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Even as it embraces open source, Microsoft is shaking down the Android and Linux communities for patent licenses. Will the real Microsoft please stand up? Don't think of Microsoft as a single entity, but as an ant hill, where individuals seem to be moving at random
... but drop a piece of meat nearby, and you'll see them act as one. We are the meat.
(I heard this back in 2000, and it's always stuck with me. I wish I could credit the philosopher.)
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I always liked the cartoon that said, 'if you can't tell what the product is, you are the product'...it had some pigs in barn thinking how great it was to get the free accommodation. They were referring to Faceberg and Tweeter.
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blablabla...
don't Apple, Google, Samsung, etc... (and our patent troll friends!) do the exact same thing?
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Well, Apple just never open sources anything (okay, Swift, but nothing really otherwise). But yeah, as with everything else, Microsoft is always held to a different scale.
TTFN - Kent
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And LLVM, and Webkit, but apart from that nothing.
(Although webkit forked KHTML, so they would have no choice).
(A bit more investigation revealed LLVM started at the University of Illinois, so I suspect they had little choice there either).
OK, in that case Apple never open source anything (except Swift).
Of course, Swift is itself based on LLVM, so maybe they couldn't escape that one either.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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If Apple doesn’t comply with the court order requiring it to weaken the security on the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, it may be asked to hand over the source code to the entire operating system instead, the Department of Justice has implied. "Every man should know that his conversations, his correspondence, and his personal life are private."
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Compliance will put the company in a tailspin and they will go out of buisness from lack of trust.
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ledtech3 wrote: Compliance will put the company in a tailspin and they will go out of buisness from lack of trust.
While that would certainly be a shame - for me the bigger issues are:
0) The precedent that even in times of peace the US government can force companies to perform duties for the government.
1) Smart phones (all of them since this will certainly bleed over to the others) will become even less secure to hackers and thieves.
It's almost unimaginable to me that the US government is being so short sighted with its demands. Word is they're going after Facebook (WhatsApp) now over encryption.
There are two types of people in this world: those that pronounce GIF with a soft G, and those who do not deserve to speak words, ever.
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What about the women? 
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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It appears that no company that relies on its Intellectual Property remaining private can afford to do business in the U.S. anymore.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Hmmmm. It seems like the FBI have pulled out the nuclear option now.
Such a demand would make the initial one seem like dinner, roses and chocolate with lovemaking compared to being raped in a dirty alley as the current one could reasonably be compared against.
I'm fairly naiive in such matters, but didn't the title "The artist formerly known as Prince" allow said artist to wriggle out of contractual obligations? What if the company as we know it was to fall on its own sword an re-emerge with a name that makes it clear of their origins.
Perhaps something like "Not an FBI Apple" or "The Apple the FBI didn't steal" (Anyone reading this can surely come up with an infinitely more clever suggestion)
Basically, off-shore the company and setup child companies in the US that simply provide shop-front and programming services to the parent company. All keys could be held by the parent company and be inaccessible to the child companies, whether they be located in the US or elsewhere. The tax all goes elsewhere, surely you could leverage a similar structure to keep IP out of the continent too?
I mean, the publicly visible FBI budget is about 8.5 billion and the net worth of Apple is about 700 billion. Surely a pi55ing match's outcome depends somewhat on the size of one's pockets?
If not, well - capitulation is going to be one hell of a bitter (and expensive, brand-wise) pill to swallow. Better get some popcorn either way.
modified 14-Mar-16 6:21am.
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Former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer once considered Linux users a bunch of communist thieves and saw open source itself as a cancer on Microsoft's intellectual property. But no more. It's 'the good kind of cancer?'
But then again, maybe he realized it's THE YEAR OF LINUX
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Surely a man to follow...
Quote: Microsoft's shares lost 40 percent of their value during Ballmer's 14-year tenure.
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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 And they stayed flat around USD30 during his tenure as well. Now they're over USD50.
TTFN - Kent
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Thinking of cancer, I think if Microsoft can get it to be fixed, it would be immortal! — Or maybe that's what Deadpool taught me.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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A botched security fix released for the Java software framework 30 months ago has left millions of users vulnerable to attacks that Oracle had claimed were no longer possible, a security researcher said. Oracle missed being in the headlines?
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As Bill Gates once ably put it, “measuring software productivity by lines of code is like measuring progress on an airplane by how much it weighs.” Faults per fortnight?
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Like any business practice, Agile has evolved and matured in directions the original 17 signatories never imagined. Assuming you feel it once was
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Grumpy Duncan's summarised Agile rant:
1) Agile is not about software, it is about team work (if you have 1 dev you are not Agile - if you have 50 you aren't either.. a team fits in a Land Rover with bench seats)
2) Agile is supposed to predicate retrospectives in which we analyse how the last sprint went (with metrics) and talk about how to improve the next sprint. This should mean that agile itself also evolves - so what it was a decade ago is not what it is now.
3) Before agile we were in a truly terrible place. Software projects were bringing companies to their knees. We aren't in the Elysian fields yet but we also are not where we were - Agile had a part in that.
4) Companies making a big deal of being Agile should be regarded with the same suspicion as you would give to hospitals making a big deal of hand washing. If it works it should be self evident and just done - if it doesn't we should have stopped talking about it by now.
5) Bad processes can't make good product. Bad people can't sustain good processes. Therefore if you have "transformation" money to spend - spend it in HR.
Sunday caveat: I have been drinking
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Duncan Edwards Jones wrote: a team fits in a Land Rover with bench seats
YUS!!! I've seen many companies implement "agile" with no real concept of what a team is. I think this practical approach speaks wisdom. 
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Your browser’s private or incognito mode can be useful for many reasons, but you should always know what it is and isn’t hiding. For when you're browsing "personal" sites
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If you've been coding for any length of time, you've met at least one mustached fellow riding a fixie and wearing skinny jeans who won't stop talking about Swift. Turns out that's a real stereotype. For the male programmers anyway
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