
What does Microsoft want with Linux and Open Source? [video] - realpanzer
https://lbry.tv/@TheLinuxExperiment:e/what-does-microsoft-want-with-linux-and:c
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ddek
Eh, I disagree with a lot the fundamentals here.

I don’t believe that windows devs who have avoided Linux so far are going to
‘try out’ WSL at all, let alone be converted. I work in a .Net house, and the
only people who use WSL at all are those who have Linux experience. The rest?
Nothing could change their view that windows ‘works’ and ‘is secure’.

Also he mentions shells - in Windows we have PowerShell, which is pretty great
actually. It’s not as concise as Linux (Resolve-DnsName vs dig), which hinders
interactive programming, but the scripts are more readable. In that example,
the Linux version requires knowledge of dnsutils, while the powershell is
obvious. I’m still more inclined to write scripts in PS than in bash, for this
reason.

WSL isn’t about giving windows users the ‘Linux experience’ - it’s about
keeping people on Windows. With linux dominance in the cloud, there’s more
reason than ever for devs to shift to Linux. WSL _extends_ those developers by
_embracing_ them, then finally _extinguishing_ them because it’s still a bit
$%#= and if they develop for Linux they’ll end up transitioning.

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qwerty456127
I hardly am too much of a shell hacker on whatever an OS, but PowerShell seems
obviously a huge step forward (because of objects instead of text interchange,
overall consistency and readability). I actually hope it's going to gain more
popularity on Linux, it's the best shell I've seen so far. Long command names
look awkward the first time you see them, but as soon as you get the point
this design decision immediately looks brilliant.

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roenxi
Open source is good enough. At some point it catches up to the proprietary
software on core things that matter and then it becomes hard to justify
proprietary. Not always, but that story has played out quite a few times now.
To fight that, proprietary software needs to change quickly to keep ahead. But
change is expensive and users hate it.

Fundamentally, what advantage is Windows going to maintain with a closed
source kernel? How many customers care that MS isn't using the Linux kernel?
Not many. The bean counters are eventually going to start ask questions, like
"why are we paying to maintain our own kernel when we could just use Linux?".

I don't see what strategic edge MS is going to hold maintaining a parallel OS
long term. If they change rapidly they lose the legacy advantage, if they
don't OSS will catch up. It isn't like NTFS is giving them a huge advantage
over ext4. The key patents will all be starting to expire too.

The only effective resistance to OSS seems to have been this service-based
cloud model that exploded onto the scene in the last, what, 10-15 years?

~~~
btschaegg
> Fundamentally, what advantage is Windows going to maintain with a closed
> source kernel?

Just to hammer this point home some more: There are actually also significant
disadvantages to the Kernel being closed source.

As an example: Windows has had an official port of OpenDTrace for a year now.
But sadly, the documentation for it is almost nonexistent, and just finding
out which functions you might want to instrument (and what context data is
available there) is much more painful than on other systems.

OTOH, if you're on OpenSolaris or Linux (where you'll likely use bpftrace
instead), documentation on the matter is abundant.

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moksly
Hasn’t it been fairly obvious for some time that Microsoft “adopted” open
source to sell azure?

I think the more interesting question should be, what do open source want with
Microsoft.

~~~
teekert
I guess they also want to be a nice dev workstation OS, like MacOS
traditionally was.

Edit: The new Terminal and WSL(2) certainly make my days better. I would
prefer Linux "on the metal" but it's getting less annoying that my company
standardizes on Windows.

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techntoke
A good developer workstation cannot exists based on Windows.

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ygra
I guess a fairly large number of developers would disagree with you.

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koalalorenzo
100% agree with the video. I am a macOS user just to have some of the GNU
tools and VMs or containers (Vagrant, and Docker for desktop) on the fly when
I need to work and get shit done. I still believe that WSL is some sort of
slimmed/powered down to nothing version of any gnu/linux distro, and after
using it for a while I felt the pain of getting things done and went back to
macOS and VMs. I still believe that Microsoft is improving, but I am not sure
how it is helping with WSL...

~~~
rorykoehler
What I want to understand is why use Windows if you want to use Linux? Surely
it's easier to just use Linux.

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bauerd
Some are forced to use Windows eg in consulting

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techntoke
Should honestly stop working for companies that force Winblows. Might as well
move rocks from one pile and back, because those jobs have little to no
purpose than wasting your time when you could be doing important things with
your life.

