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Ask Slashdot: Should We Worry Microsoft Will 'Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish' Linux? (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli writes: While there is no proof that anything nefarious is afoot, it does feel like maybe the Windows-maker is hijacking the Linux movement a bit by serving distros in its store. I hope there is no "embrace, extend, and extinguish" shenanigans going on.
Just yesterday, we reported that Kali Linux was in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10. That was big news, but it was not particularly significant in the grand scheme, as Kali is not very well known. Today, there is some undeniably huge news -- Debian is joining SUSE, Ubuntu, and Kali in the Microsoft Store. Should the Linux community be worried?
My concern lately is that Microsoft could eventually try to make the concept of running a Linux distro natively a thing of the past. Whether or not that is the company's intention is unknown. The Windows maker gives no reason to suspect evil plans, other than past negative comments about Linux and open source. For instance, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once called Linux "cancer" -- seriously.
Just yesterday, we reported that Kali Linux was in the Microsoft Store for Windows 10. That was big news, but it was not particularly significant in the grand scheme, as Kali is not very well known. Today, there is some undeniably huge news -- Debian is joining SUSE, Ubuntu, and Kali in the Microsoft Store. Should the Linux community be worried?
My concern lately is that Microsoft could eventually try to make the concept of running a Linux distro natively a thing of the past. Whether or not that is the company's intention is unknown. The Windows maker gives no reason to suspect evil plans, other than past negative comments about Linux and open source. For instance, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once called Linux "cancer" -- seriously.
Linux is way too fucking big and popular to be squashed. It isn't just used by the unwashed IT professional, but too many corporations depend on it for Microsoft to be able to hurt the project.
No one is still there from those days. At some point, you need to move on.
Youâ(TM)ve already extended them I assume, so letâ(TM)s just extinguish this now.
It feels like it is the 90s again!
This is a good question. I wonder if the outcome could be as stated (natively running Linux a thing of the past) but not for the reason given. There may be no grand evil plan from Microsoft, but separate issues could lead to less ability for users to run Linux natively.
I'm thinking about hardware compatibility. This is sometimes spotty for Linux on mobile hardware (power usage, graphics switching, sleep, etc, etc). If running WSL is good enough for most, will there be as much impetus to resolve these issues? If not, will the state of running Linux natively suffer? Seems possible.
If Microsoft makes applications and file formats that only work on windows, everyone screams "monopoly" and "antitrust"
If Microsoft does the complete opposite, makes applications for linux and even makes linux applications work on windows, people scream "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish".
Seriously, is there something that Microsoft can do that won't be perceived as evil?
Everything gives you cancer. There's no cure, there's no answer. Sudo.
Having used Linux productively since 0.99c on a Compaq 386/16, I don't see how any one group or company could even have any significant influence on Linux...
I would wager most folks who are interested in computer security have used or heard of Kali.
On the server side, we have systemd happily destroying the usability of server management with binary logs, opaque configuration and horrible documentation.
No, no worries: Microsoft can happily do whatever it wants. With the state of Linux, it will get no where.
If this continues, I just give up and go back to Windows, as horrible as I think Windows 10 is.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Microsoft is no longer "about" DOS, Windows or any OS. That's old news. These days, MS is about the "cloud", especially its Azure cloud. You can technically run whatever you want, but you'll be monitored and limited by MS infrastracture and TOS. The OS is useful for them, but getting to be less and less critical, and maybe one day it would be more burden than it's worth. MS may even let Linux "win" a by that point meaningless victory.
tl;dr Microsoft is not "embracing and extinguishing" Linux, it is embracing and extinguishing your computer.
Provide a native Linux version of Visual Studio 2017. It doesn't have to be free.
Linux on Windows is an emulation layer, similar to WINE on Linux. I tried it for compiling code, and it was orders of magnitude slower than running Linux in a VM or natively.
It will only be useful in cases where performance isn't important.
If Microsoft makes applications and file formats that only work on windows, everyone screams "monopoly" and "antitrust"
If Microsoft does the complete opposite, makes applications for linux and even makes linux applications work on windows, people scream "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish".
Seriously, is there something that Microsoft can do that won't be perceived as evil?
Not likely any time soon. Trust is a hard, hard thing to repair once broken.
Nope
Well, I mean, they have a track record of doing both of those things. So no, they can't really escape distrust and cynicism no matter what they do. Their only out is to slowly regain trust - which I think they are doing. But they dug their hole - don't feel bad that they need to work hard to scratch back out.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What Microsoft store? Are they really trying to push that thing again?
Come to think of it, except for Office these days, "who is Microsoft"? There really isn't any reason to run M$ OS's anymore. Even the last good reason to have Microsoft servers (for AD) is slipping away as identity providers have up'ed their game.
I don't suspect that presently, but it has definitely occurred to me as possible. In order for that to become reality, I predict a preliminary step would be for Microsoft to release their own Linux distribution, then to do what they can to increase its adoption (give it preferential treatment in the Store over other WSL-based distro packages, perhaps begin installing it by default with a convenient "WSL" installation screen that downplays options, etc.). Once people become familiar or accustomed to this "MSLD" and its unique (extended?) features or hypothetically closer interoperability with the windows host system itself, then you start to see where those tactics can lead. I am unaware if MS is working on (or has already released) its own Linux distribution, but it wouldn't surprise me.
...when everything is a crime, everyone is a criminal.
For all the posturing, I'm pretty sure they just don't grok the whole Linux thing.
And anyway, Red Hat already have a huge head start.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And native version of MS office for linux, We'll pay for it.
While I think that this is all simple paranoia (or narcissistic desire on the part of the original writer to see himself in 'print'), I think that the path to extinguishing open-source is different. It would be the path of making it more difficult to boot Linux (and *BSD) in the name of security through the OEMs and MB manufacturers.
...the concept of running a Linux distro natively a thing of the past.
I hate to break it to you, but I've got hundreds of linux boxes running––– As VMs. In my case they happen to be running on Fedora and RHEL hypervisors. And I'm the dinosaur at that. Containers are the future.
I almost never choose to run new boxes "natively" whatever that means. I guess it means on bare metal.
Microsoft once (and from their perspective quite accurately) described Linux as a cancer, eating their business. Now as a last resort, they may try to embrace the cancer. Don't think that works as a long term strategy.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Anything that makes it easier to access Linux is a good thing, the distros listed in apparently agree; no one forces them to use Windows Store.
There is really nothing new here, running Linux inside virtual box et al has been a thing for years, though I think virtualising Windows on a Linux host is the much better choice.
In order for the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish to happen, Microsoft would have to release a version of Linux that then gets used by most existing Linux users, enough that other distributions then give up, then Microsoft does as well.
In contrast, adding Linux to windows as an "app" is not going to do anything to the existing Linux user base.
So to answer the question...No, we do not need to worry about Microsoft damaging the future of Linux.
No.
Had "Linux" being one product, developed by one "ent" (be it person or company), then the embrace/extend/extinguish approach could have been a valid concern. The thing is, they are mostly community driven. Linus (and others) would happily tell Microsoft to f*ck off and keep developing. And so will people from GTK/Gt ecosystems.
Microsoft could well end up with its own distribution (Intel has one), but I very much doubt something like Debian, or Arch could be "embraced" and extinguished by a 3rd party. And if they do, there are other distros.
Don't be dumb: Microsoft is a convicted monopolist.
That is a fact.
CAPTCHA: plunged
How is Microsoft "extending" Linux when a bunch of Linux vendors provide their own distributions in the Linux store? Furthermore, the Microsoft subsystem for Linux does little more than what Docker on Windows already provides.
Linux is the industry standard for software development, containers, server and compute applications; it has won. The Linux subsystem on Windows is Microsoft's acknowledgement of that fact. Microsoft Windows isn't going to infect Linux through the Linux subsystem, Linux is "embracing and extending" Windows, and this is just going to help make Windows-proprietary features more and more irrelevant.
Well, they can try 20 years of good behaviour to make up for the 20 years of bad behaviour. I haven't seen them start yet.
I haven't seen them start yet.
And what would that start look like? obviously making apps for linux and making linux apps work on windows is not it.
People complain if they close up, people complain if they open up. Is objectivity completely out the window (pun intended) here?
