Microsoft is Gradually Going Away, the Industry Needs a Freedom-Centric Rebirth
THE office closures at Microsoft are a growing trend. They happen almost (on average) every month, sometimes in the subsidiaries, sometimes in the main area, the very core of the company.
Back in the 1970s (and early 80s) sharing of code was commonplace and acceptable, predating copyrights on code. Back then it seemed like computing would change lives for the better, enabling automation not just in cash registers and the likes of these. Of course the greed and the lust for power destroyed much of it, annulling much of the potential for good (or the capacity to benefit society). When more homes got their own computers proprietary software and games had already become the "norm" and when more homes got connected over dial-up (to the Net) Windows had become prevalent.
One can hope that when Microsoft and the likes of it fail (enough with the bailouts already) what replaces them, fully or partially, is Free software. Of course the most familiar face of Free software are subjected to smear campaigns from Google- and Microsoft-funded front groups...
Such smear campaigns won't work. At the end they always backfire and they can be traced back to the corporations that commandeer the online mobs. █