
Head of Oracle Linux Moves to Microsoft - guardian5x
http://www.zdnet.com/article/head-of-oracle-linux-moves-to-microsoft/
======
diebir
I highly doubt these Linux games will amount to much for Microsoft, but it's
fun to watch.

Their fundamental problem is (which they realize pretty well i seems) that
they have lost developer's mind share. .NET may be a fine ecosystem and C# may
be a great language but in all practical senses it is Windows-only. All these
Mono/open source CLR games are not even the slightest blip on the radar for a
practical day-to-day backend operations running cross platform (which is
mostly Linux, but Windows as well).

MS is lagging behind the Java ecosystem by 20 years. It's fun to watch them
scramble and try this and that, but I suspect that the train has left the
station long ago.

I think Oracle Linux has been a joke. I don't know anyone in their right mind
using that. RH or CentOS, yes. Oracle Linux? Most IT professionals will pay
extra to have nothing to do with Oracle. Heck, I am considering risking moving
to OpenJDK, just so I have nothing of Oracle in sight.

~~~
MichaelGG
With MS supporting CLR on Linux, I don't see what the problem is. They now
have a limited IDE and runtime support for cross-platform.

FWIW I've used Mono in production on Linux in telecom, and it's handled many
billions of messages over the years. With F# nonetheless. Apart from a few
rare issues here and there it's been a great experience.

~~~
zxcvcxz
>limited IDE and runtime support

Key word: limited

I don't believe MS will ever fully support Linux 100%. They will always make
their software tooling more compatible with their OS even though they have the
ability to create software for Linux that is on par with the Windows
counterparts.

Microsoft purposely leaves their "cross-platform" software gimped out so that
anyone who does decide to take up .NET on Linux will eventually want to switch
to Windows because Microsofts support for Linux is half assed.

Hopefully most people can see through the obvious MS shilling that's been
going on lately.

Some people seem to believe the "new bash" coming to windows is somehow a game
changer and that this means they no longer need Linux. Please. Setting up any
serious development process in this Frankenstein OS is going to be a nightmare
and it's going to break every tool chain conceivable.

~~~
tychuz
JetBrains will be releasing C# IDE -
[https://www.jetbrains.com/rider/](https://www.jetbrains.com/rider/)

Right now it's not much with C# in cross platform development (ASP.NET is in
total flux, it's not even renamed to Core 1.0, Rider IDE still not released),
but soon™.

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e12e
What I'm curious about: Isn't Oracle Linux mostly a joke of a copy-cat
distribution? Apart from them acquiring Ksplice and possibly delaying ksplice-
like functionality in SuSe and RedHat a couple of years, isn't Oracle Linux
mostly just an excuse to drain Oracle users for OS license money for those
that don't want to be constrained by limited hardware support in Solaris?

I guess what I'm asking, why would Microsoft want this person? (No offence
intended to anyone involved)

~~~
edsiper2
my 5c as an ex-oracle employee (disclaimer: I worked in Linux Support and
Ksplice tools dev):

\- Oracle Linux is a base copy of Redhat plus additional things to integrate
better with Oracle products, it was a bad move against Redhat, but beneficial
for Oracle purposes.

\- Ksplice: most of people misunderstood the real work of it. Don't blame
Oracle for acquire it, somebody sell it and it was always a private technology
meaning 'patents involved'. Note that the real work happens when making "the
patches" and making sure they are backward compatible, including different
architectures. So the real purpose was to provide a service that nobody could
provide before. note: As of today you can use Ksplice for free in Debian,
Ubuntu and Fedora.

\- Why Microsoft would want Wim ?, In my opinion because they need someone who
had successfully built Linux into a Line of Business, from a business
perspective it sounds a good deal. As of today I don't think Oracle truly
supports Open Source, not sure what are the plans for Wim on that area at
Microsoft.

~~~
cyphar
> As of today I don't think Oracle truly supports Open Source, not sure what
> are the plans for Wim on that area at Microsoft.

Considering their frankly disgusting actions with OpenSolaris, they actively
hate free software. In fact, they invented a new word: re-proprietrisation.

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bithush
It would be _amazing_ to see a Microsoft GNU/Linux distro in the future. To be
honest it wouldn't exactly be hard for Microsoft to do. Take a Debian base,
add whatever bits they need to make sure it works nicely in Azure, have an
official Microsoft apt repo and they are done.

I actually think it will happen. It makes sense for Microsoft to have an
official Linux distro that they can offer true support for.

