You can't just appreciate them for being reportedly the biggest commercial open source contributor, while still hating them for everything else? There surely is some nice, open source tools from Facebook and Google, that I use on a daily basis, but I trust those companies only as far as I can see them, too (which isn't all that far).
I don't care at all about Microsoft being the largest open source contributor. It doesn't change my opinion about them one bit. In fact, I use it against them because they constantly talk about it as if it were a big deal.
Microsoft and Microsoft fans just can't let their actions speak for themselves and allow opinions to change naturally. They just have to force themselves on developers and say "wow you don't love me, OKAY, I'll just buy the platforms and services you love so you'll have to love me". I know why they do this though - it's because Microsoft's history is akin to Sauron, Darth Vader, or Lord Voldemort. Microsoft's history is just comically evil and the only reason they've changed is because the landscape shifted in such a manner where Microsoft was FORCED to change. They aren't doing this from to bottom of their hearts and they don't deeply believe in the open source idea and spirit; they are only doing it because, by the grace of God, the internet became the place to do business and not the desktop.
Microsoft would still demand its pound of flesh from all of us if they could; and they'd still be a closed source firm that looked down upon people who believed that free, high quality open source tools were a win for society in general, and they sure as hell wouldn't have let go of Balmer. Microsoft and .NET developers with stockholm syndrome need to stop treating us as if we're dumb for not bending the knee before Redmond.
