[lectrick]

But were those companies ever openly hostile towards open-source? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish and http://techrights.org/2010/09/17/microsoft-management-mocks-... and many other examples abound.

I mean... It's nice that they're trying to "come clean," now, and all. But it's sort of like a criminal who was never punished now claiming to be legit because he's seen the light... and there's PLENTY of us out there still who still feel wronged by the past.

[mwfunk]

Companies aren't monolithic entities, MS has tens of thousands of employees. Just because the upper level of the upper level of upper level management (which is a different group of people than engineering) might have been hostile towards it years ago doesn't mean that everyone there agreed with that stance, and it doesn't mean that that management culture has persisted to the present day.

Ultimately the only thing that matters are actions, not the human personality traits that people project onto anthropomorphized corporations. I'm sure there are plenty of people there now that are anti-OSS, and pro-OSS, and everything in between. It doesn't matter. All that matters at the end of the day is what software is released and how that software is licensed.

[lectrick]

> Just because the upper level of the upper level of upper level management (which is a different group of people than engineering) might have been hostile towards it years ago doesn't mean that everyone there agreed with that stance, and it doesn't mean that that management culture has persisted to the present day.

Fallacy of composition?

> Ultimately the only thing that matters are actions

Which were terrible. MAYBE they are better NOW. :P

> not the human personality traits that people project onto anthropomorphized corporations

So corporations are run by computers, I take it?

> anti-OSS

This position is literally irrational UNLESS you are a profit-making entity that considers OSS a threat to your own for-profit business model.