Yes. I know. The point is their attitude. Someone, somewhere decided that the default reboot policy would be good for Microsoft. Apparently the effect on developers was not worth considering. They didn't seem to care that you would wake up some morning and find that 4 days worth of work disappeared and that your virtual machines won't boot because they changed your hardware settings.

Ubuntu pops up a window telling me that updates are available. Apple does the same thing. You don't have to be destructive "by default".

You can be certain that Microsoft will "just know" that a Microsoft login "adds value", that cloud-hosting Github "adds value", that SHA-256 is better than SHA-1 for git hashes, that a Microsoft GIT GUI is better than a command line, and that a Microsoft protocol is better than a git:// protocol. Slowly, but surely, the Microsoft attitude will make github into a Microsoft "product".

If Microsoft REALLY wanted to help developers they would fix the money problem.

Open source needs a way to get grants so people can attend conferences, pay for servers, pay for bandwidth, etc. (not salaries). But grants require accounting. Accounting requires accountants. Somebody, somewhere has to "manage the money", keep the books, and clear the receipts. Otherwise grant organizations and the federal government won't give grants.

So if Microsoft REALLY wanted to help open source developers they would hire a few people to manage grant applications and grant money management. Then we could apply for a grant, the money would be held by this non-profit.

We're programmers. If you can think of it, we can do it. But it takes
someone who has the motivation and the time. Motivation is easy
to find but time is not. Because Time is Money (as I'm sure you've
heard). So the real issue is open source funding.

I've spent the last 18 years trying to get Axiom funded.

I tried the NSF. They will not fund Axiom because there is a
"competing commercial product" (aka Mathematica).

I tried the Air Force (AFOSR). They cannot give grants to open
source work because it requires financial tracking. Somebody has
to managed the funds and the receipts. When I was at City College
I did get a grant but they have a Provost (who took 55% for "support").

In order to handle accounting open source needs an "accounting
office" with professional, certified accountants. I approached several
companies (e.g. IBM, TI, etc.) with the idea of "donating a certified
accountant or two" to an organization that would "manage open
source grants" with services like funds management, receipt
clearance, taxes, etc. That way an open source project could accept
grant money. So far, nobody wants to donate people. I think such an
office could completely change the whole open source funding issue.

I've tried setting up donations for Axiom. The idea was not to pay
people to work on Axiom, just to support things like setting up a
conference or paying to attend a conference. I was the only donor.

Open source is not free. I estimate that I spent about $3000 per year
on things like travel to attend a conference and paying for hosting
services. I now have the Axiom server under my desk on a $1200
dollar computer. In order to ensure Axiom runs everywhere I have
to buy computers like the Apple (used to be a non-Intel processor),
the PowerPC, a Windows machine, a Linux machine, etc. It all adds
up to a lot of money.... not to mention the cost of books to keep up.
Oh, yeah, and my time is written off as "free".