Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday April 21 2015, @05:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the dr-jekyll-or-mr-hyde dept.

Under Steve Ballmer's reign, Microsoft Open Technologies was founded as a subsidiary of Microsoft. It is now being shut down and folded into Microsoft under Satya Nadella. The subsidiary, staffed with an interoperability strategy team tasked with extending Redmond's open source initiatives, will be embraced back into into the mainstream of the company.

MS Open Tech's president Jean Paoli said "It's now time for MS Open Tech to rejoin Microsoft Corp., and help the company take its next steps in deepening its engagement with open source and open standards." Some claim that a separate subsidiary is no longer needed. Microsoft could easily be the world's biggest vendor of open source software, which is probably one reason some people don't like the term...

Paoli goes on to say:

Team members will play a broader role in the open advocacy mission with teams across the company," he said. "The Programs Office will scale the learnings and practices in working with open source and open standards that have been developed in MS Open Tech across the whole company. Additionally, the Microsoft Open Technology Programs Office will provide tools and services to help Microsoft teams and engineers engage directly with open source communities, create successful Microsoft open source projects, and streamline the process of accepting community contributions into Microsoft open source projects."

Roy Schestowitz at TechRights has a different view of MSFT's recent actions:

"Not much as changed except pretense (face change).

Microsoft dumps its proxy (misleadingly named 'Open Tech') and other attacks on Free software persist from the inside, often through so-called 'experts' whose agenda is to sell proprietary software

Microsoft's long-term assault on GNU/Linux is in some ways worse than ever before. Changing Ballmer's face with another is about as effective as swapping Bush for Obama. Things are only getting worse, even if it's branded differently. The attacks on users' rights (DRM, blobs, spying) have exacerbated. It's just not as visible as before (like the infamous "Get the Facts" marketing campaign), it's more subtle or altogether covert.

There are concrete sign of Microsoft's strategy to destroy FOSS from the inside (entryism) not quite succeeding, which leads to a Plan B, like infecting Android with proprietary spyware, controlling GNU/Linux through Azure, etc.

"For Microsoft, "Open Tech" shutting down is somewhat symbolic, even poetic.""So," some people ask, "what's new at the 'new' Microsoft?"

There's nothing new except worsening levels of aggression.

So how should this new move be viewed?

Is Microsoft bringing the subsidiary in-house to more fully integrate open source in view of a challenging market landscape, or are they surreptitiously trying to take down the open source world from within, using their old tactics?

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:11AM

    by arashi no garou (2796) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:11AM (#173783)

    I actually assume nothing about you.

    If that were true, why the comparison to a fractured relationship? Where is the basis for that? No, you assumed incorrectly that I'm somehow beholden to Microsoft and you built a logical fallacy around it that doesn't hold up. You attempted to belittle me by comparing me to a "poor clueless battered woman" (to paraphrase you) and it didn't work, so now you claim that you didn't assume anything. Backpedaling like that doesn't become you.

    Clearly I touched a nerve, but I am at a loss to figure out what it could be.

    You did, and you've made it clear throughout this conversation that you are indeed clueless, so let's take Microsoft out of the picture for a moment. Let's look at something like systemd. There are those vehemently opposed to it, and those who accept and use it daily with glee. Two extremes, right? But is there room for people who don't care about it one way or the other, and is there room for yet other people who may not like what it represents but can accept that it likely has a permanent foothold in the future of GNU/Linux? Of course there is. Anyone who feels that you must either love or hate systemd with no middle ground is obviously blinding themselves to the reality that the world isn't black or white. Now, I have no idea how you feel about systemd, but I can tell you how I feel. I'm very wary of it, I don't like the politics surrounding it so I've stuck with Slackware as an easy way to stay out of it. Lately I've been trying out Antergos to get a feel for it and see if my opinion might change.

    And that's where my nerve is struck: You have made it clear you are simply unwilling to accept that Microsoft could ever do something good; your mind is already made up and you are blind and deaf to any other possibility. That is bordering on a religious fervor, and it's a dangerous position to take. If you shut out the concept that something even might happen, you'll never believe it when it does happen, even if it's staring you in the face. I'm not saying Microsoft is suddenly a great company doing great things. All I've ever said is that they seem to be trying to improve, and you, gewg, FatPhil and everyone else plugging your ears and screaming "nah nah nah I can't hear you" doesn't make that any less true and only makes you appear shortsighted and single minded.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by hubie on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:56AM

    by hubie (1068) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:56AM (#173810) Journal

    From my mere statement of once bitten, twice shy, or fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me (or whichever flavor of that idiom you prefer), you have exposed me as the rapscallion I am and have laid bare my dangerous religious fervor. I concede all points to you and I will retire from this discussion. I don't have the fortitude to discover what other unnamed evils lurk within my soul that would be betrayed by a few more utterances from me. À chacun son goût.

    Since you will not help me improve myself and you refuse to point out or even address the flames and blind hatred in my original post [soylentnews.org] that set fire to this tinder, I will have to end it here, but I will not get the opportunity to learn what it was I said in that post that garnered your virulent malevolence.