~~~
diskcat
What would be the point of using microsoft's linux?

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Taking back market share from Mac users. Especially among developers.

~~~
bithush
This. I would be _very_ interested in running Microsoft Linux instead of
Ubuntu on a physical dev box. With .NET Core, ASP.NET, etc. having an MS
_proper_ Linux would be great.

Something along the lines of "We _officially_ support development with
ASP.NET, .NET Core, Mono, etc. on Microsoft Linux for deployment to Azure
Microsoft Linux instances".

~~~
osweiller
Your last paragraph betrays that you completely misunderstand the Linux
platform, cloud platforms, or how Microsoft can succeed. What you described
would _literally_ be the death knell for all of Microsoft's recent
initiatives, and goes in exactly the opposite direction of their movements.

~~~
bithush
How so? Microsoft want to support everything they can on Azure. That is just
sensible business IMHO.

However there _are_ businesses out there who like to work in a single vendor
system as much as they can. I have no doubt that Microsoft will come out with
their own Linux distro in the next 2-3 years. They don't _need_ too, but they
also didn't _need_ to do lots of the things they have done recently.

~~~
osweiller
Your argument is that Microsoft would introduce their own distro (a "proper"
Microsoft Linux), and then declare their Linux-related ventures only
"supported" on that Linux.

I feel like I've accidentally stumbled upon some internal discussion group of
Microsoft's where very low level employees who _completely_ misunderstand the
market give their Microsoft-centric view of the world.

~~~
bithush
I never said Microsoft would _only_ support their Linux. Just that it would be
an option and that _some_ businesses would be interested in it.

I am assuming you believe Microsoft will _not_ be venturing into the world of
building their own Linux distribution?

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jschlemm
After the mess they made with windows metro/store apps, half-implementing apis
and horrible documentation I would be wary of anything microsoft starts

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be5invis
So, is Microsoft planning another plot against Linux?

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
No, they've always been at war with Eastasia.

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oscargrouch
Im just imagining the Linus smile nowadays.

This is a really impressive achievement comparing with the Microsoft and the
Linux of the nineties.

I remember creating dial-up internet provider in the nineties using Linux, and
all the prejudice the IT people have towards it.

"Eww, you are using Linux? here.. i have a Solaris for you" or : "Why dont you
just use NT 4?"

~~~
feld
Well Solaris has always been a technically superior OS, but the userland was
unfriendly compared to Linux.

~~~
oscargrouch
Specially back than, of course, but back in the day, we wouldnt be able to
afford for a Solaris and consulting(i didnt know how to manage one) giving our
small size, and, i dont know how it was in the US, but in Brazil it was
something really expensive.

Im saying this more in the light of what Linux was considered back then, and
what it is right now.. In that time a OS maded by a "bunch of hippies" were
something people used to laugh about, and people that use it like me were also
mocked because of it, because of the seroius money and industry involved in
other solutions.. while Linux was the OS of the "looser".

We live in a completely different world now, thanks specially to Linus,
Stallman, and all the other people we wouldnt be able to name.

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arca_vorago
Sorry to be such a buzzkill, but even former oracle devs have told me software
goes to oracle to die. Excuse me if I dont care that horrible company a got a
guy from slightly less horrible company b because of his knowledge in a field
company b wants to embrace only because they are recognizing it is much more
of a threat than ever before (largely because of their failures in the first
place). So while everyone is drinking the "ms is open sourcing everything"
coolaid, I'm still sipping on "lessons from the 90s tea".

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calgoo
Its funny that my first reaction to the title was: Ugh he comes from Oracle,
he is a leach that will try to destroy everything that is good! Then I read
the article and it actually looks like he is a Open Source supporter etc.

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systems
i wish if microsoft adopt an underdog like mageia linux but i guess ubuntu
make more business sense

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cowardlydragon
With cores galore, there is no reason that an OS couldn't be developed that
couldn't do high performance Linux + Windows binary compatible program
execution virtually (ha) seamlessly.

Microsoft could be the perfect company to do this... and sweep up OSX
compatibility at the same time. DOSBox/Bochs can handle legacy emulation...

But they're too stupid to do that, as in ignorance...

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jjman
Microsoft Doors? anyone?

------
known
Looks like Satya Nadella is venturing into Linux platform

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biggio
1st april

