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Richard Stallman vs. Canonical's CEO: 'Will Microsoft Love Linux to Death?' (techrepublic.com)
TechRepublic got different answers about Microsoft's new enthusiasm for Linux from Canonical's founder and CEO Mark Shuttleworth, and from Richard Stallman. Stallman "believes that Microsoft's decision to build a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) amounts to an attempt to extinguish software that users are free to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve."
"It certainly looks that way. But it won't be so easy to extinguish us, because our reasons for using and advancing free software are not limited to practical convenience," he said. "We want freedom. As a way to use computers in freedom, Windows is a non-starter..." Stallman remains adamant that the WSL can only help entrench the dominance of proprietary software like Windows, and undermine the use of free software. "That doesn't advance the cause of free software, not one bit," he says... "The aim of the free software movement is to free users from freedom-denying proprietary programs and systems, such as Windows. Making a non-free system, such as Windows or MacOS or iOS or ChromeOS or Android, more convenient is a step backward in the campaign for freedom..."
For Shuttleworth, Windows' embrace of GNU/Linux is a net positive for open-source software as a whole. "It's not like Microsoft is stealing our toys, it's more that we're sharing them with Microsoft in order to give everyone the best possible experience," he says. "WSL provides users who are well versed in the Windows environment with greater choice and flexibility, while also opening up a whole new potential user base for the open source platform..." Today Shuttleworth takes Microsoft's newfound enthusiasm for GNU/Linux at face value, and says the company has a different ethos to that of the 1990s, a fresh perspective that benefits Microsoft as much as it does open-source software. "Microsoft is a different company now, with a much more balanced view of open and competitive platforms on multiple fronts," he says. "They do a tremendous amount of engineering specifically to accommodate open platforms like Ubuntu on Azure and Hyper-V, and this work is being done in that spirit."
The article also points out that Microsoft "does seem to be laying the groundwork for WSL to extend what's possible using a single GNU/Linux distro today, for instance, letting the user chain together commands from different GNU/Linux distros with those from Windows."
For Shuttleworth, Windows' embrace of GNU/Linux is a net positive for open-source software as a whole. "It's not like Microsoft is stealing our toys, it's more that we're sharing them with Microsoft in order to give everyone the best possible experience," he says. "WSL provides users who are well versed in the Windows environment with greater choice and flexibility, while also opening up a whole new potential user base for the open source platform..." Today Shuttleworth takes Microsoft's newfound enthusiasm for GNU/Linux at face value, and says the company has a different ethos to that of the 1990s, a fresh perspective that benefits Microsoft as much as it does open-source software. "Microsoft is a different company now, with a much more balanced view of open and competitive platforms on multiple fronts," he says. "They do a tremendous amount of engineering specifically to accommodate open platforms like Ubuntu on Azure and Hyper-V, and this work is being done in that spirit."
The article also points out that Microsoft "does seem to be laying the groundwork for WSL to extend what's possible using a single GNU/Linux distro today, for instance, letting the user chain together commands from different GNU/Linux distros with those from Windows."
Microsoft used in Windows 8/10, I do not trust ANYTHING they say. I must view anything and everything they do now as EVIL.
Shuttleworth's optimism seems naive. "Embrace and Extend" has been Microsoft's mantra for how many years?
MS whats linux user to stop dual booting and just use Linux within windows 10 so they can data mine. Microsoft cannot be trusted..ever
Jack of all trades,master of none
MS is probably trying to do as Stallman says but I think they will fail. They may "love" Canonical and Ubuntu to death but Linux will continue.
Right now I'm burning in a new laptop for about a month with Win 10 before putting Linux on it and it is very frustrating as so many of the things I do on Linux have less convenient ways to do them on Windows even with the Windows version of the same program I use on Linux.
By persuading people to run free software under MS Windows, Microsoft gets the ability to subject it to its spyware (sorry, I meant to say: telemetry) and upload the results of key-logging & other snooping that it could not do on a native Linux system.
Has anyone actually verified what MS claims is uploaded ? Do we know who MS shares this information with ?
FTFA :-
Shuttleworth takes Microsoft's newfound enthusiasm for GNU/Linux at face value
Then Shuttleworth is a fool.
[Shuttleworth] says the company has a different ethos to that of the 1990s, a fresh perspective
Indeed : tech has moved on and they have found new ways of screwing the user and new ways of spinning it. This is the company that rammed Win10 spyware down users' throats.
