Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2019 15:12:12 +0100
From: Michael Meskes <meskes@postgresql.org>
To: Justin Clift <justin@postgresql.org>
Cc: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com>,
	"Tsunakawa, Takayuki" <tsunakawa.takay@jp.fujitsu.com>,
	"'pgsql-advocacy@lists.postgresql.org'" <pgsql-advocacy@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Citus Data becomes Microsoft
Message-ID: <20190126141212.GA672@fritz.box>
References: <201901251516.m76emdb6ek2p@alvherre.pgsql>
 <86a17d2b6efb86bf7ebd7cf385981e79@postgresql.org>
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On Sat, Jan 26, 2019 at 09:46:34AM +1100, Justin Clift wrote:
> This conversation is bordering on bizarre. ;)

Would you care to tell us why? 

> On the one hand, they're been making inroads to OSS - after finally
> realising OSS really is a more effective better development model than
> proprietary (in most cases).  On the other hand, they're still pulling
> whatever unethical crap they feel is in their best interests, and only
> getting away with it either due to the law being slow or their qty of
> lawyers:
> 
>   * Forced upgrades of Windows (seems mostly over now?)
>   * Forcing telemetry on all users.  Still happening.
> 
>     Note - If you reckon them being told (literally) every time their
>     users click the start menu isn't a gross violation of personal
>     privacy, I reckon that's just weird.  Some people seem ok with it,
>     but personally I don't even have words to describe just how far
>     wrong that is. :(

Does this one bad behaviour make them an evil organisation per se? One could
also see this is one more step to go. There are indeed very positive
MS interactions with OSS communities.

Besides I don't see your point as far as this group is involved. 

> If you're ok with the PostgreSQL Community falling under the influence
> of this kind of organisation, then sure, that's you're opinion.

I might have missed quite a few discussions, could you please point me to some
where Microsoft has tried to get PostgreSQL under its influence as opposed to
work with the community?

> I **really** don't want us to have anything to do with them though.
> They're likely to invest in areas that make sense (which *seems* good),
> but will happily screw us over in whatever ways - and make noises to
> the opposite effect - that seem to their best interests.
> 
> Are they unique in this aspect?  Hell no.

Quite a few more companies in the larger PostgreSQL ecosystem come to mind that
seem to be worse than Microsoft from what I experienced. At least I
have never seen Microsoft work actively against the PostgreSQL community.
 
> > Microsoft today doesn't seem Microsoft 20 years ago.
> 
> As per above, they don't seem different at all.

I would strongly disagree. There is certainly a huge difference. Have they
finished their turnaround? Probably not. But their actions are way better for
open open source than 20 years ago. 

Michael
-- 
Michael Meskes
Michael at Fam-Meskes dot De, Michael at Meskes dot (De|Com|Net|Org)
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