Microsoft President Brad Smith Acknowledges They Were Previously Wrong On Open-Source

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  • JustinTurdeau
    replied
    Originally posted by mdedetrich View Post
    People who are saying that Microsoft should release Office to open source to justify anything are deluded.

    You can't just open source code, the entirety of the source needs to be reviewed for any patents/IP and in software as large as Office this may be practically impossible. Microsoft would have to do a clean room implementation of office with engineers who never touched the current office codebase (and even then that might not cut it).

    This is why Microsoft's new products (i.e. Visual Studio Code) are open source, they were started from scratch by separate independent teams.

    Same problem with NVidia not releasing their driver to be open source btw.
    Most people saying "make Office open source or gtfo" are just being facetious, but the points about Microsoft working against standards and going to great lengths to make their formats opaque and non-interoperable are still very valid.

    Microsoft are most definitely not acting in good faith when it comes to open source. It's so clear as day that I seriously have to question the motives (or mental faculties) of anyone stating otherwise...
    Last edited by JustinTurdeau; 15 May 2020, 01:52 PM.

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  • mdedetrich
    replied
    People who are saying that Microsoft should release Office to open source to justify anything are deluded.

    You can't just open source code, the entirety of the source needs to be reviewed for any patents/IP and in software as large as Office this may be practically impossible. Microsoft would have to do a clean room implementation of office with engineers who never touched the current office codebase (and even then that might not cut it).

    This is why Microsoft's new products (i.e. Visual Studio Code) are open source, they were started from scratch by separate independent teams.

    Same problem with NVidia not releasing their driver to be open source btw.

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  • Vistaus
    replied
    Originally posted by jacob View Post

    IMHO if there is one thing we DON'T need on Linux, it's proprietary, lock-in, subscription-based ransomware office software. Rather than releasing MS Office for Linux I wish they simply released the full documentation (not just the XML schema, but the nitty gritty implementation details) of the OOXML formats.
    "WE"? Speak for yourself. I, for one, welcome MS Office for Linux.

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  • Cyberax
    replied
    Originally posted by lowlands View Post
    IIRC it is a gigantic frankencontainer just like they are doing with WSL. Nothing native. Last time I looked there wasn't an RPM repository so you can install with $ sudo dnf install mssql-server.rpm
    It's not really a container. They refactored most of the MSSQL code to use a special platform abstraction layer, and then implemented this layer for Linux and Windows. So even MSSQL for Windows now works similarly to Linux.

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  • Nocifer
    replied
    Originally posted by TemplarGR View Post

    The hilarious part is that it is exactly the opposite, Closed Source is the communist cancer equivalent and Open Source is liberty, free market, and democracy.
    Closed Source is the equivalent of a system advocating equal rights and equal ownership of goods for the benefit of everyone, while Open Source is the equivalent of a system advocating a dog eat dog society where people only care about beating the competition by any means possible (e.g. patents or, surprise surprise, hiding their product's "secret sauce" behind closed source) and don't give a single f*ck about other people's benefit, unless that benefit happens to coincide with their own (e.g. it can make them more money).

    Yeah, right. Don't you people ever get tired of spouting the same ol'?

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  • fuzz
    replied
    Originally posted by zexelon View Post
    But yah... come on, they apparently have MS SQL for Linux now (not sure how stripped down it might be)
    It's not stripped down at all. You can run it in a docker container right now.

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  • lowlands
    replied
    Microsoft was forced by their customers to support Linux. Initially Azure was Win-only (what a surprise) but customer demand for Linux changed that. Years ago at an OpenStack Summit I spoke with a Microsoft engineer who told me he was part of a team responsible for a large OpenStack deployment. So who knows, (part of) Azure might even be Linux+OpenStack based. Reality forced them to revisit their narrow view of the IT landscape and renounce their Linux=cancer views.

    When looking at how Microsoft "embraced" Linux and Open Source it's important to follow the money. Anything they Open Source (with a lot of PR) seems non-threatening to their core business, to defend their core business (Win10+WSL+VScode to prevent devs from using Linux/Mac), is a ramp to SaaS lock-in (anything AI/ML/Serverless) or it's aimed at keeping up with AWS.

    So it just seems business as usual and nothing they do should be viewed as gifts from Santa. Buyer beware.

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  • JustinTurdeau
    replied
    Originally posted by bug77 View Post
    Was that anything Ballmer got right as MS CEO? I mean, anything?
    He's quite good at making himself into a meme.

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  • JustinTurdeau
    replied
    Originally posted by kpedersen View Post
    Does Microsoft have ADHD or just a hyperactive kid with an extremely low attention span and no real care.
    They just follow the $$$. Hence why Windows 10 is basically data-mining malware.

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  • torsionbar28
    replied
    Originally posted by LubosD View Post
    What's going unnoticed is that while Microsoft is definitely opening up, Apple is doing the exact opposite.
    Microsoft is opening up like NVidia is opening up. It's nothing but marketing fluff and inconsequential side projects. The only things Microsoft is opening, are bits that allow a Windows OS user to interact more easily with a Linux server. SSH support for example. Microsoft has conceded the internet server space to Linux, they know they've been roundly defeated there. So they *have* to make it easier for a developer on Windows to interact with a Linux web server. Otherwise the devs all flee to OSX or Linux on the desktop. Most devs I know already have switched to Macbook Pros. In essence, the few bits Microsoft is "opening up" are purely to help Microsoft maintain their stranglehold on the desktop.

    What they are NOT opening up, and what they never will, are the bits that allow non-Microsoft OS users to interact more easily with Microsoft stuff. I'm talking about things like NTFS, Proprietary Office file formats, network protocols for talking with Exchange, or Sharepoint, or AD. These are the things that would allow Linux to replace Windows on the desktop. It is these closed bits that give Microsoft leverage through vendor lock-in, forcing Windows on the desktop. Linux on the corporate desktop won't ever happen without these bits. Microsoft knows this, and will never ever open these bits up. The only reason you even need Exchange or Sharepoint or AD, is to support Windows desktops. If the desktop ever goes to Linux, the supporting services will too, and it's lights out for Microsoft. So even here in 2020, the corporate desktop is the cornerstone of Microsoft's entire business.
    Last edited by torsionbar28; 15 May 2020, 11:14 AM.

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