Stallman is right on it, even if it doesn't extinguish Linux overall.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
The parent commenter apparently meant to say, starting at the title: "Thanks to the Spyware and tactics... Microsoft used in Windows 8/10, I do not trust ANYTHING they say."
Others agree. Here is a Network World article: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote from that story: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC."
If Microsoft had paid ad agencies a billion dollars to convince the public that Microsoft cannot be trusted, the ads would not have been as effective as the abuse of including spyware. My opinion, shared by many others.
"It's a trap!"
-- Admiral Ackbar
-- Alastair
From what I've seen over the years, Stallman is usually right about everything and Shuttleworth is usually wrong.
I'm unfamiliar with Windows preventing API compliant programs from running for political reasons. I'm also unfamiliar with a functioning instance of Windows preventing you from moving your data to another system.
Look, M$ has root. They can add/remove whatever they want whenever they want. Through good faith you trust updates to deliver exactly what they say they do, and I've heard about future or present updates without descriptions in them for what they do? Have they dropped those change-logs yet or not?
And if your system can be connected to you somehow (google about what info M$ collects on your HW) then, as RMS once said, paraphrasing, they could deliver customized software just for you!
If you don't think your precious *nix on another partition can't be rooted by M$, think again. Also think about other programs you've installed. Most are black boxes and cannot be trusted, just like the OS.
I hope your Linux partition(s) are encrypted, at least.
You're right. Stallman's position is that of an extremist fanatic. The only reason Linux and OSS has gotten any traction is because people ignore Stallman and do what is practical instead of clinging to ideological purism.
My Linux system can do line breaks though!
And I can use boldface rather than yelling, too! (Yes, you are an idiot)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I'm not sure who he is referring to when he says "we", when I use Linux it is because it does a particular task better than Windows does, for example controlling the machine remotely. And when I use Windows or macOS it is because it runs the programs I need to run to do a particular task. I'm a Linux user and Windows user and a macOS user, I'm not choosing a tool for a job based on the professed ideology of some of its contributors.
There is some merit to the idea that you shouldn't carry a smartphone, you shouldn't communicate over unencrypted channels, you shouldnt use hardware or software that you don't understand or haven't had vetted by somebody you trust that does understand it, you shouldn't use traceable electronic payment mechanisms, etc but it really isn't practical to take a religious absolutist approach to it so along the way people make compromises, some more than others, but in the general sense if you compromise one you compromise all. For example if you use any reasonably modern Intel or AMD processor it has a remote access backdoor which can theoretically compromise your whole system.
So I do understand Stallman's point that you could be compromised by a malicious actor with sufficient enough resources but is there really any practical scenario where you can be confident that can't happen? I would say probably not, so where is the sweet spot of compromise between privacy/security and practicality?
Well, I agree with RMS, I will only believe Microsoft actions are genuine if Microsoft forces all proprietary blobs, drivers and firmware to be opened up under a FSF compatible license.
I can use Photoshop and eat 11 months a year, or use gimp and eat all year long. Choices, choices.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Guys, MS has said themselves them love Open Source and love Linux now. They're under new leadership and things really look to have changed a corner. Look at some of the big projects they open sourced lately:
* VS Code (MIT) .Net Core (MIT)
* Typescript (Apache 2.0)
*
* Powershel (MIT)
https://opensource.microsoft.com/
So, WSL will include or support a fully functional X server? (Not just that Wayland crap.)
Have gnu, will travel.
They're both not wrong. Microsoft's use of WSL won't further the cause of free software. But it will still benefit open source (just not Free software). Right now, the WSL arrangement makes Ubuntu the mitochondria, but one could argue it could happen the other way around. Even though it is technologically subsumed into Windows via WSL, it could be argued that it is Windows that is being co-opted by Ubuntu from a strategic standpoint.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
I see nothing positive in making Linux a subsystem of Windows. When talking to people in the future Linux will be referred to as something that is part of Windows.
Microsoft has not changed and Shuttleworth knows it.
There is no net gain here for open source.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
The only reason Linux and OSS has gotten any traction is because people ignore Stallman and do what is practical
Linux succeeded because Linus paid attention to RMS and put an appropriate license on linux.
Last time I checked, you needed to purchase an iPhone to get iOS, and those are most definitely not free.
Last time I checked, you needed to purchase a Mac to get OSX, and those are even more expensive.
And, given the very long EULA required to actually use either, one that places considerable restrictions on its users at that, they are not Free either.
