Thread: Enthusiast Developer Council

Has Microsoft contacted any of you that downloaded MS Visual Studio Express? They contacted me concerning a new council they have created for hobbyist programmers stating they did not realize how large of a community of hobbyist's there was. I guess they did not expect so many downloads and as such this has perhaps opened their eyes to a new marketing area.

The email links to a survey which does not ask for anything personal. I'm quite sure the email is legitimate and it does not ask for anything I would deem inappropriate or as 'fishing'.

Maybe we will see what comes of this. I told them that offering such a council with nothing but hobbyist programmers giving idea/opinions would probably improve their image among the community. I don't think I'm too far off in that statement.

You must admit - offering Visual Studio Express for free was one heck of a policy change for Microsoft, and it was a welcome one. Even now it's hard for me to be too upset with a company that would offer such an IDE and compiler absolutely free.

Well, I can't say anything about this because I used Linux SuSE for quite some time now. So, I haven't got anything from Microsoft.

BTW, from what I've heard the programmers in Microsoft were not permitted to develop ANYTHING beside Microsoft's projects (so their creativity was oppressed), even for fun. Is this true? If it is, then it must be suck becoming someone who worked at MS. Even with the high salary, I think it's not worth it.

Originally Posted by g4j31a5

BTW, from what I've heard the programmers in Microsoft were not permitted to develop ANYTHING beside Microsoft's projects (so their creativity was oppressed), even for fun. Is this true? If it is, then it must be suck becoming someone who worked at MS. Even with the high salary, I think it's not worth it.

sounds like some horrible propaganda to perpetuate the cold-hearted mythos of microsoft by anti-fans. Of course it could be true in that while working at microsoft, they can't work for another company or project, maybe by contract. Though that wouldn't be unusual I think. And who's to dictate what they do in privacy. I can see it now

"Microsoft Employee User Agreement S1-As an employee, you are not to work on project whether personal or professional outside of microsoft's office. This includes but is not limited to working on: Your car, new roof tiles, son's homework, and wife/husband..."

I doubt it is even legal to attempt to dictate what an employee does in the privacy of their own home or when not on company time so long as that action does not bring harm or reproach the the company.

Writing negative comments on a public blog would be, IMO, out of line and therefore the company could probably do something about it. Yet there are hundreds of public blogs from Microsoft Developers and from those who worked on Visual Studio and yet MS hasn't done anything about them. So I doubt they care.

But writing a pac-man clone in your own home does not fall under any of those categories. I don't buy that at all.