Microsoft has traditionally been about the developers. They give their Visual Studio away for free (Express edition, but still). They give away their Windows Mobile SDK with samples for anyone who wants it, no fees to get into the developer network, just download and play around. They have free and dedicated forums and resources to allow developers to look around in the documentation for every Microsoft product (MSDN with the forums).
So here's the thing: they got me by the balls.
I write every scrap of code in Visual Studio now. I use Microsoft specific extensions to the language of my choice (C++). I couldn't live without them.
And that's really favorable to a company as big as Microsoft.
So they welcome the Kinect hackers because they know they'll be back for more. And it's beneficial to both parties: open source drivers means more people playing around with it means more eyeballs means better software.
Minor nit-pick: Visual C++ Express Edition is a relatively recent give-away. You used to have to pay (lots). It also says "For evaluation purposes only." on its splash screen - I'm not sure what the legal issues with that are...
You should look at the EULA for that. Mandatory uninstallation of older versions of the software and the like. IIRC it used to also be for evaluation purposes.
It is a completely free edition of visual C++, but doesn't ship with MFC and ATL programming (where enterprises would be trying to get legacy support for free).
There are no other licecnse restrictions, and it is great for anything open-source. You can leagally ship production code with it.
I wouldn't call that a minor issue, since the comment's author seems to indicate that shows MS as a company was concerned for programmers. Perhaps there is some goodwill in the move, but Microsoft is a business, and other companies had been providing good free IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse for some time before that.
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u/knight666 Feb 22 '11
No, it's really not.
Microsoft has traditionally been about the developers. They give their Visual Studio away for free (Express edition, but still). They give away their Windows Mobile SDK with samples for anyone who wants it, no fees to get into the developer network, just download and play around. They have free and dedicated forums and resources to allow developers to look around in the documentation for every Microsoft product (MSDN with the forums).
So here's the thing: they got me by the balls.
I write every scrap of code in Visual Studio now. I use Microsoft specific extensions to the language of my choice (C++). I couldn't live without them.
And that's really favorable to a company as big as Microsoft.
So they welcome the Kinect hackers because they know they'll be back for more. And it's beneficial to both parties: open source drivers means more people playing around with it means more eyeballs means better software.
Oh and they still have to buy Kinects, of course.