Seriously, is there something that Microsoft can do that won't be perceived as evil?
No. Just as you should never trust a serial killer. They should never be trusted after their past misdeeds. Their reputation has forever been tarnished in the Linux community.
Their evil is legion. Sociopaths don’t outgrow that. They just get really good at hiding it.
When companies are made public, they tend to follow an arc, somewhat like zombification.
The first step, typically, is denial. Nothing will change! This is an improvement! Look at all these funds! We're just serving a vital public interest!
The next step is a systematic loss of vital properties. Founders cash out as soon as possible, mission statements start to shift (no more 'Don't be evil'), and the very language of the place shifts.
Generally, the entire place becomes less mobile, more stiff, and only focused on eating the brains of other companies.
They DO still gain power from this transformation - which is an important part of infecting other companies with the ideal of going public.
The power of the market is the power to consume the value of any information. Any information put before the market will still exist - but its perceived value will be exploited until it is seen as worthless information.
That's where open source software is important - it never values the information as a trade token to begin with, only as a functional tool to be combined to create functionality for use by anyone.
The market has an inherent dislike for this, because it cannot consume the value of this information completely - it cannot kill it in the same was the market's insticts drive it to kill value in other contexts. This constantly confuses and angers the market zombie herds.
Microsoft is now an old zombie - it always wanted to kill the value of others wherever it could benefit - but however it bites, its target's source can be copied and remade. This confuses and angers it, but as long as it can shamble and appear dominant, the market will still support it.
Two Buttons Meme:
Betteridge's Law of Headlines
Everything Microsoft does is EEE
Actually, Microsoft has done this once before. Remember the netbook fad in the mid 2000s? Asus started it with the eeePC, and to save licensing cost, installed some weird Linux distro into it. It was a raging success at the beginning. Microsoft, feeling threatened, offered to give out their OS for free, with several stipulation on hardware, such as RAM, CPU, screen size, resolution, etc. See http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/microsoft-windows-netbook-hardware-limits,news-31181.html I truly believe MS has a very big contributing factor in bringing down the Netbook market. I really liked the form factor myself. Luckily, the Android and iOS based tablets is easily taking up on that market share, and MS is having a much harder time trying to extinguish that with their Surface line. For crying out loud, the standard netbook spec stayed almost the same for several years in a row because of those restrictions! They've tried to do that with the phone market, by buying out Nokia, and lost dearly. This won't be the last time they will try this. So yes, when MS does stuff like this, they are absolutely being "evil", and should definitely be called out on.
Linux started in 1991.
And it was about to become great. Every year. And it has become great as companies started cutting costs. Obviously a self-trained system administrator will be far cheaper than one with all the certificated. Throw in the licenses and you get a quite a good deal by putting Linux on your servers.
In the mean time, Linux is the same barely usable you-get-what-you-paid-for system for highschoolers who need a higher purpose reason to cut school. Even Windows is on its way out. So what is going to make Linux go from 3% to 1%? The evil conspiration coming from Microsoft.
No here.
Linux itself, given its deep penetration into device and Internet infrastructure with it's lack of licensing fees is "safe" from Microsoft. But Microsoft could "tame" Linux that runs on top of the "Windows kernel" and slow or limit it in ways over time to keep it caged and within their control.
They also may just make Linux on Windows 10 spy and watch users and then turn that info to their own strategy based on what is popular on any installed Linux on top of Windows.
This combined with the difficulty of buying any turn-key PC without Windows pre-installed gives them tremendous leverage.
Microsoft has always leveraged being at the bottom of the platform stack to their advantage. And as long as they are perceived by their customers to be a REQUIRED platform install below Linux they may not care. After all, their existing customers still want TurboTax and MS Office and all the other Windows only applications.
What Microsoft is working to prevent is that Windows is run virtually on top of a Linux platform. That would be very bad for them. As they'd lose a huge amount of leverage. data collection and control likely leading to an acceleration of lost market share and eventual obsolescence.
Facebook is billions of individual "Skinner Boxes." And if you use it you are the pigeon!
Not hard to figure out.
MS/Redhat now own Linux. Everybody else is just hobbyist bit player.
Any moment now Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon might switch all their servers to "Windows Enterprise" edition.
I can't even read my own stuff without giggling.
Microsoft doesn't care what you run anymore...as long as you run it on their hardware and pay them every month for the rest of your life. Their strategy is to get everyone possible onto a monthly subscription, and Office 365 is the first step for most organizations. Once you have that, then you take over the company's identity management with Azure AD, first with cloud-only IDs, then synchronization and then with full-blown ADFS. This gives them a very solid foothold to move the company's computing resources into Azure, giving Microsoft the lock-in they want.
It's actually a good strategy...since they can't sell boxed products anymore, they're trying to control the entire market by controlling where you run stuff, not what you run on it. I'm guessing there might even be a day where they decide to drop Windows once the revenues from Azure and Office 365 get high enough.
1. It can't, as has already been pointed out. If Microsoft somehow engineered to gain control of the Linux Foundation board AND Torvalds was out of the picture, then you may justifiably start to question. Just because Microsoft is putting Linux in its stores doesn't mean anything bad and likely will only mean good. Many tech megacorporations, including Microsoft, already use Linux code.
2. This is the one that's going to annoy some of you: desktop Linux is a drop in the bucket compared to Windows. It's like a pesky little fly, not a real threat. The lack of organization in much of FOSS is the very reason why it cannot threaten Windows. Organization and management is the thing FOSS needs most to start turning out a serious business model that COULD threaten Windows.
I can't imagine a lot of Linux users migrating to Windows just because of the Windows Subsystem for Linux. The main reason Microsoft is interested in supporting Linux is because of Azure and they quickly realized that Docker was going to leave them in the dust if they didn't provide something caparable. Since it would've taken way too long for them to create their own solution, they developed compatibility with Docker to facilitate running Linux processes on Windows. I would be more concerned about Microsoft making changes to Docker containers or the image format that only worked on Windows than any tricks they might use to co-opt Linux itself.
Overall, I just don't see Linux users migrating to Windows anytime soon, especially developers, because they already have a superior experience using Linux. I constantly have coworkers convincing me that I should migrate to Windows because then I could have the "best of both worlds" but I think they have that backwards. Linux is a superior host environment for me because of the following reasons:
- It doesn't install updates without my permission
- Updates don't change my configuration values out from under me
- Updates almost never break my system
- It doesn't install or remove apps without my permission
- It has superior window management
- It doesn't constantly need to be rebooted anytime the OS or even an app is updated
- Many development tools and runtime environments run much faster in Linux
- Many distributions don't require spying on me
There are many more reasons that I don't have time to elaborate but I just don't see this providing a good opportunity for Microsoft to ensnare Linux users, developers, or APIs. If anything, I see this as an opportunity for people to learn the value of Linux and eventually migrate away from Windows.
Provide a native Linux version of Visual Studio 2017. It doesn't have to be free.
They ported visual studio to mac. .net core for linux and made it work really well.
They added linux, android, mac and iOS targets for visual studio.
They created
They made asp.net core which works on linux and apache.
They created visual studio core which runs on linux and is one of the best text editors out there.
Clearly even if they ported visual studio to linux, people will still say it is evil.
It seems people are incapable of being objective when it comes to Microsoft.
Linux (or better: open source, Linux is merely the public face of the open source movement) started as something small.
Then it started to grow, become bigger and bigger.
They tried radiotherapy (SCO) to get rid of it, but the treatment failed miserably. It was too little, too late.
The Open Source cancer had already started to spread, leaving the server world and entering the desktop world.
(by now the time line is well past the "cancer" remark but the cancerous spread continues).
It took over a larger part of MS's main rival (Apple - OS-X).
It then spread to mobile world (Android), quickly dominating it.
It spread to the browser world (Mozilla, Chromium). It forced MS to amputate their IE. The replacement (Edge) is a mere prosthetic. It can't take the place of the original.
There's nothing MS can do about it any more. Open Source continues to grow, and like a cancer it's killing its host (Windows - arguably in part responsible for the ubiquitous PC itself).
The only thing that goes really wrong in the comparison is that a cancer usually dies with its host. Open Source doesn't
Dream on. RH/MS controls Linux.
Why do you think Debian is using that systemd crap? It is not because Debian loves it, it's because Debian felt they no choice. Read the email lists. Systemd was forced on Linux, by the powers that really control Linux.
The only Linux distros that do not use systemd are bit players, stuff for hobbyists. Industry and government is all systemd, or soon will be. Systemd was forced on the community by Redhat, nobody wanted it.
Microsoft has "embraced" Linux more lately but in reality it's more that they understand Linux has a place and they want to control it. What better way than have Linux running on top of a Microsoft product. Microsoft still makes some cash and allows those who want Linux to bring it in while still claiming to be a Microsoft shop. Microsoft then just sits back and determines what Linux does for those environments and then develop a replacement application for that need. Or they could in some instances simply do the old way of how Microsoft did things, acquire the product and rebrand it as Microsoft. Keep it on Linux, since they can "manage" it, and they don't have to do any major work, just let that application continue to exist rebranded...
There is a native version of MS Office for Android (which is Linux). There isn't a version for X11, but that's not what you asked for.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Microsoft is making money hand over fist from Android/Linux patents. Why would they want to kill Linux, because they get two billion dollars a year from the operating system at the minimum? Two billion may not be much compared to the 90 billion/year a year total revenue, but it is still something.
Of course, they would love to control the OS, but as it stands right now, they are better off making it interoperable than continuing to fight it, Halloween Memo style. Especially if they can start getting their management tools to work well on the platform, which brings another revenue stream.
Last time I looked WSL (and therefore Linux OS's) have very limited interaction with Windows. No graphics, no IPC. It's fine if you want to debug something for Linux server use, but until it integrates with Windows desktop and peripherals, there's nothing to worry about for typical desktop users.
Fiat Lux.
uhh, burn their corporation to the ground?
While there is no proof that anything nefarious is afoot...
There is a shitload of proof, gathered over decades. Microsoft has been trying to exterminate Linux vendors (Novell), slow them down (Patents), and tax them (Patents, Copyright). This is occurring at the same time that they are trying to adopt Linux technologies (Bash), and even claim them as their own (Microsoft sudo Patent).
Will they succeed. No! Microsoft is dealing with a multi-head hydra. Every company that they cut down results in more competitors rising up. This is a lost cause, and Microsoft is trying to extract as much revenue from the situation as possible through lawyers while laying off their engineering workforce.
Systemd is doing fine at the task of extinguishing linux.
MS does not want to give up it's global taxing right.
I remember many years ago Microsoft was part of the group promoting JAVA,part of the deal was NOT to create a OS specific version, they wanted to keep it generic to allow it to be able to cross platform the apps. Well Microsoft created J++. which had a lot of Microsoft specific enhancements . They refused to comply with the agreement. they were taken to court. Microsoft lost and were found in violation of the agreement. Microsoft's response was to release a patch to remove Java. I was in It support at the time, I had to go around to 134 machines and install Java(Sun version) .So I can see them taking a slow long time to somehow gain control of Linux.
> Seriously, is there something that Microsoft can do that won't be perceived as evil?
Yes.
Shrivel up and die.
Linux that runs on top of the "Windows kernel"
And I could put a Lamborghini body kit on a Fiero. But why would I do that if they are giving Aventadors away for free?
Have gnu, will travel.
I think it is because they weren't around when Microsoft actually done an Embrace, Extend and Extinguish.
Tools like Lotus 123 (Spreadsheet), Word Perfect (Word Processor), Fox Pro (Database Language), Which were big names that kept MS-DOS and the PC Compatible going. These tools were needed for Microsoft success. So they had embraced them, Working closely with them to make sure they could take new features the OS provided (and for Fox Pro, Microsoft even purchased it, and kept it up to date for about a decade). However they were working on their own version of these products, Excel, Word and Access originally was the cheap-o product that can be added onto a PC. Where the professionals would get the real software. However this put MS in a position where they are getting people using their products, where they can improve it to be competitive, Then just give their once allies the boot, by providing them with poor libraries, while the Microsoft products had a more direct communication with the system, making them run faster and with new features, not available via the normal API. Giving them a full advantage.
Microsoft isn't doing any of this with Linux at the moment. Linux for Windows isn't a key feature for Microsoft Success nor is Linux dependent to Microsoft for its success.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Two words for you: pulseaudio and systemd.
Don't worry, Brian. Linux is fine. You're fine. Take a deep breath. Exhale. Feel better? Good! Read less InfoWars. Get more fresh air.
The reason it can't threaten Windows is insurmountable momentum in the desktop software ecosystem, not due to technological deficit through lack of leadership.
In terms of developing for an OS and using an OS, I would *easily* take a modern linux distro over Windows. In terms of software support, well that's why I'm stuck with Windows, and why business makes me write software for Windows.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I would post a comment, but it will not show up, as usual.
Microsoft will certainly try to benefit from Linux. I keep hoping that they will not extinguish Open Source.
All Microsoft is doing is making it easier for folks to have a limited Linux experience directly in Windows and I think it's great. I don't need Linux running on hardware nor do I want to due to its limited gaming support. Plus, I also don't want to dual boot because that's just annoying and a pain in the ass. I also don't want to run Linux in a VM (or Windows in a VM) because I want a more integrated experience. What MS is doing is perfect for folks like me who basically want to run Windows but want a Bash shell and all the typical command line programs that come with a *nix OS. It's like cygwin but much better. This will in no way kill Linux on hardware. There will also be a large community of folks who run Linux on servers and desktops. Besides, VirtualBox didn't kill Linux, why would what MS is doing be any different?
I think it would be a great move for Linux to have MS Office on it. However, I would only use it if my boss would let me run Outlook and Access on Linux. I personally would never buy it. I've been using LibreOffice and Thunderbird for over 6 years, and I have no desire to go back to MS Office.
It would look like not forcing installation of spyware on users, for one.
Wow, I didn't know MS would pay so many people to post on Slashdot.
Silly me, of course I did. That a fucking MS ad right at the top of the page.
Now everyone just stop feeding these robots and go back to work, K?
Seriously, is there something that Microsoft can do that won't be perceived as evil?
No.
Personally Microsoft has faded to near total irrelevancy for me. I get an occasional question, but I just tell people to Google it.
Linux Mint, and LibreOffice get everything done that I need to do. It would be nice if Outlook were available, but Thunderbird with the Lightening calendar add on is damn close.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
If running WSL is good enough for most, will there be as much impetus to resolve these issues?
I don't see how "running WSL is good enough for most," as WSL bundles neither an X server nor a Wayland server. The free version of Xming hasn't been updated in over a decade. Another concept that I've read about is allowing a Qt or GTK+ application running in WSL to use the DLLs from Qt or GTK+ for Win32 to display its GUI, but I don't see what sort of proxying would allow that.
No, Micro$haft has always been EVIL, and nothing will change that, or the perception that they are EVIL! Even now M$ is still using false claims that Linux is using code that belongs to M$. They are still extorting $$$ from phone and tablet makers that use Android, again using the same type of false claims. While they are trying to say that they have changed, M$ is still doing EVIL things.
How much would it take to get a system that would run Windows under Linux? I realize that systems like Virtualbox do this, but it could be made a bit more transparent so someone installs it and gets a system that can run a windows install, but then Windows comes up and sees access to all the Linux filesystems,and the Linux system once this starts can access the Windows filesystem (with some software installed into Windows) directly? This would be more useful at times if the Linux side were able to access the Windows side without regard to Windows file protections, as happens with attached NTFS volumes now; this is very handy in untangling weird Windows protection and hiding schemes.
It is amusing to think that to the extent Windows is tricked into thinking a virtual environment is a real one, its media protection logic is bypassed. More to the point though, vendor software (most often support packages for some device or site) that only runs on Windows gets a way to run, without corrupting the host system, and without creating any areas the host system cannot readily access. It is handy to have Windows access host filesystems as network shares, but desirable to have the host be able to access the Windows filesystem, at least as a network share, and have less complexity fiddling with Samba settings to get this to work.
Do you think Microsoft is capable of being objective when it comes to Microsoft? Microsoft is in it for Microsoft. Their support of Linux is limited to using it as a server in thin virtualization clients on Windows Server. Their support of Visual Studio to other platforms is to encourage people to make more Windows applications--or XBox One. This isn't to say that Microsoft is evil to do these things.
However, it's either naive or stupid to take the history of Microsoft doing actions that could be beneficial to other companies, their consistently making sure those things always funnel back to using more Microsoft products--often by failure to completely or continue to support other platforms--, and just look the other way when the same setup seems to be appearing again. Yes, we will see just how much they will continue to support other platforms and just how much it's merely another means to try to divert people back to Windows. I have very little faith that Microsoft will ever push for platform agnostic and best tool for the job unless it's to line their pocketbook and always to be in the form that tends to depend, regardless, on Windows.
Until that behavior fundamental changes, my opinion of Microsoft will be of the mindset: can I readily switch away from them if there's a better deal and still be assured to still have a functional setup. Becoming dependent on any specific vendor is bad. Becoming dependent on Microsoft as that vendor is very bad.
MS is evil. So no. However, not everything they do is evil, so a discussion is merited.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There is a native version of MS Office for Android (which is Linux).
That'd be fine under two conditions:
1. Microsoft makes Office for Android available in repositories other than Google's.
2. Some major desktop Linux distribution packages a set of libraries based on AOSP for running Android applications that a user can install through the package manager the way the user installs GTK+, Qt, Wine, Mono, or any other set of libraries. Might the Treble HAL make item 2 easier?
So they'll take over all of AWS and Google cloud services? All of Android? Every Linux based router, and just about every Internet of Things thing? Yeah, good luck with that.
windows core licensing may just do that if you need buy a min of 16 per server for all your cluster even if you need about 5%-10% of the space to be windows.
and then it's hyper-v base level running your vm with maybe Linux being black listed.
Err...die and give the remains to the employees and shareholders?
year of no updates is bad (unless you have live kernel patching)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ubuntu's configuration of GNOME may be at fault. My PC runs Xubuntu 16.04, and when I click Indicator Plugin's network widget in the Xfce panel, one of the last items on the menu is "Connection Information". Choosing it opens a window with a tab for the WLAN and a page for the wired connection.
Every Android, every super computer uses the Linux kernel so for servers, Linux is winning. But it is the networks protocols, web protocols, sharing protocols and management protocols that MS will use to try to limit LInux.
Maybe that's a direct request from the NSA that wants easy access to linux boxes. Dunno .. but do we really need a version of linux that will send back " telemetry " to Microsoft and be backdoored to the NSA ? .. I'm on linux and will stay on it no matter what MS and the spy agencies think about it. Freedom !
I wonder why...
http://www.grcrun11.gr - MUDA tribute
It would look like not forcing installation of spyware on users, for one.
What does that have to do with EEE linux?
Just use VS Code.
I'm an ex-Softie and can assure you that nothing nefarious is afoot (officially at least). In fact, more products are being released that are roughly "linux first"...for instance, cloud shell supported bash for months before powershell. More and more of azure is running natively on Linux and the reason is simple...profits. Windows "runs hotter". Said differently, density is better on Linux. And in this new age of utility computing, the profits are made on the density, not on the licensing.
What really runs natively on Windows only anymore? Exchange? Who runs Exchange themselves anymore? If I was a Windows sysadmin I would seriously begin learning my way around linux.
I don't think that Microsoft wants to extinguish Linux. In my opinion, the new "Microsoft Loves Linux" future looks like this:
Linux VMs running under Azure (Microsoft gets paid)
Linux running under Windows (Microsoft gets paid)
Android (Microsoft gets paid under those questionable patent threats)
Linux won't be extinguished, it will live on under Microsoft's guidance, as they get paid handsomely for it.
I don't care about your karma, I don't care about what's hip. --Weird Al
It seems to have worked pretty well for Apple (i.e. OSX & BSD).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I am happy with the changes in Microsoft's behavior since Steve Ballmer was pushed out. .net for Linux and more.
We now have support for Linux in Microsoft's cloud. We have actual
There is SQL Server for Linux.
I think a Microsoft Linux distribution would be good business for Microsoft and for Linux. Many conservative businesses would likely adopt it to placade internal pressure for Linux. This would regain a leading strategic position for Microsoft, in the server spaces.
Red Hat and Ubuntu have disappointed--Red Hat with crappy reliability of enterprise support and Ubuntu of instability over time due to a train wreck of abrupt major changes. Debian is still by far the most reliable Linux server distribution. I haven't used SuSE in some time but I like at least some of what I see, such as good support for the KVM hypervisor.
If I were Microsoft, I would build a new (optionally) source-based distribution (easy to use tools for customizing and building, like early Gentoo was before chaos took over). I would establish a system of Annual Standard Library Bases (such as ASLB 2018, ASLB 2019, etc) that other binary software packages would be written to. This could not only stabilize software support but could also be deployed on other Linux distributions to enable the same binary software packages to install and run on them, as well. In this, include the open source .Net library.
Enable installation of proprietary applications through the Windows Store. Enable KVM hypervisor support and enable through this the installation of Windows, as well (from the Windows store).
I am sure ISV support would follow immediately.
Providing full sources and even the optional source-build ability will expand it's applicability and specialized efficiencies. It will also placade many claims of this being embrace-and-extend. Of course, it cannot placade all... but it wouldn't be. Continue to support other Linux and even Linux based off Microsoft Linux. Work with companies to help them customize it or to build derivative distributions. It will only expand the market software on the platform.
They've done so much bad over the years, there is no one thing that will change that perception.
If they do things that prove out to be in good faith for a length of time, maybe they can change it.
Maybe 10 years? Otherwise, thoughtful people will view them with skepticism, and those less so will scream "monopoly, or EEE"
I don't care about your karma, I don't care about what's hip. --Weird Al
shouldn't have acted like dickheads for the better part of two decades, that's a lot of baggage and pissed off people that aren't going to forget the kind of dumb and annoying shit they've done in the past, not to mention downright retarded or even, yes, evil. think of stuff like how relentlessly IE was pushed as some sort of "standard" despite being a huge piece of shit for most of its lifespan... think of lawyering up and suing everybody and anybody that got in their way during those browser wars, think of antitrust... the list goes on and on for past violations... that's their fault, their problem.
get mad all you like, they did this to themselves, this is just proof that they fucked up too much and for too long. this is what happens, people get burned over and over by any given corporation and then.. eventually... they get sick of it! surprise!
If only I had points. Thumbs up.
wanting to stay with libreoffice just means you have Stockholm Syndrome. a bigger pile of steaming dogshit i have never seen. it's a poorly managed open source project trying, very badly, to imitate a moving target. utterly unusable.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
By offering Linux and WSL subsystem, there is no more rationale for Secure Boot to be disabled on PCs, so it can be made a permanent and unchangeable part of the x86 platform.
This means the end user has no control whatsoever of their computer. The closed source CPU security firmware (PSP/ME), then UEFI, then Windows has full control of the machine and the hardware can be 100% locked down to Microsoft and/or vendor approved software only. Meaning things like uncrackable DRM and such start to gain a real foothold at long last.
Expected to see a FOSS/Linux/Anti-Microsoft circle jerk, and here it is.
I love Linux and Unix. Not worried.
The worst that can happen is we get a full Unix under whatever MSFT pushes. How is that bad?
The best case is that we continue as we do today. It isn't like MSFT will have anywhere near a replacement system. After all, they will want to be paid, they will want to spy on their users, and F/LOSS people want to avoid that so nobody will stop working on Unix/Linux systems.
But, see, it's not even real Linux that can run standalone, it runs under Windows. They already more or less hold sway over the whole 'secure boot' thing. If they effectively de-certify all standalone versions of Linux and keep promoting their subordinate version(s), they could conceivably kill off Linux as a standalone OS. Furthermore they could make all attempts to prevent this from happening sound like criminal hackers trying to take over your computer or somesuch nonsense, and that only what Microsoft offers is 'safe' to use. Don't underestimate how fucking evil they can be to get what they want: to be the ONLY OS provider on the planet. Don't forget the dirty tactics they've used in the past with Windows 10, and even before that.
Microsoft's new(ish) business model (seemingly) doesn't really care all that much if you use Linux. They've embraced open source, more so than a lot of companies. The hilarious bit is, (a lot of) you guys are talking about Microsoft like they're going to do what Apple did with BSD, while that would end up hurting Microsoft's new business model in the long run. Ballmer's been gone for a long time, now. I'm no fan of big blue, but holy crap, talk about grudges.
I haven't seen them start yet.
And what would that start look like? obviously making apps for linux and making linux apps work on windows is not it.
People complain if they close up, people complain if they open up. Is objectivity completely out the window (pun intended) here?
I suspect that it would look like quitting their bad behavior, which they've not done yet, and having the reports like the Cortana security hole routinely include the note that either the patch is out or due out in a couple days.
Opening or closing up has nothing much to do with anything here. That's like thinking that giving kids candy makes up for your ongoing habit of setting homeless people on fire.
die in a fire, obviously?
The people that do not want to run Windows already install Linux and they have enough choice that it does not matter.
The thing that is important for Windows is pre-install. As long as Linux does not get pre-installed, it will not be a threat. People already run Windows, Mac, Android and whatever you give them. So putting Linux on their website does not matter. They copuld give a USB key with Linux with every PC that sells Windows and there would not be an issue with competition.
Again: people who want Linux already have made thatb choice. The majority of people do not care. They run what is given to them preinstalled.
If it is your emplyers PC, they have no say and if it is a homne PC, they have no reason to use Linux instead of Windows (unless they already run Linux)
And how do we know all this? Look at what the people buy as phones and as portables and tablets. Just stand there and listen to people buying it. They buy where the salesperson gets the highest commission (does not even mean the most expensive machine) during that day.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Embrace Windows, expand it, then extinguish it. ...
Maybe I was only dreaming
Making Linux distros available is all about Azure. MS wants people to use their cloud platform, and they have acknowledged that there are more than Windows Servers on the internet.
If you look at all of their current marketing materials, they are taking the Big Tent approach to IaaS.
Linux is way too fucking big and popular to be squashed.
Nothing is too big or popular to be relatively quickly replaced by a superior successor. However, to do this you need something new which out performs the software it replaces. Just look at how quickly Blackberry crashed and burned under the onslaught from iPhone and Andriod.
;-). Given that each OS clearly outperforms the other in very different areas it makes a huge amount of sense for MS to embrace Linux. All fighting Linux has done is drive users to MacOS which is unix-based and works well with Linux. Embracing Linux is the best way to get developers, scientists etc to move to Windows by providing them the same desktop+unix environment MacOS provides. The recent string of minor and dud innovations from Apple plus their high and rising prices for no-longer cutting edge hardware also helps but that's not something MS can control!
This is why Linux has nothing to fear from Microsoft. MS have tried and failed to get Windows into the mobile device market because the OS is too big, clunky and resource intensive to run well on a small device. Similarly, their inroads on the server market have similarly had very limited success for the same reasons: Windows is a desktop OS and does not cope well with other uses.
On the flip side Linux has repeatedly tried to get in on the desktop with a similar lack of success (unless 2018 really is the year of Linux on the desktop
So I don't see this as "embrace, extend and extinguish" because that will simply not work: they already fought Linux in servers and mobile and lost. This is more playing to their strengths on the desktop: it's "embrace, encourage and expand".
Then oust Linus, get an M$ shill in.. say Lennart Poettering or Miguel de Icaza, or someone less well known.
Then fun and hilarity ensues as technical failures in kernel development cause linux to fall behind, while microsoft embraces and extends the userspace, now built solely on musl and llvm/clang, and thus putting the final nail into the no longer libre coffin of the open source movement.
For those of you at home: Heed my words: It's already happening. Short of you all collectively getting off your asses and getting involved, it won't be stopped. And within the next decade or two all hardware will be signed and closed and government mandated as such. It doesn't matter if you are in China, Russia, the US, the EU, the Middle East, or Africa, they're all pushing for more control. And without open computers and open knowledge they will have all the power once again.
They also open sourced powershell and released it for Linux/Mac.
I think it's pretty clear that Microsoft's priorities have changed. It used to be that they were all about selling licenses to Office and Windows, and they'd leverage their other products to push you to buy those two products. Now their focus is on selling hardware and subscription services. The importance of Windows is more of a way of providing easy access to their services, and even pushing people toward their services. For example, when you install Windows 10, you now get OneDrive built in and difficult to remove, along with advertising in the Start Menu for Office 365 and for purchasing software in their app store.
But if you don't want to use Windows, they seem to be taking the attitude of "Whatever, we don't care. Just as long as you buy an Office 365 subscription!"
make the concept of running a Linux distro natively a thing of the past
It will be a thing of the past. You will run a Linux distro in a VM on Linux in the cloud, or a Linux distro in a VM on Azure, or a Linux distro in a VM on Android, or something else. For the most part, who cares? Of course for the really performance-minded, no, Linux-on-metal isn't going away anytime soon.
As for whether a company can extinguish the world's technical backbone, I doubt it without extinguishing the concept of FOSS altogether, which they would have done long ago if they could.
Look, I've been using nothing but Linux at home for almost 20 years now, still volunteer a bit for the Calgary Unix Users Group, always talked it up at work.
But I *retired* two years back, so I can't advocate any more. It wasn't so much that Windows is "preferred" at work, but that nobody is aware of another option. All my Linux advocacy might as well have been advocating that business be conducted in Esperanto. It wasn't worthy of a laugh, or an eye-roll; it was forgotten two minutes after I'd spoken. (I was the I.T. Coordinator for the Waterworks, by the way; I managed million-dollar software projects. It wasn't that I had no respect, just that I was talking crazy talk.)
Mac's embrace of the entertainment/home market has relegated them to "just the graphic design guys" ghetto in business. Even the quite practicable notion that web applications would make OS irrelevant, still didn't. Why have a second OS? They barely support Windows. If you have *any* problem with it, they re-install from the "golden disk image", so most people don't complain.
Linux poses NO danger, whatsoever, to Microsoft on the desktop at work. I would say the same for "home" as well, since all my Linux advocacy for decades hasn't convinced a single non-techie friend to try it. Why would they? Windows is essentially free, they got it at purchase time. And it runs everything. And Blue Screens Of Death have become very rare.
Linux won the server market, mostly, and provided the basis for Android phones and tablets; it did its job. It's not an all-Windows world. But it is a nearly all-Windows-desktop world except for home and designer Mac users.
Microsoft can afford to be magnanimous.
Seriously, is there something that Microsoft can do that won't be perceived as evil?
To be fair, the only people who scream EEE at everything are those who don't dedicate even a single braincell to what Microsoft's strategy is or how Microsoft supporting {insert program / service here} plays into the way they make money.
This is just yet another example. Why would Microsoft "extinguish" Linux when they are using it as a cash printing machine on their highly profitable Azure cloud service?
Exactly this yes, Microsoft managed (by various means, many of which where illegal) to be the one platform option back in 1994-1995 when the current software market matured and cemented. After that point in time it didn't matter if you came up with a newer, better or faster product since the desktop world at large where too heavily invested in Windows.
The you must not have a dog (or have others taking care of it).
Wait are you from the past??
When did he say he didn't update in a year? He said he had to reboot Win10 more in the last weekend than all of his Linux machines in a year. He didn't say he didn't have to reboot Linux this year. For the most part, you don't have to reboot Linux with every update as not every update requires a reboot.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Linux is bigger than Windows nowadays. Android is Linux, most servers run Linux, and it is pretty much the default option if you want an OS for your hardware. EEE only works if you have a following, which Microsoft doesn't when it comes to Linux. Even Google, who controls a huge part of the Linux ecosystem with Android doesn't get to decide what goes into the kernel.
As for running stuff natively, we all run VMs nowadays. Microsoft just follows the trend.
Linux is way too fucking big and popular to be squashed. It isn't just used by the unwashed IT professional, but too many corporations depend on it for Microsoft to be able to hurt the project.
It is not Linux on the server that is threatened. It is Linux on the Desktop that is threatened.
Some people find that some tasks are better performed under *nix. Linux as a Windows subsystem, as OS/2 once was, could work quite nicely. For software development this would also be quite convenient.
To see how this would help Windows and hinder Desktop Linux look to Mac OS X including a BSD environment and console and some *nix users finding this a better option than Linux. It will likely be a stronger trend under Windows given that the productivity apps and games that many want are native to Windows.
A Linux app running natively on the Windows desktop is a quite compelling user case.
Nope.
