
For the first time ever, Microsoft will distribute its own version of Linux - axiomdata316
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-azure-sphere-is-powered-by-linux-2018-4
======
Sir_Cmpwn
Wow, this is a really disappointing thread. There are very few substantive
comments here. I came to the comments to dispute this claim from the article:

>It's the first time ever that Microsoft has made Linux part of a product
offering.

Microsoft has offered Linux distributions on Azure for a few years now, and
has ported a fair bit of their software to Linux, including VSCode, MSSQL,
Powershell, etc.

But it looks like I also need to comment on all of the negativity in this
thread. This change from Microsoft is a Good Thing. Microsoft has been making
some serious strides towards being a better citizen of the technology
community in the past few years, and this is something to be celebrated. If
you think you can scorn Microsoft out of existence, you're delusional.
Microsoft is here to stay. You can choose to respond to these promising
changes with optimism, or you can respond to them with spite - which of these
responses do you think is going to encourage Microsoft to continue in their
course of positive change?

By all means, we should continue to hold their feet to the fire for stupid
crap like Windows 10 being spyware. But we can't just be angry at them all the
time - we have to celebrate the things they do right, too. Microsoft is
clearly making a sustained effort to improve. They've done positive things
they can't turn back on, like releasing large amounts of open source software
under OSI licenses. Be happy!

~~~
gonvaled
Somebody bears responsibility for past actions. That Somebody is M$.

You say they are a better company now. We'll see. It is probably just a
strategy.

What they did had a huge cost: putting back computing science for decades, and
probably closing a one-time chance of having an open source platform accross
all market segments.

Linux is a bad desktop platform? Blame M$!

M$ actions have costed humankind trillions, and we have collectively lost
millions of years. That is not brushed away with a questionable release of an
IoT product.

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Who really bears that responsibility? Bill Gates? Steve Ballmer? Guess what -
they're both out and the new leadership clearly has a different approach in
mind.

Microsoft has no blame for Linux being a bad desktop platform - and for the
record, I strongly disagree with the assertion that Linux is a bad desktop
platform.

Your hyperbole and childish "M$" name-calling do nothing to support your
argument.

~~~
gonvaled
It is too easy to say "those persons are no longer responsible". I do not care
who was responsible, I do not care how the company was structured or who was
calling the shots. The company reaped the rewards, they get to keep the
responsibilities.

It is a boring argument, being repeated ad-nausea: "nobody is responsible
anymore". And, since companies (and states) are perfectly aware that the
market / society will forget in a couple of decades what they are doing now,
they keep on doing whatever they like. Guess what, some of us are not willing
to forget.

> Your hyperbole and childish "M$" name-calling do nothing to support your
> argument.

You call it "childish name calling", I call it "guerrilla marketing". It seems
to work.

------
robertelder
Lot's of people are mentioning the well-known phase 'Embrace, extend, and
extinguish', but what if it ends up being Linux that does the extinguishing?
Linux has always been a pain for the average user to run on a laptop or
desktop, but these days Windows isn't that much better and I don't think it'll
get much better. I'm sure lots of you will think I'm crazy, but I figured it
would be an interesting discussion topic.

~~~
pritambaral
Whenever EEE has been brought up in the context of Microsoft, it has been used
to describe a predatory behaviour. Indeed, the "Extinguish" part is
facilitated by the "Extend" portion being a proprietary lock-in.

Using Linux (the kernel) to pull off such proprietary lock-in is going to be
difficult because of the kernel's GPLv2 license (although, Tivoization is
still an available tactic).

Using the Linux desktop (which is what you seem to be talking about), on the
other hand, to pull of such proprietary lock-in is going to compete directly
with Windows's desktop market share; which is why I think Microsoft will never
push the Linux desktop in an Embrace-Extend attempt.

~~~
freeone3000
"Tivoization" is the entire value-add here. IoT devices will run SOME linux.
But they want an easy to use, secure Linux. Microsoft's model here is to tack
on those bits and charge. It's not some secret ploy, it's in the article.

As for desktop linux: microsoft has four versions of linux userland in its app
store for desktop, published by Microsoft. Windows provides drivers and boot -
that's its value-add.

~~~
pritambaral
> "Tivoization" is the entire value-add here.

In the context of the GPL, "Tivoization" refers specifically to the practice
of blocking modifications to the running software without breaking the
copyleft requirements of GPLv2 (and similar) licenses. Sure, Microsoft could
that here, but hasn't so far. And while I'm not inclined to believe they'll do
the right thing, I don't see or suspect them doing the wrong thing yet.

> Microsoft's model here is to tack on those bits and charge. It's not some
> secret ploy, it's in the article.

I did not allege any secret ploy. And from what I read, there's no mention of
any charges (yet).

> published by Microsoft

Which distros exactly? As I recalled (and just verified), Ubuntu, OpenSuSE,
and Debian are published by Canonical, SuSE, and Debian, respectively.

> Windows provides drivers and boot

Not adequately enough, one could argue. No graphics, no raw devices, last I
checked.

