Canonical and Microsoft are in bed with other
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Microsoft once call Linux “a cancer” in computing (Microsoft once called Linux 'a cancer,' and that was a big mistake | ZDNET) and now Canonical is working with Microsoft in a partnership (Canonical and Microsoft get cosier with Active Directory integration in Ubuntu 21.04 • The Register). Talk about getting in bed with the Devil. This is a very bad move for Canonical and for the Linux community. I think it might be time for Trisquel linux to move away from Ubuntu Base and maybe go to Debian Base only. I really enjoy working with Trisquel but, I think it won’t be long before Microsoft installs some of its own “spy codes” into the Ubuntu’s base codes. Am I wrong or could this have a negative effect on Trisquel using Ubuntu as a base?
Trisquel only takes free software from upstream. Microsoft's proprietary code does not matter to Trisquel. Microsoft's free software had better be malware-free: by definition, any user is free to study it (freedom 1) and, I guess, many users do study Microsoft's code for GNU/Linux (at least: more than for code from other contributors), in search of something that would worsen Microsoft's reputation.
Microsoft, as any large software company, now contributes to free software. The software world has changed since 2001 (when Steve Ballmer said "Linux is a cancer"). In favor of free software, in several regards. In 2014, Steve Ballmer's successor, Satya Nadella, put up a slide proclaiming "Microsoft ♥ Linux".
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> I guess, many users do study Microsoft's code for GNU/Linux (at least: more than for code from other contributors)
Do you know whether Microsoft contribute to Ubuntu specifically or do they contribute to some upstream code?
It is certainly good to study source code attributed to Microsoft but perhaps they would not use their name directly for malicious/anti-feature code if they want to add any.
There is the Active Directory integration Brian59 was referring to. Microsoft certainly contributes to https://ubuntu.com/azure ("Ubuntu on Azure"). Since SQL Server (which is proprietary!) can be installed on GNU/Linux (since SQL Server 2017), there is certainly code contributed elsewhere to improve its integration (in particular its performances). Etc.
Just to be clear: proprietary software is bad, whatever the operating system it runs on, and code that *only* aims at running proprietary software is bad too, even if it is free software. Nevertheless, code written to help a proprietary application that relies on it will often help as well free software applications that rely on it. It may correct bugs, implement useful new features, etc. If that code is free, it is a contribution to free software, that may well come from Microsoft or Apple or Oracle or Facebook or... Rejecting it just because it comes from a company that mainly writes user-subjugating software makes no sense to me. We actually want such companies to switch to free software. To do so, we must thank them for the free code they write and harshly criticize them for their proprietary code.
Yes, this seems to be trying to sum up all of the actions of a company into a single judgment. It's best to evaluate each action separately where each one can be approved or condemned as appropriate. Microsoft does things that are good and bad, just as other companies do. If we sum up an entire company into a single thing then, for example, we'd be calling to reject the VP8 and VP9 video codecs (because they're coming out of Google from their purchase of On2 Technologies) even though those codecs are helpful for us to avoid software patent problems in the video codec area.
The phrase "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" comes to mind.
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