microsoft open sourcing a lot of things lately
I think it's a fair exchange too, even as an individual I pay for plenty of smaller open-source SaaS services—even if they're more expensive than proprietary competitors—for the very reason that I could always selfhost it without interruption if SHTF and the provider goes under.
Microsoft is not much better now.
I've seen a number of theories online that boil down to young tech enthusiasts in the 2000's/early-2010's getting hands-on experience with open source projects and ecosystems since they're more accessible than enterprise tech that's typically gated behind paywalls, then translating into what they use when they enter the working world (where some naturally end up at M$).
This somewhat seems to track, as longtime M$ employees from the Ballmer-era still often hold stigmas against open source projects (Dave's garage, and similar), but it seems the current iteration of employees hold much more favorable views.
But who knows, perhaps it's all one long-winded goal from M$ of embracing, extending, and ultimately extinguishing.
My guess…
The same reason Rome didn’t fall. It simply turned into the Church.
MS isn’t battling software mfgs because they have the lock on hardware direction and operating systems so strongly that they can direct without having to hold the territory themselves.
- three years later it's left in the hands of the powerful community that was built around it with MS help
- MS doesn't have to provide support and it's not their problem anymore
Yeah, MS-DOS 3, Winfile and a castrated version of Powertoys. This all looks like extend and extinguish theater.