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We had two Soylentils submit stories on Microsoft's joining the Eclipse Foundation:
Eclipse Foundation Gains Member
Coincident with a solar eclipse, Microsoft Corp. has joined the Eclipse Foundation. The company has also made its Team Explorer Everywhere software, "the official TFS [Team Foundation Server] plug-in for Eclipse," available in source form under an MIT-style licence.
coverage:
- Ars Technica
- Tech Crunch
- The Register (Cloudflare-protected)
- Infoworld
- ZDNet
- Network World
- The Inquirer
- CIO
- Fortune
- WinBeta (Cloudflare-protected)
[Continues.]
MSFT is Sinking its Claws Into the Eclipse Foundation
from the openwashing dept.
TechRights reports
Microsoft is Turning Eclipse Into a Proprietary Software Tool by Sinking its Claws Into the Eclipse Foundation
Microsoft is spreading proprietary software and surveillance, extorting Linux with software patents, and [...] contaminating FOSS frameworks--all in less than a single day
Less than a day after the latest "loves Linux" nonsense, we begin to see puff pieces, e.g. [1, 2, 3], which seem more like Microsoft advertisements than actual journalism. No critical thinking, no background/research, no fact-checking. Nothing. Just parroting Microsoft's marketing/propaganda.
"Microsoft today announced that it is joining the Eclipse Foundation," one 'journalist' wrote, "the open source group that's probably best known for its Eclipse IDE, but which also offers a number of other developer tools."
This is "embrace, extend, extinguish", for reasons we already explained in [...] past articles.
[...] Eclipse is actually against software patents, which Microsoft uses against Linux even this week. What was the leadership of Eclipse thinking here? That Microsoft has changed? That there's a 'new' Microsoft? No such thing, it's all marketing/reputation laundering.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday March 11 2016, @02:50PM
that's ok though because java is a proprietary language
Excuse me? Did Oracle close Sun's source when I wasn't looking?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Friday March 11 2016, @06:05PM
Java has always been "sorta closed". This is why BEA and IBM had their own implementations. This is why OpenJDK tried to make a cleanroom implementation (which is not quite compatible). And this is why Oracle sued Google over Android's API.
Supposedly Google is going to switch to OpenJDK, I will believe it when I see it. OpenJDK is a good idea, but stuff will break left and right.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday March 11 2016, @09:08PM
In my dictionary "95% open but you just need the blessing of the parent organization" does not make something "proprietary." Maybe it doesn't make you No True Scotsman open-source, but is this really a razor-edge dichotomy? Hell, apparently the open majority is even GPL.
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2011/11/13/open_sourcing_java_five_year_anniversary/ [theregister.co.uk]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday March 11 2016, @09:12PM
Ah crap. Copied the wrong URL.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/13/open_sourcing_java_five_year_anniversary/ [theregister.co.uk]
(And yeah I'm aware the article is from 2011.)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday March 14 2016, @05:55PM
I agree with you. I think the problem is thinking in this binary "open source vs closed source" terms. Java's model is somewhere in the middle.
And I am perfectly fine with this. Having the backing of big companies keeps it at least somewhat closed, while also giving it enough market push to be a major force. It might not be very fast on updates, but it isn't abandonware either. What is the appropriate amount of "openness" depends on the project. I think this suits Java perfectly.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh