You mean like Xbox360, the winner of current console generation, Azure, used by Apple, Netflix and tons of other large companies for hosting their services in the cloud, having 32% of internet search market (DuckDuckGo and Yahoo included), relaunching of tons of great game franchises (Flight Simulator too), having the planet's best programming IDE (Visual Studio), closely working and owning large share of earth's largest social network Facebook and having the worlds largest mobile phone manufacturer Nokia by the balls?

Yeah, seems quite irrelevant to me.

They will be if the network needs it. They haven't changed that part in the algorithm, just supplement the network with tons of powerful machines to have that role.

How is that not making Linux better? Many problems in Linux come from the fact that nobody wants to support it and it doesn't work well with Windows. Microsoft has gone out and made Linux play nicer with what we have. It has greatly improved Linux.

Not every product fits all use cases. For example there are times when Apache is better than nginx and times when nginx is better than Apache. You pick the best tool for the job and don't just mindlessly jabber about something that pretty much equivalents to religious blabber. This is something that Microsoft understands but seems like basement jerker FOSS fanatics cannot.

What are you talking about? Microsoft has contributed tons of patches and other stuff to, for example, Linux. They have actively worked to make it more compatible with Windows.

Hell, they have an open source project hosting at CodePlex.

At least try to get your facts straight instead of the pure hate. But I saw what happened when Microsoft guys reached out and asked for comments about their open source offering on Slashdot. You can still read it too, Microsoft Wants Your Feedback On Its New Python IDE.

They didn't switch, they merely improved the network by providing extra capability to it. Skype has been growing fast lately and they want to ensure its stability. It is still P2P, they just house dedicated nodes to support it.

How is it ironic? Microsoft has used Linux on some of their services for a long time. It just shows that Microsoft doesn't take the hard approach of FOSS fanatics but uses what suits the purpose best. Maybe there's something to learn from that.

Skype creators are same that designed Kazaa. This is how the P2P structure of Skype works and is widely known. What is the point of this story?

Actually, that was Google trying to make Bing look bad while "conveniently" not putting in all the details. This has been discussed and bunked on Slashdot and other sites so many times. Bing does not copy results from Google. What Microsoft does, with users opt-in, is do anonymous usage statistics from IE by looking at every search box, what the user searches for and where he goes next. This is good statistical info, as what page user chooses for specific search has a good change of being relevant to the search. The only part it's relevant to Google is because Google also is one site that resides on the internet. Nothing else. And Google does this same kind of analysis with Chrome.

That's actually kind of funny, because if you want API access to Google's search results you have to pay them. Now Oracle is saying that Google should pay them for using Oracle's APIs. Kettle, meet pot.

There's times when robots.txt just doesn't work, like this story of how Google Docs attacked the poor guys Amazon servers and caused fees of almost $200 per hour.

I have also never explicitly accepted any TOS of Google. Just because I access their service via my browsers provided search tool does it make me accept their TOS? I don't think so. For that matter many Terms of Services clauses that work in the US don't work in the EU, where I reside. But that's beside the point - I'm just saying that Google should do the same thing with their services and not try to hinder people's access to them or try to copyright search listings. Maybe then I would take them seriously when they complain about other companies stuff.

What really reeks me is Google's double standards on these issues. Yes, APIs should not be copyrightable. But here we have a company that is trying to copyright search results listings. Listings that are built from other people's content!

I understand Google's need to protect their business, but the view they're trying to make of themselves is cowardly. Google wants everyone to look upon them as some kind of white knights and better-than-you company. Yet they do exactly the same thing when it's their business on the table.

It's not only some vague Terms of Service or other mainly uncontrolled and unforceable terms either. Google will ban you from accessing their service the instant their algorithm detects it's not an actual human being making searches and viewing their ads. Even if you behave nicely with your scripts and rate-limit them not to hit Google's servers badly. On the other hand, Google has no problem hitting your servers and causing more than $1000 fees for the owner for nothing.

Before Google starts attacking everyone else about these issues, maybe they should rethink their position. Otherwise it's just bullshit. And bad bullshit too, because they are trying to hide the fact.

Does this ruling apply if someone downloads child porn, makes bomb threats, discusses with terrorists or other larger crimes? Just saying it should be consistent if pirates get a pass.

I wouldn't really blame MS for it. They have always semi-acknowledged piracy for home users, and haven't pursued after those (like things should be). I would rather take a look at Google, who is supporting CISPA:

And who has a long history of censoring results from their search engine if they happen to contain unlicensed copyrighted content. They could fight it, like they did fight in China after demands to that government, but they decide not to. Not in Google, not in YouTube, nowhere. And then they support CISPA.

Exactly this. Euro is pretty much where it has always been. Pound is losing its value. Microsoft has every right to do it. Compared to Google they just have to do it openly - even Google has been steadily rising their advertising for the UK because of differences in currency values. They just do it silently behind the scenes.