-- I ain't broke, but I'm badly bent.
No, but only because it isn't. You are talking about the wrong use of the word free. It means libre in this context, not gratis.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I just tried the latest CentOS release. Dual booting so I needed to add my windows partition to grub2. No NTFS support in the kernel and the default repository doesn't have it. So I added that and added the entry to the grub2 config. I tried Chromium but it looked like shit and uBlock wouldn't install. uBlock gave some error about embedded image and googling that results in one unrelated hit. So I tried the actual Chrome build. Fonts looked better and uBlock installed. Five minutes later the keyboard froze up and the mouse still worked. Goodbye CentOS you aren't ready yet.
I'm keeping an eye out for a good used Xeon E5 box. Going to install ESXI and do GPU passthrough for several operating systems including OS X. Because Windows 10 is terrible and so is Linux.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Embrace.
"For Shuttleworth, Windows' embrace of GNU/Linux is a net positive for open-source software as a whole."
Extend.
"Microsoft 'does seem to be laying the groundwork for WSL to extend what's possible using a single GNU/Linux distro today, for instance, letting the user chain together commands from different GNU/Linux distros with those from Windows.'"
Extinguish.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.c...
Since its inception, Microsoft Windows NT was designed to allow environment subsystems like Win32 to present a programmatic interface to applications without being tied to implementation details inside the kernel. This allowed the NT kernel to support POSIX, OS/2 and Win32 subsystems at its initial release.
This is actually an NT subsystem, like the OS/2 subsystem. It's actually really cool engineering. Linux syscalls run through this subsystem and are translated into windows subsystems calls. This meant lots of interesting problems to figure out, like different behavior of fork. When there's no windows syscall to translate to, then the fake linux kernel has to implement the work itself
Mr. Stallman is a prophet: one of those old testament prophets who live in a desert for 30 years, don't bathe, live on crickets and funky mushrooms, and brings critical warnings to the chosen people. Such prophets have often been right and led their chosen people into a promised land, or saved them from floods or the destruction of a vengeful god. But they are *not* popular, they're not pleasant, and the establishment does not want to throw out their offices and their stock options to listen to such prophets.
You present these statements about Gnome, Firefox et cetera as facts.
But how do you know Microsoft hasn't infiltrated those projects to try to destroy them from within? Given that company's history, how could you put it past them?
Pretty much M$ embracing Linux at this stage is a shear act of panic and desperation. They are loathsome scum, they thought of Windows anal probe 10 (because when doctors use, M$ follows you right into the proctologists surgery and now monitors that camera hooked to a Windows 10 PC right up your butt). Strictly speaking according to law, Windows 10 should be legally banned from doctors offices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , yet it doesn't happen, why doesn't it happen, well, guess who M$ has guaranteed a back door to, yep, corrupt government agencies, hence no prosecution for a clear cut criminal act. You also have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., windows anal probe 10 again floating law by not ensuring the privacy of client lawyer discussion (both sides by law are require to be secure, guess who wants that back door), take M$ to court, when you and your lawyer have windows 10 installed, yep, uh huh, good luck with that.
It is not only evil, it is factually illegal and it is not being prosecuted, why the fuck not?!?
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Ubuntu is a Canonical product, but AFAIK, the meaningful measure of revenue comes from Ubuntu Advantage. Mobile failed, and any dreams of bundled storage and app services, plus any vendor licensing deals that could have come from it. I'm seeing this as an adaptation of that model; where WSL is just another distribution channel for Ubuntu could serve as a funnel for UA. "Land and Expand" meets "Embrace and Extinguish".
Android is completely open source
Android, in a practical sense, is not Open Source. AOSP is but there is more to an Android system than that, in fact in the linked article RMS himself calls out Android as a non-free operating system:
"...Making a non-free system, such Windows or MacOS or iOS or ChromeOS or Android, more convenient is a step backward in the campaign for freedom.""
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/will-microsoft-love-linux-to-death-shuttleworth-and-stallman-on-whether-windows-10-is-free-softwares/
I disagree; we should not judge the software by the person or organization that wrote or published it. We should reject the vast majority of Microsoft's software because that software is non-free (user-subjugating, proprietary) software. We can't trust any non-free software. This has nothing to do with its author. Microsoft's free software is like any other free software: we can evaluate its trustworthiness by inspecting the code, and if necessary improving the code. Then we can help ourselves by running that improved code (if it is helpful to us), and we can help our community by distributing copies of the improved code. These are the freedoms we get with free software and we should respect all computer users' software freedom regardless of the authors of that code.
