Microsoft forms open-source subsidiary

[Snowhog]

I have begun to sew the seeds of mass KFN conversion... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seeds have to be sewn on fertile ground to have any chance of sprouting. And, the seeds have to be viable. Me thinks that on both counts, your potential crop hasn't a chance! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[SteveRiley]

Ncurses! Xfoiled again!

(...off to find a better metaphor...)

[bsniadajewski]

BTW, you all remember my origins, correct? You do realize what I'm now beginning to do here. I have begun to sew the seeds of mass KFN conversion... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

At least some of us still dual-boot (in my triple-boot, with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 with GS, may try to install Ubuntu with Unity on a spare partition some time around release time with the minimal CD I have).

[Ole Juul]

@Ole Juul: I hope you mean MS-DOS, and not just any DOS?

Of course, that's the company we're talking about. However I do run PC-DOS 2.0 as well as have collections of PC-DOS 1.0 and up - and some other odd varieties. Nevertheless, I'm only half joking because I stopped upgrading and buying new MS products partly because I thought that MS-DOS 6.22 was the pinnacle of their work. I really didn't like where the company started going after that.

Sorry, but I've seen too many lies and manipulation by Microsoft. Maybe this is a good initiative, but for me it will take quite some time to believe them. In the blog SteveRiley links too the Microsoft-guy gives three examples of languages Microsoft has worked on with other people/companies/organizations. One of them is HTML5. Maybe the writer of that blog doesn't know it, but Microsoft has refused time after time to join the working group/mailing list about HTML5.

That's an excellent example.

As far as 'engaging' with the standardization committees, the memory of their OOXML debacle is still fresh in my mind, as is their subversion of the European Open Source Software Standards report, to name just a couple.

Those situations were so antisocial and abhorrent that I don't believe they can ever be forgiven.

I don't say it's absolutely impossible Microsoft is starting to behave differently.

I do.

I guess no one caught my joke, my play on the quoted typo ... guess I'll go out in the backyard and eat worms ...

I got it. Anyway, I don't like worms but I solved that problem long ago by not getting up early.

[Qqmike]

Good one, Ole Juul! :-)

[GreyGeek]

I agree with SteveRiley about Google and Apple. Personally I think Apple is at the moment even worse than Microsoft. And I'm really starting to dislike Google. Even as a search engine I'm starting to distrust it with all those secret clicking algorithms etc.

Google is beginning to really mess up its search algorithm lately. Last night I had a tornado pass by about 1/2 mile away, close enough to get the heavy winds and some hail. This afternoon I went searching for two person underground tornado shelters. I had to wade through 3 or 4 pages of ad listings and disjointed relationships to my question before I began noticing pertinent information. Before it was only the first 10 or so listings which were ads pretending to be answers to the search question and all I had to do was drop to the bottom of the page and began surfing. Today it seemed my queries only returned links to Ask.com and a ton of commercial sites, along with stories about recent tornadoes. So, I took the same question to DuckDuckGo and the first and all subsequent pages were treasure troves of pertinent links.

I don't say it's absolutely impossible Microsoft is starting to behave differently. For a part they just have to, like with html and css. But after all these lousy actions of Microsoft for me it's: show it, and then I will start believing it. If you break into my house for ten times, I'm not opening the door myself the eleventh time I see you.

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

.....
But think about this for a moment. Google is losing its charm because of its flagrant violation of "Do no evil." Apple, while popular, is probably at the pinnacle of evilness right now (predatory patent behavior). Amazon remains aloof. Dare I say it -- is Microsoft demonstrating a hint of a whisper of a shadow of becoming cool again, at least in a few places? Something to ponder...

It was the evil and infighting of the Unix competitors that gave Microsoft its opportunity. Is history repeating itself?

[rms]

BTW, you all remember my origins, correct? You do realize what I'm now beginning to do here. I have begun to sew the seeds of mass KFN conversion... BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Even if that is the case, I can stand the "conversion" with a good-natured smile...

[Goeroeboeroe]

<offtopic>GreyGeek, I use in Firefox the extension OptimizeGoogle. Among other things it blocks ads in Google. And now I'm thinking 370 very bad words. I wanted to put the link here, but looking for the link I saw they stopped making it. Google was too fast changing things, so the extension was getting too far behind. Now I'm going to get those ads too. Time to really switch to DuckDuckgo or so, I guess.</offtopic and end of bad words>

[SecretCode]

I can't help thinking that Jean Paoli's blog entry was released 11 days later than it was supposed to be ...

[GreyGeek]

<offtopic>GreyGeek, I use in Firefox the extension OptimizeGoogle. Among other things it blocks ads in Google. And now I'm thinking 370 very bad words. I wanted to put the link here, but looking for the link I saw they stopped making it. Google was too fast changing things, so the extension was getting too far behind. Now I'm going to get those ads too. Time to really switch to DuckDuckgo or so, I guess.</offtopic and end of bad words>

Well, I hate to admit it, but my Google search problem was probably a brain fart. Somehow I had set Google's search to a limited subset of "something" (I don't remember doing it) and when I clicked the "Everything" link I got the full listing again. My bad. BTW, if you see my brain walking by will you tell it to go home, I need it badly.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Oh no! I'm on an age myself I can use an extra pair of brains myself! Especially brains like yours!