"Well Microsoft really does develop some really interesting technology"
About this Quote
That blandly enthusiastic “really” does a lot of work. Miguel de Icaza isn’t offering a timeless compliment so much as threading a needle: praising Microsoft’s technical output while implicitly acknowledging the cultural baggage that used to come with saying so, especially if you’re rooted in open-source circles.
De Icaza is famous for building bridges between free software and the corporate world (GNOME, Mono) at a time when Microsoft was often cast as the antagonist in that story. In that context, “really does” reads like a small act of insistence, a preemptive rebuttal to the eye-rolls. It signals: yes, I know the reputation; yes, I’m saying it anyway. The repetition (“really…really”) adds a conversational defensiveness, the kind you hear when someone expects pushback from their own tribe.
There’s also a deliberate narrowing of scope. He doesn’t say Microsoft is benevolent, visionary, or “good.” He says it develops “interesting technology,” a technologist’s compliment that sidesteps ethics and business practices. “Interesting” is coded praise in engineering culture: it implies novelty, cleverness, and real craft without committing to moral endorsement.
The line captures a larger shift in late-2000s/2010s tech discourse as Microsoft moved from “embrace, extend, extinguish” infamy toward legitimate respect in tooling, research, and developer platforms. De Icaza’s intent is pragmatic: keep the conversation about engineering excellence, not tribal allegiance. The subtext is a quiet provocation to his peers: if your identity requires denying technical reality, your identity is the fragile part.
De Icaza is famous for building bridges between free software and the corporate world (GNOME, Mono) at a time when Microsoft was often cast as the antagonist in that story. In that context, “really does” reads like a small act of insistence, a preemptive rebuttal to the eye-rolls. It signals: yes, I know the reputation; yes, I’m saying it anyway. The repetition (“really…really”) adds a conversational defensiveness, the kind you hear when someone expects pushback from their own tribe.
There’s also a deliberate narrowing of scope. He doesn’t say Microsoft is benevolent, visionary, or “good.” He says it develops “interesting technology,” a technologist’s compliment that sidesteps ethics and business practices. “Interesting” is coded praise in engineering culture: it implies novelty, cleverness, and real craft without committing to moral endorsement.
The line captures a larger shift in late-2000s/2010s tech discourse as Microsoft moved from “embrace, extend, extinguish” infamy toward legitimate respect in tooling, research, and developer platforms. De Icaza’s intent is pragmatic: keep the conversation about engineering excellence, not tribal allegiance. The subtext is a quiet provocation to his peers: if your identity requires denying technical reality, your identity is the fragile part.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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