Digital Citizen
On the AOSP Preparing to Build page under the heading Obtain proprietary binaries:
"AOSP cannot be used from pure source code only and requires additional hardware-related proprietary libraries to run, such as for hardware graphics acceleration."
https://source.android.com/source/building
Yes the code is there but you can't really use it in a practical sense without proprietary binaries and that's even before you get to real world uses cases of actually using Android applications that depend on the play services binary.
From a theoretical standpoint yes the Android source code in the form of AOSP is there and it is open source but in the real world nobody actually uses it that way.
Well yes but in the case of the actual system running on actual hardware it isn't open. Like I said, in a theoretical sense it could be but in a practical sense it isn't and if anything Android in general is getting less open as more and more Android applications depend on Play Services.
When you actually use an Android phone or tablet it's far from an open source system, there's some open source bits in between but really if what you want is confidence that you control the computer and it isn't spying on you then you aren't getting that with an Android device.
Exception that proves the rule..
Stallman: Mmm, this thing that I just picked off of my foot is delicious.
Shuttleworth. Eww, gross! I'm going to throw up...
Have you tried it?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
At times RMS has called any Linux distro that allowed for the easy installation of non-free software a non-free operating system. This includes Debian.
Now, from a practical point of view, Android is a lot closer to the BSD-model while theoretically still complying with the GPL, in that the developer has done as much as humanly possible to prevent the user from doing anything to the OS platform including installing software that the OS developer doesn't agree with. On the other hand, on a phone I'm not exactly going to get bent out of shape over it so long as the quality of what they do deliver is high. Sure, some more openness would be nice, but on the other hand I just need the damn thing to work every time I go to use it.
As for Linux subsystems for Windows, to play on the toybox analogies in the article summary, it isn't that Microsoft is going to take Shuttleworth's toys and go home, it's that Microsoft is going to take Shuttleworth's playmates and go home. From a corporate point of view, if the same software runs on a Linux environment or on a Windows environment, a decision-maker is going to opt for that Windows environment a lot when that decision-maker is himself more comfortable with Windows than with Linux.
With work I go to two or three smaller trade shows or conferences a year, usually held locally. There are a whole lot of vendors that are pushing products to supposedly get away from the command line when managing technology. Even Cisco is getting in on it, with a roadmap that essentially leaves behind the traditional IOS roots and heads off to a web-based central management system with zero-configuration management. A Microsoft approach to take Linux's functionality and integrate it into Windows will give decision-makers confidence that they too can migrate to Windows, even if the actual process to do it is difficult or if the software runs poorly that way.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
whataboutism doesn't make the original claim invalid.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They themselves said Linux is a cancer, right? So if anything they're trying to extinguish Windows by getting more Windows users to use Linux software until they don't need the Windows wrapper anymore. I'll drink to that :)
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
[...] where are our exFAT kernel modules for Linux already?
Here: https://github.com/dorimanx/ex... - but not thanks to Microsoft.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
What puzzles me is that you are right, even tough it makes no sense. My company has been recently taken over by a bigger competitor in attempt to create near monopoly, and many of our customers have immediately turned to the remaining (tiny) competition, in order to bring balance back to the market.
And yes, they chose to pay more for inferior product, because they had enough foresight not to let a single company take over the whole market. They knew that they would be screwed badly in just a couple of years, so they poured some money into competition's pockets, and what do you know, no monopoly for us. Bad for my company, good for general public.
And yet those same people keep buying into M$ marketing bullmanure as if there was no tomorrow. It is sad and it is strange.
What is best in life? Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
the ads would not have been as effective as the abuse of including spyware
Err no. $1bn buys you the eyeballs of the world. The vast majority of Windows 10 users on the other hand don't know the extent of the spying or don't give a shit. Just because it's in the tech news doesn't mean people in general know or care.
I don't really want to defend Windows 10, I wouldn't use it myself... But what specific telemetry do you think would violate doctor-patient or attorney-client privilege?
They published what they collect, and it's metadata about usage. Doesn't include user file names or file content, for example. If you have proof otherwise then I would genuinely love to see it, because I'd like to see Microsoft get prosecuted and forced to change their ways, but as far as I know there isn't any.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
By that standard are there any free operating systems at all?
There used to be some Chinese MIPS based laptops that ran Libreboot and Linux without any binary blobs, but they have not been manufactured for a decade.