Wine is a translation layer, it's a piece of user land software that maps incoming Windows API calls from native .EXE to the closest approximation achievable under Unix/POSIX systems (quite a lot is achievable actually).
WSL is NT kernel having multiple personnalities. In addition to be able to directly serve Windows API to .EXE, the NT kernel itself also able to serve (an extremely small subset of) Linux API to ELFs, including stuff that doesn't exist in Windows API and could not be done by a userland translation layer such as Cygwin (Windows API sucks at multi-processing, but the NT Kernel has recently gained pico-threads which makes it possible to support decent multi-processing for Linux ELFs, despite such a thing not existing in the regular linux world). (On the other hand you're still limited to the NT kernel's horrible IO)
(A long time ago the NT kernel used to do the same for OS/2 applications - run them directly without any translation in the middle).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
When .Not came out roughly 15 years ago I said it here on slashdot: Unless they FOSS it, they don't stand a chance. Countless Rails, FOSS toolkits and FOSS Java projects later they finally caught on and FOSSed it. It's a niche product and will remain that way because they are slow, but they finally did FOSS it because anything else would be stoopid and way to expensive for the future. By FOSSing it they can abandon it a few years down and nobody can cry foul.
As for the OS: They should've released Windows 10 with a custom Linux kernel, paid Torwalds some obscene amount of money to come on board as "Chief Kernel Master" or something and taken the helm on the FOSS bandwagon, maybe buying and integrating Redhat along the way, wielding the FOSS flamesword against evil lock-in companies such as Apple and Google.
They didn't and will probably need another 8 years or so to finally do it. Once again too late. But I figure by then they will have moved a solid amount of business to cloud and hardware and the OS will just be a toping. ... "Windows Neo - With Linux Technology." We will read something like that, but not soon enough for MS to become a key force in FOSS.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
There are ways to get the best of both worlds with Linux and Virtualization windows, or Wine. It really depends on which system you do your pirmary work, and which system, you are good with running in a slower mode.
Its likely neither will be perceivably slower. For years hardware has been so overpowered for most users that upgrades yield little perceived speedup, effective lives for machines going from 3 years to 7+ years. Hell even gamers can get 5+ years out of a system by loading up on RAM on day 1 and maybe upgrading a video card every couple of years.
A Linux subsystem for Windows is just as feasible as Wine. In practical terms most users would probably have fewer problems, gamers definitely would.
Virtualization, that's a tossup for me at least. If going virtualization the native OS would be a Linux server and both Desktop Linux and Windows would be hosted VMs. But that's my preference. And its only Desktop Linux that is under threat, not server Linux.
The Linux subsystem for windows is much better than cygwin.
We should be pretty damn worried about what Ballmer is going to do next!
With Microsoft's monopoly on all digital platforms, God knows they could crush Linux if they wanted to. /sarcasm
Their sales and hype teams got our PHB's to have us turn all new internal applications into "microservice" architectures so that MS can more easily rent components/services to us. It bloated the code base by 4x what a normal "monolithic" application would be. We have to launch bunches of consoles and "Solutions" to develop and debug. The very term "monolithic" is to paint such designs as stone-age tech. Gaawwwd, what a mess.
It's a clever bullshit game, I have to admit. The premise of "magic Legos" architecture for mass plug-and-play and reuse sounds enticing. Too bad the reality of fracturing everything and the overhead of JSON back-and-forth conversion kicks the dream in the nuts. You can make a regular site I/O JSON the old fashioned way anyhow when (rarely) needed. I've seen about 4 other dev fads in the past also claim magic Legos of one sort or the other, so it's a recycled game. This BS is the real "re-use".
Table-ized A.I.
The way for a third party to destroy GNU/Linux is by joining the Linux project and making the code more complex than it already is. You see already how SystemD has put a wrench in the project. You see already how complex and unreadable Linux code has become. It is possible in the future for Linux to collapse under its own weight.
Oh, for the days, when Linus was coding Linux himself. He followed his own principles of making the code readable.
So you mean to say you never used it back when it was StarOffice? Or after the name change to OpenOffice but before the fork?
I also wonder if you've used Lotus SmartSuite, Corel Office, or the stuff that WizardWorks used to put out. Or Microsoft's own Works.
The major performance issues that remain are with I/O.
Because even if there's no translation happenning, you're still bound to the sucky NT Kernel filesystem drivers.
Otherwise it's actually pretty good, in some cases equal to or even slightly better than bare-metal Ubuntu performance.
Keep in mind that this has mostly to do with the way multi-processing is handled :
- Windows suck at multiple processes, because creating a new context ( fork() ) is a horribly inefficient process. (Whereas on Linux, it's almost a free action thanks to CoW facilities in the virtual-memory subsystem).
- As such when running a unix software using a software translation layer (like Cygwin), multi processing will suck.
- That's why multi-threading is popular in Windows world : there's no context separation, everything is done in the came context.
- The NT kernel introduced a new concept called pico-thread which are much more light-weight than regular Windows process to setup. These aren't available in Windows, but gives a way to the NT kernel to provide extremely light-weight multi-processing to Linux ELFs.
- Multi-processing works decently well on WSL (unlike Windows native apps, or Unix apps via Cygwin).
- But if you read the technical blogs at microsoft, you'll release that the managed to achieve pico-threads by throwing away some of the context isolation of actual multiple process.
(There's a reason while picothreads aren't available for production Windows software)
- So basically in purely multiprocessing/multithreading benchmarks (e.g.: thinks running on OpenMP) WSL can even slightly beat actual real linux, because Microsoft threw a lot of safety and security out of the window. (It's great for testing software, but do not ever contemplate using WSL in production. It's only to test software before deploying on real Linux).
- When benchmarks are mostly CPU oriented (e.g.: most of the media compression tests) - most of the CPU cycles are spent running the instruction to process the data, and they are the same no matter what OS they run on (i.e.: a cygwin compiled software would run just as fast, provided it was compiled with a similar version of GCC the optimize code the same way).
- Whenever a benchmark hits any other part of the NT kernel (example: file IO) the performance just completely collapses. It doesn't matter that there's no translation going on and that the NT kernel is directly service IO request it self, when that IO code just plain sucks. A deep overhaul of the NTFS code would be the only hope for WSL to suck a tiny bit less.
(3D API in theory could be an area where performance degradation won't be as significant : some manufacturer like Intel produce better Windows drivers than Linux, and other like Nvidia re-use basically the same drivers.
But OpenGL is among the long list of Linux APIs that WSL is not supporting in its (very limited) subset).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
As subject :)
Reading these comments, it seems that most people don't understand how this works.
WSL actually provides an independently-developed Linux kernel compatibility layer running close to the underlying Windows kernel.
So, if a Debian distribution runs on it, then possibly "GNU/Windows" is a more accurate term for it than "Linux".
The actual Linux kernel code is not involved at all!
It said before truncation. They are too busy Embracing Extending and Extinguishing Windows!
It is a translation layer, like WINE.
Cygwin is the WINE-like translation layer.
WSL is about the NT kernel able to speak Linux API directly.
(NT kernel is weird in that it can support several different API - used to also directly run OS/2 software without translations).
Clearly I/O is the issue, since compiling is very I/O intensive. {...} you will notice that the WSL is almost 100x slower than the bare metal version of Linux when compiling.
Because it doesn't matter if your kernel is able to directly serve IO request natively instead of needing translation...
When those IO request are served by the usually terribly sucky NTFS code.
The main IO bottle neck (Windows' own awefull performance on anything filesystem related) is still there, no matter how many (insignificant) abstraction layers you removed above.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Based on their history and their track record, Microsoft is evil and does not deserve to be trusted with regards to linux and open source.
I did not know that Linus is paying M$ 2 billion dollars per year.
How does Linus earn so much money?
You have any references for patent fees from "Linux" or "Android" to M$?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Back in the day coLinux looked interesting, but it didn't get much love from the community. What Microsoft is doing here feels like coLinux. If anything, they put up the white flag and surrendered, and may as well keep whatever territory they got left. If people keep booting into a Linux desktop one day they may not boot back.
I've been running Linux natively for years now, and I am no longer capable of using a Windows computer properly. Back in the day I was a Windows user, sharing my computer with my family, I always kept an eye out for things that could run Linux on my Windows box without swapping hard drives or fucking around with LILO (yeah, long time ago), especially after reinstalling Windows erased the bootloader.
Cygwin sucked, so I didn't use it. MinGW was better in a few places, and sucked more in others. The suckiness was pretty much based on the fact that it was a GNU environment on a Microsoft platform. Square hole drilled in a round peg with a grenade launcher.
I made the split towards native Linux when I got my own laptop that I didn't share with anybody and never looked back except to confirm that I may turn to stone if I keep looking. All my proper jobs have been mainly on Desktop Linux (with that one time when they gave me a Mac and I had to use Xcode).
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
I don't know if they can extinguish it (no doubt they would if they could), but they're doing already significant harm to it. Just note how lots of developers switched from using Linux in their computers to just have it "installed" as WSL. This not only means they no longer run Linux but they also won't be using many pieces of software like desktop environments, web browsers, office suites. Less users could mean less bug reports, less funding, etc. And they may be using Microsoft alternatives and they would count as 100% Windows users for those making market share statistics.
So yes, Microsoft is doing their best against Linux growth, of course.
Seriously, Microsoft is far more about services and ongoing subscriptions than the old model of selling desktops. Yes, the desktop software business still brings in money, but not nearly as much as services and subscriptions. For instance, I have a MS engineer onsite right now helping my department with our SCCM and OPP deployment process to our 1500 or so desktops. The cost annually for my Windows desktop licenses pales in comparison to the amount paid for O365 hosted exchanges, OPP, and professional services.
They don't even flinch anymore when we mention Linux.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
You see, if Microsoft was somehow paying to get all the rights possible to these names, buying off dev teams, and subverting open source agreements, then I might have agreed.
But in this particular case, nothing like that is being done. It's just Microsoft facilitating access to distros into their store.
It's win-win. No one uses the Windows Store because it has almost nothing better to offer... perhaps putting Linux distros there might get some attention in untapped markets. And those distros could use a bit more visility and ease of use for the general consumer.
Furthermore, it's absolutely not in the best interest of Microsoft to do any damage to Linux, nor in the best interest of almost any other company. Linux is not a threat to consumer faced OSs by any stretch of the mind, and I highly doubt any of those companies would risk damaging such a huge asset that they actively use on the server side.
a bigger pile of steaming dogshit i have never seen
Well that makes one of you. I actually like Office 365 and Office in general. With that being said I've also used several versions of Libreoffice. Since version 5 I have found it to be usable. While it won't replace office in every situation, but for work with word and excel it can be use 90% of the time for Excel. And probably 98% of the time for Word.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Microsoft Can Go Pound Sand. And with declining sales,well what can they offer that Linux doesnâ(TM)t already have
Seems more likely that Red Hat will Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish Linux. People would actually take action to stop Microsoft.
The strategy of EEE (embrace, extend, and extinguish) works like this:
Microsoft starts offering something that people want, but "extended" in an incompatible way so that if you start using the Microsoft offering you get "addicted" to it and cannot switch to any other version. Because of Microsoft's huge share of the market, the "addicted" Microsoft customers greatly outnumber the people using the original version, and Microsoft gains de-facto control of whatever it is.
As an example, Microsoft added Windows-specific extensions to Java. Apps written that took advantage of these extensions would run only on the Microsoft extended Java. (Sun Microsystems sued Microsoft over this, and in response Microsoft scrapped the whole thing and stopped shipping Java, and then went on to create C#. Also, hilariously, Sun Microsystems sued Microsoft to force them to start shipping Java again, but did not win.)
Now, if you think for a minute, it's clear that this strategy can't touch Linux.
Linux already rules the world. It runs Google, Amazon, all the supercomputers, ISPs, firewalls, routers, all the IOT devices, and every non-Apple smartphone or other mobile device. How is Microsoft going to make an EEE version that is more popular than the non-EEE version?
Also, what is the "secret sauce" that Microsoft could add that would lock people in to their version? They could add some kind of Windows integration, which would make their version the best choice for Windows users... and all the current Linux users will shrug and pay no attention at all.
There is absolutely no danger of Microsoft even trying an EEE strategy, since Microsoft knows it wouldn't work.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
While there is no proof that anything nefarious is afoot...
Well then, by all means, make something up and act like it's real!
Today, there is some undeniably huge news -- Debian is joining SUSE, Ubuntu, and Kali in the Microsoft Store. Should the Linux community be worried?
OMG, MS is making it easy for a user to run Linux Distros and by extension Linux Application on a Windows computer - those BASTARDS!
My concern lately is that Microsoft could eventually try to make the concept of running a Linux distro natively a thing of the past. Whether or not that is the company's intention is unknown.
Oh My! Imagine a world where people only run Linux in a Hypervisor! How horrible! Except, you know, many/most/nearly all production server environments have run under some form of hypervisor for the last few decades, first on mainframes, now on x86 PCs and servers.
Why is it important to only run Linux Distros natively?
The take-away from this isn't that it's important for people to run Linux, it's important that they stop running Windows? Grow up.
The Windows maker gives no reason to suspect evil plans, other than past negative comments about Linux and open source. For instance, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once called Linux "cancer" -- seriously.
Ken
That's hilarious, because the company I work for has standardized on LibreOffice. And I promise you give them money, there is literally no way you cannot.
My belief is that one day there will be no linux and no windows, at least not in the way they view them now. Microsoft is already making serious headway on the command line space with PowerShell, which can be installed on Linux and Windows OS's. As a linux user of 15 years who still remains frustrated over the lack of cohesion in bash its commands, PowerShell is a refreshing reminder of a best case scenario when open source is used as inspiration for a closed source solution. PowerShell can interface with ILO/iDRAC, storage devices, switches, with a handful of plugins and can become Skynet with everything else if you install Network Controller (Server OS's only). I for one am looking forward to an amalgamation of Linux and Windows. Linux methodology with Microsoft's software catalog sounds like an amazing future. At one point, I had hoped that future was Android, but Android is no closer to becoming a true desktop or server OS than it was 5 years ago when I first posted my hope on Slashdot that it could take over as a desktop and server OS.
Back when Linux was new and used by a few hackers for odd projects, this was a valid and widely voiced concern.
But these days Microsoft may still own the desktop, but Linux owns supercomputers, web servers, cell phones, routers, smart TVs, airplane infotainment systems, ATMs, cloud computing, internet-connected devices in general, and so many other things that Linux computers outnumber Windows computers by a significant factor.
It's too big a market for even Microsoft to usurp at this point.
If Microsoft was serious about Linux, then we should be seeing more hardware vendors offering something other than Windows.
Microsoft should pay for software diversity.
My concern lately is that Microsoft could eventually try to make the concept of running a Linux distro natively a thing of the past.
No. That's not even a thing. The folks really using Linux, at least to a point that would worry Microsoft, know the difference. Anyone who wouldn't aren't even a market for Linux or pose no massive threat to their bottom line.
To be fair, systemd is alot better than upstart or System V. I like having a functional front-end for daemons where I don't have to learn separate daemons to make them work properly. Having to write my own upstart files or System V units was a huge chore. Any excuse to get rid of iptables for something better was also very welcome.
They created .net core for linux and made it work really well.
My understanding was it was Miguel De Icaza started the Mono project back in 1999 and was eventually hired by Microsoft in 2016 (17 years later). Is there a .net core on Linux not based on Miguel's work? Honestly curious.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Dream on. RH/MS controls Linux.
Why do you think Debian is using that systemd crap? It is not because Debian loves it, it's because Debian felt they no choice. Read the email lists. Systemd was forced on Linux, by the powers that really control Linux.
The only Linux distros that do not use systemd are bit players, stuff for hobbyists. Industry and government is all systemd, or soon will be. Systemd was forced on the community by Redhat, nobody wanted it.
You sir are an idiot. Nobody forced debian to use systemd. They use it because it is the best way to do it.
Maybe MS are preparing Windows to get a new kernel (Linux). When all tested and running fine, they will replace NT kernel and switch the emulation layer the other way around - to emulate Window environment for "old" Windows applications with running Linux kernel beneath. Windows developers already liked Git, bash, maybe they started to like WSL as developing environment. As a bonus everything will run faster, more reliably and will get file system which finally doesn't fragment and corrupt, files not getting locked, network stack will be perfect, ditto memory management. Even containers will work. Even viruses will get confused.
