But he’s not the CEO any longer and he hasn’t been for years. So why is what he did more than a decade ago relevant absent of evidence that he has any direct control of the company today?
One CEO doesn't make an evil empire. Bad influence remains. Many evil minions that were forged from Bill Gates and then Steve Ballmer are still in the company. And ontop of this, Microsoft is still a big money-driven Company, so some natural evilness is always there.
Microsoft has become better in the last years, but they still do bad things. So why should people trust the wholeheartly?
Many developers and entrepreneurs had numerous very bad experiences with the Microsoft of the 1990s-2000s and you're expecting them to just move on like nothing happened?
Remember Microsoft tried to kill the internet and could have succeeded if it wasn't for the efforts of many, the US DOJ included, to prevent them from obtaining total control through their operating system monopoly.
I'm not saying they're like that today, but that's why some people get all on-edge when Microsoft does things like this.