All current x86 systems have non-free binary blobs in the CPU and chipset, the Raspberry Pi and other ARM systems still need binary blob GPU drivers.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They just want Linux tools and Windows tools to coexist. That way programs will be written that use both together in the same environment, making some new situations where Linux/OSS solutions will now depend on proprietary Windows tools and MS services.
Twinstiq, game news
"Microsoft is a different company now," .. translation: I'm now also on their payroll.
The "world" doesn't matter as much. What matters is what technically-knowledgeable people think.
However, Microsoft's policy of forcing users to migrate from earlier Windows versions to Window 10 certainly convinced a lot of people who don't have technical knowledge.
Actually I'm right twice.
Once through being objective, and twice for figuring in advance that I'm going to be modded down to oblivion.
Mind you, I wasn't trolling at all. It's a personal opinion based on past experience.
Extremists are bad, no matter which side they are. More so when they're opinion makers. They're the ones digging the hatchet of war up every fucking time.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
RMS vs Shuttleworth == Free Software vs Open Source.
There is NO WAY to be a fight between an ideological reason (Free Software) and an Academic/Practical reason based in facts in the software industry (Open Source). Both ones have different reasons (liberty, open collaboration, etc) and will not be coincident in "Why" do the things needed, and maybe in some "How" questions too.
The author thinks that bash "...is the default shell included within Ubuntu...". Sometimes I think that too after a new (K)unbuntu install and then my scripts start acting funny and I am forcefully reminded that Ubuntu for some reason installs something called 'ash'. The same by the way is true for awk and gawk and only God knows why this so.
Anyway, I think WSL is no big deal. Twenty years ago there were already several ways to run the bash command line and Unix commands under Windows, all more or less satisfactory. And suddenly they would turn around and bite you. I suspect that it is the same for the newer ones.
Paai
Can someone update Stallman to the fact that macOS and iOS are free?
First let me verify this: Where can the owner of a Mac or an iPhone get the source code of current macOS in order to adapt it to a Mac that Apple no longer supports, or the source code of current iOS in order to adapt it to an iPhone that Apple no longer supports?
From someone who obviously doesn't understand (or takes the time to understand) cats or Linux. I get love from both!
What matters is what technically-knowledgeable people think.
The past 2 years especially has proven definitively that we don't matter at all.
Eventually, I think, we will find ways to avoid Microsoft. I suggest that all nations support ReactOS.
From a corporate point of view, if the same software runs on a Linux environment or on a Windows environment, a decision-maker is going to opt for that Windows environment a lot when that decision-maker is himself more comfortable with Windows than with Linux.
That's right but it's probably more of a practical standpoint than anything else. The vast majority of people's computing choice isn't driven by ideological views but by practicality, it's a tool that does a job. People don't buy Windows because it's Windows, they buy Windows because it runs their programs. So from a practical standpoint why choose something that doesn't run your programs when you can choose something that does? There has to be a pretty compelling argument for that, in the smartphone market Apple provided one with the iPhone, it was disruptive innovation that benefited the consumer.
Like applications, drivers are not a part of any OS.
Yes but as is stated on the AOSP page you can see that you cannot use it without them, what you build to actually use is not built solely from open source but from a combination of open source and proprietary pieces.
Time for your meds now.
There isn't a single instance where those prophets were right. Lots of instances where they were proven to be complete lunatics though. The Stallman case included.
I'm over 50 years old and have seen Microsoft dominate and used every tactic to stay there. As RMS said, this is yet another tactic by Microsoft to cloak its true goal to extinguish GNU/Linux. Lots of Microserfs will say the opposite because it's in their intere$ts. GNU/Linux and associated Digital freedoms are not about placing Micro$oft's interests first. It's disappointing to see Canonical becoming complicit with Microsoft at this extraordinary level as to let them into the GNU/Linux kernel, the core of everything GNU/Linux. It's also a great way to destroy GNU/Linux currently superior performance to ensure Windows has the best benchmarks effectively giving Microsoft the green light to more profit.
I for one would never use this Microsoft/Canonical kernel and will be sticking to the Non-Microsoft stuff. I would love to see what Linus Torvalds has to say about this. Which one is more important: Keeping Microsoft #1 or Digital Freedom?
M$ have repeatedly reset privacy settings upon compulsory upgrades for every single user and don't even try to pretend it has not happened and that would be a criminal act, under law, which was not prosecuted.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen