【江湖趣事】话说开源界和微软的那些往日恩怨

近日惊闻微软收购GitHub，这下该网站的很多粉丝坐不住了，“这以后还能愉快的同性交友吗？”更有甚者，什么Bitbucket, Gitlab 都在搞迁移促销，似乎GitHub到了微软手上就像喜儿嫁给黄世仁一样。

 

这也难怪了，让我想起了82年的… … Oh No，是2000年的一个老段子：

 

 

在2000年的一个会上，Eric Raymond 遇到“西装领带、牛B哄哄”的Craig Mundie。

Eric 问他：“你丫给微软打工？”

Craig Mundie:“嗯呐，老哥你干吗的你？”

 

 

哈——哈——哈，此处应有掌声，“我是你最惊悚的噩梦！”

 

Craig Mundie 何许人也？

 

在微软从1992年干到2014年，是直接给CEO谏言的Chief Researcher & Strategy Officer !

 

 

Eric Raymond 咋那么牛B呢？

 

人家确实有牛B的资本，开源界圣经——《大教堂与集市》就是这哥们写的。

 

连同“为人不识Stallman，混遍开源也枉然”的Richard Stallman 以及Linux他爸爸Linus Torvalds等都是开源界“主神”。

 

更搞笑的是，这哥们后来居然还收到微软的工作机会。

 

From: "Mike Walters (Search Wizards)" <v-mikewa@microsoft.com>

To: <esr@thyrsus.com>

Eric,

I am a member of the Microsoft Central Sourcing Team. Microsoft is seeking world class engineers to help create products that help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. Your name and contact info was brought to my attention as someone who could potentially be a contributor at Microsoft.  I would love an opportunity to speak with you in detail about your interest in a career at Microsoft, along with your experience, background and qualifications.

 

Eric给微软HR的回信刷新了“犀利”的新高度，估计会让Mike觉得这是他在微软供职中做过的最SB的事。

 

To: "Mike Walters (Search Wizards)" <v-mikewa@microsoft.com>

From: <esr@thyrsus.com>

I'd thank you for your offer of employment at Microsoft, except that it indicates that either you or your research team (or both) couldn't get a clue if it were pounded into you with baseball bats. What were you going to do with the rest of your afternoon, offer jobs to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds?  Or were you going to stick to something easier, like talking Pope Benedict into presiding at a Satanist orgy?

 

“你准备怎么打发下午剩下的时间呢？给Richard Stallman和Linus Torvalds发Offer吗？”

 

 

 精彩部分来了啊，敲黑板、划重点了！

 

If you had bothered to do five seconds of background checking, you might have discovered that I am the guy who responded to Craig Mundie's "Who are you?" with "I'm your worst nightmare", and that I've in fact been something pretty close to your company's worst nightmare since about 1997.  You've maybe heard about this "open source" thing? You get one guess who wrote most of the theory and propaganda for it and talked IBM and Wall Street and the Fortune 500 into buying in. But don't think I'm trying to destroy your company.  Oh, no; I'd be just as determined to do in any other proprietary-software monopoly, and the community I helped found is well on its way to accomplishing that goal.

 

“我就是跟 Craig Mundie说‘I’m your worst nightmare’的牛B哥 … … 别以为我要毁掉微软，我怼所有私有软件，我所帮助建立的开源社区会干掉你们！”

 

 

But I must thank you for dropping a good joke on my afternoon.  On that hopefully not too far distant day thatI piss on Microsoft's grave, I sincerely hope none of it will splash on you.

 

“不久的将来我往微软墓碑上尿尿的时候，希望不会溅到你的身上。”

 

 

GitHub 作为今天最大的开源项目代码托管网站，被微软收购？Geek和Hacker们会不舒服也是可以理解的。

 

（另外，我发现开源大牛脾气都挺大，Linus 也是一样， Stallman倒还好些）

 

话虽如此，但今非昔比了。如今的微软已不同于十年前甚至是五年前的微软了。

 

CEO 纳德拉好像神奇“蓝色药丸”，微软重拾雄风，股票更是超过了Google。这与微软重视开源、拥抱开源的战略调整是分不开的。