you something for free it's always more beneficial to them otherwise they wouldn't do it in the first place.

[eastbound]

So, no OSS contribution is valid unless you are using this very library?

Did Microsoft contribute more to the OSS world, or did the OSS world contribute more to Microsoft? I pardon Microsoft because they have donated Typescript, which is a true civilizational progress. You could say the OSS world has contributed to Microsoft because they’ve given them a real OS, which they didn’t have inner expertise to develop. We’re even.

Now you sound like you have a beef against large companies and would find any argument against them. Some guy once told me that I didn’t increase my employees by 30% out of benevolence, but because I must be an awful employer. See, why else would I increase employees.

This behavior is actively harmful to the rest of the world. You are depriving good actions from a “thank you” and hence you are depriving recipients of good actions from more of them. With this attitude, the world becomes exactly like you project it to be: Shitty.

[bgwalter]

The open source ecosystem was perfect before Microsoft tried to meddle, assimilate and destroy.

Microsoft has destroyed several open source projects by infiltrating them with mediocre MSFT employees.

Microsoft bought the GitHub monopoly in order to control open source further. Microsoft then stole and violated the copyright by training "AI" on the GitHub open source.

Microsoft finances influential open source organizations like OSI in order to make them more compliant and business friendly.

The useful projects are tiny compared to the entire open source stack. Paying for NPM repositories is a goodwill gesture and another power grab.

[wkat4242]

> So, no OSS contribution is valid unless you are using this very library?

You said Microsoft contributes to my start-up. That's only true if we actually use it.

> Now you sound like you have a beef against large companies and would find any argument against them.

I certainly have beef with Microsoft in particular yes. And most big tech. I work a lot with Microsoft people and they're always trying to get us to do things that benefits them and not us (and I hate the attitude of a mere supplier trying to tell us what to do). Always trying to get us to evangelize their stuff which is mostly mediocre, dumping constant rebranding campaigns on us etc.

I'm not looking for arguments but I do hate the mega corporations and I don't believe in any benevolence on their side. I think the world would be much better off without them. They have way too much influence on the world. They should have none, after all they are not people and can't vote.

I also don't appreciate their contributions to eg Linux and OpenStreetMap. There's always ulterior motives. Like giving running on their cloud a step up, embedding their own IP like RedHat/IBM do (and Canonical always tries but fails at). Most of the contributions are from big tech now. I don't believe in a 'win/win' scenario involving corporations.

But I'm very much against unbridled capitalism and neoliberalism yes. I think it causes most of what's wrong with this world, from unequal distribution of wealth, extreme pollution, wars (influenced by the MIC) etc. Even the heavy political polarisation. The feud between the democrats and republicans is really just a proxy war for big corporate interests. Running a campaign requires so much trouble that it's no longer possible with a real grassroots movement.

But anyway this is my opinion. Take it as it is or don't. You have the right to you own opinions of course! I'm aware my opinion isn't very nuanced.

> This behavior is actively harmful to the rest of the world. You are depriving good actions from a “thank you” and hence you are depriving recipients of good actions from more of them.

Nah. Microsoft doesn't care what I think. I'm nothing but an ant on the floor to them.

Besides, they are doing this for reasons. The thank you isn't one of them. Hosting npm is peanuts for a big cloud provider, just advertising really. And it gives them a lot of metrics about the usage of libraries and from where. And VS Code, I'm sure they had a discussion about "what's in it for us in the long term" with some big envisioned benefits. You don't start a big project without that.

With most of their other products it's more clear. Like edge, they clearly made this to lock corporate customers further into their ecosystem (it can be deeply locked down which corporate IT loves because they enjoy playing BOFH) and for customers for upselling to their services. It's not better than Google's, they just replaced Google's online services with their own.