They created visual studio core which runs on linux and is one of the best text editors out there.
To be pedantic, that would Visual Studio Code. Except for minor issues (*) it is an excellent editor in large part as a result of the plugins for supporting languages like go.
You forgot SQL Server. I've heard that it runs better on Linux than Windows but I have not confirmed that.
Do you think before you wrote things? You sound like a nut.
The Linux kernel ends up being adjusted to make it âoework with Microsoftâ(TM)s store/Windows.â
It might be that WSL will turn more users to Linux rather than extinguish it. Or so I hope.
Just learn that command line, and then rid of the useful Microsoft Store process eating all the memory CPU and disk and the antivirus and the rest by booting into a real operating system. Seriously, on a budget laptop Linux flies where Windows 10 barely makes with the auto updates.
They created .net core for linux and made it work really well.
My understanding was it was Miguel De Icaza started the Mono project back in 1999 and was eventually hired by Microsoft in 2016 (17 years later). Is there a .net core on Linux not based on Miguel's work? Honestly curious.
Yes
Here is an article I posted here last year. In it includes even binaries to run to run it and add Microsoft as a repository in your apt-get lists from Microsoft's website.
http://saveie6.com/
Lack of updates depends on the use case and configuration of the machine, and live kernel patching is available for linux (while live patching of the userland without rebooting has been possible for years)...
If your system is minimal, then there is very little that needs to be patched, and linux is much easier to make a minimal install than windows where there are too many interdependencies and network listening services which can't be turned off etc.
So i often have systems which go a year or more without needing any updates, and certainly no reboots.
05:03:12 up 1418 days, 2:09, 1 user, load average: 1.29, 1.14, 1.09
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SQL server for Linux is pretty cool. I just fired up a docker instance a while back and our whole testing environment runs on it now. Didn't have to make any changes. I'm sure there's some fidelity differences at the higher-end feature like the warehousing and clustering, but for now I'm liking it.
I wonder how long until the developers add a registry.
GConf is a Windows registry-alike that GNOME has used since the GNOME 2 days, and has commits from 1999. Someone eventually realised this was a bad idea, so it was replaced with dconf, an improved configuration store with similarities to the Windows registry.
VS2017 user here. You can keep Visual Studio for yourself, thanks. And Eclipse too.
There's still no bedrock edition of Minecraft for Linux or Mac; they say one thing & do another.
Until they treat Linux & Mac as equally as their own system; people have every reason to distrust them.
I think there are two things going on:
* Many tools and solutions are available for Linux but not for Windows, or don't work right in Windows because it isn't POSIX
* Microsoft wants to control everything, even if it runs on other OSes. Specifically, they want to continue spying on people, selling their data and have low-level "god mode" control of their machines without the user even noticing.
With Linux on WSL able to communicate and exchange with Windows programs and pipe data to each other, some Linux solutions could end up requiring Windows to work properly.
Twinstiq, game news
Because these distributions are able to interact and exchange data with Windows applications, with Linux programs being able to call Windows programs for certain functions. It could mean for certain scenarios a Linux program could require a function only available in Windows.
Twinstiq, game news
That works good and well until you look at EFI, and wonder if it is going to be changed in the future to make installing things like Linux a whole lot harder.
Intel ME? SGX? Just because you are the OS no longer means something can't come from underneath and create incompatibilities.
If HDMI required video to be HDCP compliant, and the HDCP encryption was only included by video cards as a closed source Windows solution do you think that would affect Linux? How long until those VGA and DVI ports become fully antiquated? How many Linux users know how to get any LiveCD to boot from a serial terminal running over a USB to RS232 adapter without any VGA support [grass roots install with no backup computers]?
> Indeed. Also the reasons to use Linux in a lot of places is because
> it is a well-designed, versatile, flexible, reliable and secure and open OS.
Linux *USED TO BE* a lean/mean OS with lots of apps that did one thing and did it well. Then along came Lennart. He's Embraced it and Extended it to ridiculous complexity. I remember running Redhat Linux on a 16 *MEGA*byte machine in 2000. Oh, and get off my lawn, Lennart
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), while a neat project, is basically scoped to only be able to run a small subset of all software that you can run on a proper Linux kernel. So "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" (EEE) would only be possible for a small number of use cases.
Things that don't work now and probably won't work any time soon:
- Raw sockets (i.e., IPv4/IPv6 sockets that aren't explicitly using a specific session layer like TCP or UDP)
- Native support for X11 apps with OpenGL hardware acceleration, without having to pipe the whole thing over the IP stack to a third-party X server that comes with a huge performance overhead because you're not using Direct Rendering
- Deep and comprehensive integration of desktop environments, window decorations and widgets from Linux apps (both KDE and GNOME/MATE/Cinnamon/etc., plus a few less-common ones like LXDE and XFCE) so that a Linux environment can co-exist comfortably on your screen with Windows apps without duplicating things (for example, adding all X11 windows to the Windows Taskbar's window list instead of using a KDE or Cinnamon or GNOME window list)
- Support for Linux Containers
- Deep enough support for Docker that any random Docker image you grab off the Internet and try to run in WSL will "just work" without a hitch (discounting the "Docker for Windows" project that basically starts a Linux kernel in a VM and runs Docker in there, but that's not the same thing at all and comes at a significant performance and overhead cost)
Things that are *basically* impossible per the design of LXSS, and can never happen:
- Support for custom kernel modules (the functionality of specific kernel modules like tun/tap might be supported eventually, but not *any* generic Linux kernel module)
- Support for all the various extended attributes and ACLs of any possible Linux filesystem (basically implementing the Linux VFS comprehensively, not just doing path translation like they do now)
WSL is neat, but a lot of things don't work and probably never will because of the many differences between the design of Windows and Linux and the impracticality of tying them this closely together.
Althoooough, if they implemented the userland aspects of the Windows desktop on top of a Linux kernel, *that* would be sort of an EEE. You *could* then natively run anything that'd run on Linux because your kernel would be *Linux*, and the only remaining concerns would be about drivers that exist for Windows but not for Linux (but if they went this route, I'm sure vendors that continue to support their products would grumble and reluctantly provide Linux drivers to Microsoft, in droves).
I mean, you've been worrying about it for probably two decades now. If you stopped worrying about it, and then it happened, you'd feel really, really silly.
So, yes: you should worry your heads off. You should lose sleep over it. You should stop random passers-by in the street and warn them of the imminent peril.
Most importantly, you should never, ever, ever take your eyes off Microsoft: you might miss them doing something horrible.
With the consumer-hostile features contained in Windows 10 and other Microsoft products, it's clear that Microsoft is no longer a trusted company. It's an odd feeling not to be able to trust your own computer.
If they start tackling Linux, they'll only do so in their own area. I'm hoping the world will continue to develop linux around and away from anything that Microsoft develops. It won't matter what Microsoft's plan is, their user-hostile track record should be enough to keep Linux independent.
You shouldn't worry because the end point OS doesn't matter to them any more.
They are going to make their money off of hosting the services and applications people actually use, and things like identity management, compute and other Azure goodies for organizations.
Am I the only one noticing that every post attached to this article, which is either critical of systemd, or points out that Linux is controlled by Red Hat, has been moderated Redundant?
Note to systemd advocates:- If you want us to believe you that systemd is [b][i]not[/i][/b] insidious, then having shills attempt to crush literally any dissenting opinion about it, is unlikely to produce the outcome you're looking for.
The single biggest mistake that systemd's advocates made, was the degree to which they tried to censor any criticism of it whatsoever. Doing that is not going to shut people up; and it is also not going to convince those of us already hostile to it, that it is in any way beneficial to us. It actually just makes you (and systemd itself) look downright evil.
Now please, go ahead and mod this post Redundant as well, just to reassure me that systemd is in fact both harmless and truly wonderful, and I'm just being a paranoid schizophrenic.
"I can change, guy! Honestly!"
No, in the same way you can not convince evangelicals Hillary is just a regular person, not Satan incarnate. Religious nutcases will always be religious nutcases
The ignorance is high in this one.
the only thing i can infer from your post is that you're not really into making coherent, logical arguments.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
extinguishing windows right now to care about anything linux-related.