[LAU] Some disturbing news

[David Kastrup]

Paul Davis <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> writes:

> They didn't kill Unix or Netscape, not in any way that matters to anyone
> who actually cared about them.
>
> To return to robin's point: GitHub is a very nicely done web interface
> to a git repository and the workflows around it. They could certainly
> mess that in up various ways. But .. you don't "kill" web interfaces
> to open source technology.  Anyone considering their options for git
> management still has several choices, some of which are self-hosted,
> some are hosted, some are both. MS might destroy GH or they might make
> it even more awesome, but there's basically nothing they can do in
> this domain to "kill" alternatives - just as with Linux, where their
> efforts to "kill" it (along with most/all of the applications that run
> on it) have completely failed.

Well, every year has been "next year will be the year of Linux on the
desktop" for 20 years at least, but it's still Microsoft who rules in
spite of EULAs and privacy agreements that have moved from insolent to
raving madness.

At the same point of time, one or two years ago was the first time that
the list of the 500 fastest supercomputers did not contain operating
systems other than Linux (or it was the top 100 slots, at any rate not
much of a distinction).  Android can be considered more successful than
Windows phones.  iPods remained more popular than Zunes.

I think their Xboxen still sell reasonably?  While their Surface tables
haven't taken off all that much.

At any rate, they have strongholds and not so strong holds.

Being owned by Microsoft will have technical consequences, but it will
also have legal consequences.  The usage conditions will become more and
more absurd and people will grit their teeth and continue while
Microsoft sells all their private data to whoever wants to pay for it.

-- 
David Kastrup