Techrights

Giving Control to Microsoft is Always a Dire, Huge Mistake

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 14, 2024

Minecraft creator Notch says his billions have made him miserable

THE previous short article mentioned how Microsoft sabotages things it takes over, sometimes even pays to buy (sometimes, assuming it cannot infiltrate and take over from the inside like it did with OpenAI). Remember what it did to Mojang, Minecraft, and its founder, Markus Persson, who dissented strongly and openly objected to what Microsoft had done. He basically got 'blacklisted' by his own creation (like ESR and OSI).

Microsoft is known for buying things and sabotaging things, not for creating things. Many people wrongly assume that Microsoft created some things (which later turn out to have actually been acquired).

There's this new video ("Louis loses mind on vocal minority of FOSS cancer") and, quoting a comment from it: "Many FOSS programs have been infiltrated and are being slowly sabotaged and or pushed into forcing people to move to windows 10. This is a literal cyber war going on that most people have no clue exists."

But "normalizing the payment for software is different from 'selling' software," an associate reminds us, "one of the reasons Microsoft steers the conversation to cost is because free giveaways are part of their long term tactics."

Has LibreOffice paid any attention?

Fortunately, some people "get it". Sadly, however, even almost 50 years later, many people still don't understand Microsoft. They also refuse to learn from the mistakes of others. Microsoft is a clinically sociopathic company. █

"He [Bill Gates] acted like a spoiled kid, which is what he was."

-Ed Roberts, Gates' employer at MITS in the 1970's (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 04-27-97)