{"id":8197,"date":"2021-02-25T21:34:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T20:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monodes.com\/predaelli\/?p=8197"},"modified":"2021-02-25T09:06:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T08:06:18","slug":"a-post-mortem-in-5-acts-of-how-microsoft-privatized-open-source-killing-javascript-in-the-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monodes.com\/predaelli\/2021\/02\/25\/a-post-mortem-in-5-acts-of-how-microsoft-privatized-open-source-killing-javascript-in-the-process\/","title":{"rendered":"A Post-Mortem in 5 Acts, of How Microsoft Privatized Open Source, killing JavaScript in the Process"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Post-Mortem in 5 Acts, of How Microsoft Privatized Open Source, killing JavaScript in the Process<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

After Microsoft\u2019s blitzkrieg take-over, the Open Source JavaScript community, as we know it, is coming to an end.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a>Alex Kleydints<\/a>Feb 6\u00b79 min read<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

All things said and done, you must stand in awe, at how Microsoft, executed this takeover, with very little to no resistance from a community of hundreds of thousands of active JavaScript developers, even introducing the use of TypeScript in React, Angular, and Node, while cornering both source-control and distribution of code. It\u2019s strategically perfect in all dimensions. Kudos to Nadella and his team.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When I started coding, I really loved the Open Source JavaScript community. It did always feel weird, that people would write code, and share it for free. But people did, and still do, and it felt amazing and crazy at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was Github to manage our sources, and npm, which indexed the open-source libraries and made it super-easy to search, find, and import functionalities, and to create, update and share libraries ourselves. And for on Stackoverflow, you could even get free support and advice. JavaScript was improving year after year with every ECMAScript release. It wasn\u2019t perfect, but it all worked. The future seemed bright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Open Source grew inside capitalism, it\u2019s values weirdly weren\u2019t part of that capitalistic world-view. That\u2019s why, from day one, it was bound for destruction at some point or another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Then one day Microsoft came in and took control of the two core tools, which were the gateways to the whole Open Source community; npm and Github. I don\u2019t think people saw this coming, and it\u2019s clear that the majority of developers, even today, don\u2019t realize what happened and how it will affect them very shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the take-over was complete, a massive propaganda onslaught began to fully convert the idealistic open source community towards the capitalistic Microsoft mantra. It\u2019s a \u2018secret\u2019 war, with high-tech propaganda, which over time will silently destroy and remove independence, kill-off non-Microsoft-owned editors, tools, libraries, even JavaScript itself. All of this is inevitable because Microsoft is a for-profit corporation. It\u2019s in its DNA to take over whole industries and turn them into profit-generating monopolies for its shareholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft\u2019s mission is to turn every JavaScript developer into a Microsoft TypeScript money-generating drone, one way or another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Below I\u2019ll describe the multi-dimensional blitzkrieg of Microsoft in 5 simple steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Act 1: Microsoft Kills JavaScript<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft may not be able to innovate on products, and they usually fail miserably. But it is shockingly good at marketing, propaganda, and take-overs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft has essentially deprecated JavaScript and the non-profit foundation, which governed it, by TypeScript, which is governed and controlled by the for-profit Microsoft Corporation. If Microsoft was truly interested in improving JavaScript it could have done that through the non-profit foundation. But instead, it took the \u2018Evil Corp\u2019 approach of making the foundation and JavaScript slowly irrelevant, so it could guarantee that it could monopolize and monetize the whole industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding the Propaganda<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018JavaScript at Scale\u2019 narrative is aimed mostly at the business decision-makers, positioning TypeScript as the reliable and robust choice versus the bug-prone and unreliable vanilla JavaScript. Over time this will deprecate JavaScript as a language in business environments. It will become the new PHP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so as not to offend JavaScript developers too much, the \u2018TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript\u2019 narrative was introduced, which for obvious reasons is naively erroneous at best. TypeScript does use JavaScript constructs but has a lot more in common with C#.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So although TypeScript has its benefits, you should be aware, it is not what Microsoft wants you to believe it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s fairer to say that TypeScript is a C# superset, with some JavaScript limitations, which compiles to JavaScript.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Proprietary Open Source<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

JavaScript is not controlled or owned by one profit-driven corporation. It\u2019s an open-source, non-profit, effort driven by many independent actors and corporations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TypeScript, on the other hand, is Proprietary Open Source, because it is owned, financed and fully controlled by the profit-driven Microsoft corporation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Piggy-backing the Community<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Infusing JavaScript and open-source in its propaganda Microsoft was able to piggy-back on the disorganized and leaderless open-source community and did this without any noticeable resistance. The whole community welcomes TypeScript whole-heartedly, or at least it seems so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Act 2: Microsoft Acquires Github<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Although Github stayed independent for a long time, it was a for-profit company from day one. It\u2019s an almost perfect product-market fit for developers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n