That battle has already been lost for Python. Microsoft owns Python, they just don't make it public.
This is how I came to believe this is the case:
Few years ago I wanted to write Python bindings to kubectl. I discovered that in order for that to work cross-platform, I need to make CGo use the same compiler on all platforms as does Python. Unfortunately, on MS Windows, CGO uses MINGW while Python uses MSVC. I wrote to Python dev. mailing list (which still existed at that time) and asked why did they choose to use a proprietary compiler for their "open-source" project. The answer I received in a round-about way was that MSVC was a historical choice, which cannot be presently changed because MS provides Python Foundation with free infrastructure to run CI and builds, and it also provides developers to work on Python (i.e. MS employees get paid by MS to work on Python interpreter). And that they are under orders not to drop MS tools from the toolchain.
Year after year the situation was getting worse. Like in a lot of similar projects, success created a lot of ground for mediocre nobodies to reach positions of power. Python foundation and satellite projects like PyPA started to be populated by people whose way into these positions was not through contributing any useful code, but rather writing pages of code of conduct. This code of conduct and never-ending skirmishes around controlling positions eventually led to some old-timers leaving or being outright kicked out (latest such event was the ban of Tim, the guy who, beside other things, wrote Tim sort, which is a somewhat famous feature of Python).
Year after year MS was pushing its usual agenda they do in every project they get their hands on: add crapload of useless features for the sake of advertising. Make the project swing every way possible, but mostly follow the fashion trends as hard as possible. This is how Python is now devoted to adding as much of ML-style types as possible (in the language with a completely different type system...), AoT compilation and JIT (in the language that's half of the time used to dynamically glue native libraries...) and so on. Essentially, making it a C#, but without curly braces.
MS is smart enough to understand that publicly announcing their ownership of Python will scare a lot of people away from the technology, so they don't advertise it much. But they keep working on ensuring developers' dependency on their tooling, and eventually they will come to collect on their investment.
There are many correct observations, but Python is owned by Microsoft, Instagram, RedHat and Bloomberg. Google fired the Python team this year, which makes it an attractive work place.
This is how I came to believe this is the case:
Few years ago I wanted to write Python bindings to kubectl. I discovered that in order for that to work cross-platform, I need to make CGo use the same compiler on all platforms as does Python. Unfortunately, on MS Windows, CGO uses MINGW while Python uses MSVC. I wrote to Python dev. mailing list (which still existed at that time) and asked why did they choose to use a proprietary compiler for their "open-source" project. The answer I received in a round-about way was that MSVC was a historical choice, which cannot be presently changed because MS provides Python Foundation with free infrastructure to run CI and builds, and it also provides developers to work on Python (i.e. MS employees get paid by MS to work on Python interpreter). And that they are under orders not to drop MS tools from the toolchain.
Year after year the situation was getting worse. Like in a lot of similar projects, success created a lot of ground for mediocre nobodies to reach positions of power. Python foundation and satellite projects like PyPA started to be populated by people whose way into these positions was not through contributing any useful code, but rather writing pages of code of conduct. This code of conduct and never-ending skirmishes around controlling positions eventually led to some old-timers leaving or being outright kicked out (latest such event was the ban of Tim, the guy who, beside other things, wrote Tim sort, which is a somewhat famous feature of Python).
Year after year MS was pushing its usual agenda they do in every project they get their hands on: add crapload of useless features for the sake of advertising. Make the project swing every way possible, but mostly follow the fashion trends as hard as possible. This is how Python is now devoted to adding as much of ML-style types as possible (in the language with a completely different type system...), AoT compilation and JIT (in the language that's half of the time used to dynamically glue native libraries...) and so on. Essentially, making it a C#, but without curly braces.
MS is smart enough to understand that publicly announcing their ownership of Python will scare a lot of people away from the technology, so they don't advertise it much. But they keep working on ensuring developers' dependency on their tooling, and eventually they will come to collect on their investment.