What’s hilarious about this is that Google just happens to take FOSS and modify it without giving back.

But yeah Google(I mean, Poogle) does use Python a lot and I heard they use MySQL (except for the search engine), although MySQL is proprietary for commercial use.

I think a proposing factor to all this is, that google is constantly portrait themselves as anti MS and pretend to use linux everywhere. So ABM’ers immediately feel sympathy for google.

Coupled with the fact that they constantly talk as if they cared so much about openness and use open source technologies to their own advantage makes the freetards immediately fall for it as well.

“I heard they use MySQL”

I have as well, on Wikipedia of course. They use it for their support site — supposedly, of course.

Love this TM, its one of my biggest questions I think about ever now and again, but still not actually answered by any freetards in a direct manner.

> Love this TM, its one of my biggest questions I think about ever now and again, but still not actually answered by any freetards in a direct manner.

Yep, me too. I hope Adam King responds to this.

Funnily enough Microsoft has turned one of their projects into an open source project. I think it makes Windows Installers from XML source files.

Also LOL http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/openness/default.aspx

Oh I know now it’s called WiX.

Also http://www.codeplex.com/

Isn’t like IronPython and IronRuby also open source?

searches the web

IronPython is its own open-source project (no more© Microsoft Corp), but IronRuby is open-source and still maintained by Microsoft.

And yeah, Microsoft has open source licenses too… I use the MS-RL on my biggest project.

None of the Microsoft licenses are compatible with the GPL, but that’s a good thing :P

Also, the MS-RL and MS-PL are very very short and easy to read.

The MS-RL (Microsoft Reciprocal License) requires that the original source be redistributed under the original license (in this case, the MS-RL), but modifications may be released under any license the modifier wishes.

The PL allows the compiled code to be released under any license, but the source must be under the MS-PL.

WiX was in fact the first Microsoft project to be open-sourced, back in about 2003 or so. They even developed their own Open Source license for it (no word on whether RMS approves).

I’m using it right now. It’s a hellish XML brew of MS overcomplexity and FOSS broken-ness, with that all-important “Designed for use on the Command Line” element.”

Two things that make it stand out from the typical FOSS project: it has lots of documentation and a helpful on-line support community (tends a bit to the LongPHPCodez, though), and, most importantly, it does the job better than all its other competitors. (I know because I tried them). Well, free competitors, anyhow. I think if you pay a few zillion for Wise or InstallShield and spend months training yourself up, the results are better. But honestly, how many people are going to want to do that?

You’ve even tried NSIS?

Oh, and a third thing: it’s still under active development, eight years on.

There should really be a TM for the standard FOSS loss of interest in their own projects. The WayBackMachine? ('cause you can always configure, make, make install it…)

> Funnily enough Microsoft has turned one of their projects into an open source project.
http://www.codeplex.com/site/users/view/Microsoft

And actually it’s incomplete list as there are many projects which are not hosted on codeplex:
http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/directory.aspx

> I’m using it right now. It’s a hellish XML brew of MS overcomplexity and FOSS broken-ness
It actually just maps MSI features to xml. So, if anything is broken – it would be MSI, but I don’t think it is. It’s complex – yes, because software management is complex and it could be better, but it’s quite good even in its current state.

> with that all-important “Designed for use on the Command Line” element.”
It’s actually a part of build toolchain. All compilers/linkers are command line tools for a reason (I would prefer proper scripting support instead of this CLI mess, but then we’ll need to change whole build system and all tools involved). Yes, it’s actually pretty important to be able to fully automate nightly builds (well, being able to automate build system in general is pretty good idea).

> You’ve even tried NSIS?
I’ve used it. And InnoSetup. And lots of small noname ones. At least InstallShield/Wise produce proper MSI packages instead of an executable that registers itself for uninstallation but not as a product. Try to find any of NSIS based products in the “gwmi Win32_Product”. Try to deploy NSIS based product to the domain.

Seriously, MSI support for Firefox has been on top of the feature requests for years. People just came up with countless workarounds, because Mozilla doesn’t care about enterprise: http://www.bing.com/search?q=firefox+msi

Wow, just realized that this
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231062
Has “blocking2.0” mark and whole lot of flags like: “blocking?aviary1.0-, blocking1.8b5-, blocking?firefox3-, blocking?firefox3.6-, blocking?firefox2-”, which I read as “don’t ship vX.X unless it’s fixed”. Guess what? It’s been shipped. With blocking bug. And this blocking bug is still not fixed 7 years after. The power of open source.

@LINSUXOID

Well, obviously, I know all of that. There’s an OS wrapper in C# that appears to do the basics and is highly commendable.

But but but. It is an Open Source Project which will inevitably die when the bloke in charge (who is essentially building it at work and has the blessing of his employers to FOSS it) loses interest.

Which, I think, is the major lesson we can take out of WiX.

The other thing is that it’s a goddamn awful approach to the problem. XML? Jesus. I loathe and despise GUI programming, and even I can see that the way to do this is a tabbed screen (most tabs simply for nurdling with the internals) and a main screen that, basically, just says “Source?” “Destination?”

And of course a bunch of lesser questions, like permissions and so forth.

It’s a bloody awful architecture, but at least it works, and it’s free.

Most FOSS stuff has the benefit of being free. That’s nice. I could scrape dogsh!t off the sidewalk and eat it if I felt like it — it’s free.

Very few bits of FOSS since, say, emacs and gcc, actually work.

Now then. I wonder why that might be?

> It is an Open Source Project which will inevitably die when the bloke in charge loses interest.
It’s not about interest of that particular bloke. WiX is used to build MSI-s in Microsoft’s own development environment (razzle), so it will be discontinued only when MSI itself will be.

> XML? Jesus.
I never understood folks complaining about XML. What’s wrong with it (given that any “experienced programmer” should be pretty much syntax agnostic)?

> I loathe and despise GUI programming, and even I can see that the way to do this is a tabbed screen
Unfortunately MSI is much more complex than that. But I agree, there should be some tools to generate simple wxs files for further manual polishing. Well, there ARE such tools – only not Microsoft ones.

> It’s a bloody awful architecture, but at least it works, and it’s free.
Again, WiX is just 1:1 mapping of MSI features. Is MSI itself awful? Arguable, but I think the answer is no. Is it complex? Hell, yes!!!

Could it be done differently? Sure. Could it be done less complex? Well, this is really hard question. With current Windows’s deployment model – hardly. You should be able to drop files/registry keys everywhere, based on OS version, platform, installed software, updates to that software. You should be able to install services/drivers again based on some parameters of the system you’re installing to. You should be able to restart applications, that block specific files from updating. And so on.

Is this legacy good? For most part no. Will it go anywhere overnight? Definitely no. If we cannot avoid pain – let’s at least manage its levels. And here comes MSI.

At the same time, I fully expect new Windows Store compatible appx format to cleanup this mess.

Ah, and back to Google. I really like their latest show: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-android.html

1. Cry how patents are ebil because someone just bought patents to attack you
2. That guy replies that this has never been a plan and even more, you’ve been invited into the pool (which will both reduce your and that guy’s spendings AND provide you both a protection from each other)
3. Cry that pooling doesn’t make sense to you because the only reason YOU wanted them in first place is to attack that other guy (don’t forget to call it “defence” and/or “for greater justice”).

FreeAsInHypocrisy™

Classics of FUD