~~~
incompatible
It would be the Android-style Tivoization, where you get the OS on the device
you buy, and if you are lucky the vendor publishes their kernel on an obscure
part of the website, but without certain binary drivers. You may find you
can't actually do anything useful with the sources because of those missing
drivers and because the bootloader is locked to only accept new software
signed by the vendor.

------
bifrost
I think this is an interesting market shift for MSFT. I worked there in the
late 90's and was there for the introduction of Windows2000. Hillariously most
of their big acquisitions ran FreeBSD and/or Solaris and I don't ever recall
anyone considering Linux much of a threat since it never really worked for the
workloads we were seeing.

Even today I rarely see anyone using Linux as a desktop (MSFTs primary market)
so 20 something years later its still not really a threat.

MSFT is smart enough to offer what people want, maybe this will get more
people to try it, not a bad thing.

------
boznz
Microsoft is a different company now from the one you probably think it is,
the latest podcast of Exponent [http://exponent.fm/episode-147-there-always-a-
bigger-fish/](http://exponent.fm/episode-147-there-always-a-bigger-fish/) was
very enlightening

~~~
zeusk
Just finished hearing it, mostly BS and external gossips.

The guy claimed he "worked" within Windows for a while but was a Business
Development Rep (Sales) at Microsoft for less than two years (2011-2013).

------
askvictor
Article is very light on detail, but from the MS announcement, this seems to
be essentially a distro for IoT and the like; I was about to ask what it's
based on, but having read that, I'll be guessing it's minimal and built from
the ground up.

I'm also very curious about what the microcontroller design announced involves
- obviously powerful enough to run Linux, and customisable, so I'd be guessing
ARM based (small chance of MIPS or RISC, but probably not)

------
torstenvl
Any chance they'll call it XENIX?

~~~
cypher543
The article states it's called "Azure Stack OS."

~~~
askvictor
*Azure Sphere OS

~~~
cypher543
The article said Stack when I posted my comment. Looks like they corrected it
shortly after.

------
nunez
Wasn't Xenix a Microsoft-maintained *nix?

------
2trill2spill
This is awesome, keep it up Microsoft. They also ship their own version of
FreeBSD as well[1].

[1]: [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/freebsd-now-
available...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/freebsd-now-available-in-
azure-marketplace/)

------
youdontknowtho
Microsoft could use similar techniques to the way they ported SQL Server to
let all Windows software run on Linux. I don't think they will, but it's
always something that could happen.

They have said multiple times that they are open to open sourcing Windows. It
could happen...stranger things have.

This is really just them giving their customers what they want. They are a
business after all.

------
andreiw
I think the bigger news here is the custom MCU design. What is it? Is it Arm-
derived, and if not - why? Anyone pay attention lately to MSFT’s activity on
LKML?

~~~
andreiw
Arm derived: 32-bit Cortex-A and a Cortex-M for radio. Curious what the
security arch is...

------
pasbesoin
Embrace, extend...

You know what comes next.

P.S. Maybe it will be different, this time. However, there's some significant
history to overcome, if some of us are to come to believe this.

------
codedokode
Why did they design a custom chip? To make it harder to run non-Microsoft
versions of Linux?

------
mistrial9
.. checks AU/X manuals for a precedent ..

------
lexicality
Better URL: [https://amp.businessinsider.com/microsoft-azure-sphere-is-
po...](https://amp.businessinsider.com/microsoft-azure-sphere-is-powered-by-
linux-2018-4)

Honestly, amp-businessinsider-com.cdn.ampproject.org is the kind of url you
try to teach grandma not to click on so she doesn't enter her bank details on
halifax-online-co-uk-personal-logon-login.jsp.secure.tk when they send her an
email

------
larkeith
Could someone please update the url to the non-AMP link:
[https://www.businessinsider.in/For-the-first-time-ever-
Micro...](https://www.businessinsider.in/For-the-first-time-ever-Microsoft-
will-distribute-its-own-version-of-Linux/articleshow/63791833.cms)

~~~
mehrdadn
Or maybe the .com one: [http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-azure-sphere-
is-pow...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-azure-sphere-is-powered-
by-linux-2018-4)

~~~
larkeith
Oops, this is much better - I've no idea how I got .in, thanks for catching
that!

------
zeusk
Even better URL: [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-
microsoft...](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-microsoft-
azure-sphere-secure-and-power-the-intelligent-edge/)

------
jensvdh
Embrace Extend Extinguish

~~~
castle-bravo
Not if RMS has anything to say about it.

------
garamirez
More fragmentation.. awesome!

------
cybertronic
The beginning ot the end of Windows?

~~~
mehrdadn
I don't see that coming in the foreseeable future, unless they make a Linux
desktop that is as user-friendly as Windows.

~~~
monocasa
What if they keep trending towards making Windows as user friendly as Linux?

~~~
mehrdadn
What?

~~~
monocasa
As in, if Microsoft keeps taking resources out of the Windows division in
favor of Azure, we might end up in a place where the Linux desktop wins not
through becoming better, but by Windows becoming worse.

