> Gotta hand it to Microsoft. Behind the times on web dev for so long, now busting out open source left and right, ....
Open Source is not just about opening up some source code, it is also about how you act in the larger interests of the community. Just earlier this month, Microsoft sued Kyocera over patents on Android. Microsoft has sued every Android phone maker so far, and have forced some of them to make Windows phones. Their position on Linux infringing unspecified patents has not changed or been clarified.
Microsoft is playing the Open Source game because they really have no choice. Open Source has thrived and will thrive without them. Microsoft doesn't deserve our attention until they stop abusing patents.
Forest, meet trees. MS is a very large company with divergent groups given KPI's that turn into seemingly contradictory actions.
It's the Kabuki theater of patent suing in order to eventually end up at a table finding a way to forge ahead "together." It's something the large IP players have all been doing on the long tail of the IP consolidation wars.
IP royalty harvesting is separate enough from the open source efforts that it's picking nits a bit.
MS is growing open source because players and groups have beaten the drum to get there and the lumbering giant has shifted. The seeds planted years ago are bearing fruit.
You can sing the war song, but Open has won. Glory be! Nobody is looking for everyone to jump into Azure as if it were the latest awesome distro because a bunch of core dev tools, frameworks, and open-friendly advances have happened, but on the current trajectory, we will see the old walls of our discontent torn down by those who built them.
You get enough .net devs to come out of their caves and you could be wading through as many "MS + my favorite open source project" posts as not... and the communities, overlapping into harmony, will have bigger upsides for both than downsides.
It's becoming an increasingly good time to be a developer. When those you hate become undifferentiated from yourself, do you grow to hate yourself or to love the one you hated?
Open Source is not just about opening up some source code, it is also about how you act in the larger interests of the community. Just earlier this month, Microsoft sued Kyocera over patents on Android. Microsoft has sued every Android phone maker so far, and have forced some of them to make Windows phones. Their position on Linux infringing unspecified patents has not changed or been clarified.
Microsoft is playing the Open Source game because they really have no choice. Open Source has thrived and will thrive without them. Microsoft doesn't deserve our attention until they stop abusing patents.