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> acquire that goodwill and monetize it

Embrace

Extend <-- here

Extinguish




Uh, what's the extend that has happened since microsoft bought github?

Do you mean copilot? I would not classify that as extending anything. It's just a thing they made.

"Monetizing goodwill" is not an extend.


Of course that's "extending." It's a very clever attack on open source generally.


But it's not open source specific. Not in creation and definitely not in use.

And the idea of the extend of EEE applying to all of open source at once, the way you could apply to a product or a standard or a protocol, doesn't really make sense.


You're thinking way too narrowly. EEE doesn't require a specific plan -- if you look at the history of Microsoft engaging in EEE, you can see it's been much more experimental than you're suggesting.

It's basically Microsoft saying "Here is a thing that looks like it might in some way eventually be a threat to our business model and/or we can make some money off of it -- let's get our hooks in now and see what happens, we have the money to do it."


But again, copilot does not get their hooks into open source any more than it gets their hooks into code in general. And they're not doing EEE against "code".

EEE doesn't need a specific plan but it does need some kind of target standard. Getting into an emerging market, without specific kinds of integration or malfeasance, is just competition.


> Microsoft <heart> Open Source


That's not what EEE refers to. "Embrace" does not mean "buy".


It can, I think. The EEE concept is useful enough to go slightly outside its original intended use.


So the idea here is

1. Acquire company for tens of billions.

2. Intentionally ruin own investment.

3. ???

4. PROFIT!

?


Well.

1. Acquire company for $7.5bn in stock, so fortunes are joined rather than cash paid

2. Still charge money for it

3. Create an AI product out of the open source bit of it, justifying the price tag, as well as build links to Microsoft dev tools to entice OSS back into the Microsoft ecosystem

4. Maybe profit, but almost certainly not loss


There are a lot of less-than-optimal possible outcomes between "create the best possible free open source library" and "utterly ruin."




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