~~~
ACS_Solver
Or perhaps things are not so black and white.

I don't come into contact with Windows much, but had an ~18 month contract a
few years ago. A Fortune 500 company, an interesting project. I ended up
writing some important parts in software that has an actual positive real-
world impact. During my work, I was of course given a Windows machine. I
installed Cygwin and did the vast majority of work there. I'd drop back into
Windows proper just for Outlook and to occasionally use an industry-specific
tool.

Sure I would have preferred to work on a Linux machine, but having to use
Windows doesn't mean that the work is pointless, or that I cannot put my best
effort into it.

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techntoke
So you used Cygwin to do the work why? Is it because it was actually easier to
make progress when it came to actual work (not just needing to use the
corporate tools to communicate with coworkers or track your time)? From the
sounds of it, Windows actually hindered you so you tried to find a way to use
Linux tools so that you could make the most positive impact. That is exactly
what I'm saying.. why make concessions and limit yourself.

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vms20591
[Rant]

It's all business for them. They don't love Linux anymore than they do FLOSS.
Argument would be, "but Microsoft is one of the biggest open source
contributors". It's like philanthropy, you give money to those in need, but
don't fundamentally address the problem, but make it look like you do.

All the corporations that contribute to open source projects in terms of man
power & finance, do so because they can create more business opportunities &
make them noble in eyes of public. But, what they do is take open source
projects that have "permissive license" & are growing in popularity. Then
contribute, add in proprietary code, sell them as enterprise solutions. In the
end, the user of that program is denied any freedom to study the code & modify
for their own needs.

A big tech that open sources its internal software can do so for any reasons
and let me say one of them. They get a community that basically maintains the
software, writes documentation, add features & fix bugs for frere. The tech
could then hire people trained with that software which they open sourced,
saving them training costs.

Licenses from OSI & BSD suffer from their "permissive" nature. They think
about freedom, but not for who. They think that the ability for a user to not
turn a open source software into a proprietary one, is restricting their
freedom.

But, Free Software thinks the opposite, and puts people who are denied freedom
. Free Software with its Copyleft license, guarantees user the absolute
freedom to do anything with the program they got for free/money, provided they
give the same freedom to others. Basically make the freedom go viral.

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axilmar
Microsoft wants to keep developers close to their platform, so as that the
value of their stock does not fall.

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kar1181
They want developers. OSX gave us Unix AND a sane desktop.

Ultimately MS over between 2010-2020 lost developer mindshare and they weren't
going to get it back. So pivot time and now we have Linux all the things.

Once they have developers back..., well, who knows what they'll start doing
then.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
It's a little like politics isn't it. The best you can hope for is that their
interests happen to align with yours. If they do then great but don't be
surprised when they don't.

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pelasaco
Embrace, extend, and extinguish:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

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varbhat
Microsoft is company. It will do anything(ofc legal) for money.

They knew where the market exist,so embraced Linux. They wanted to prevent
migration of windows users to MacOS/Linux ,so created WSL2 which lured many
MacOS users.

It also added DirectX for WSL2 , which is proprietary extension. It based it's
edge browser on chromium because they were lagging behind chromium wrt
performance.

They want profit. So,they do these things. Some actions benefit floss while
some don't. Problem of capitalist company. They care about capital more than
us.

~~~
joshsyn
Problem? Thanks to Microsoft and other capitalist companies for
revolutionizing the way we do computing today.

~~~
anonymou2
What would have happened if Richard Stallman had decided to go work for a
capitalist company and just worried about making money?

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joshsyn
I think linux on the desktop would be been better story.

My point is without Microsoft we wouldn't be where we are today. We'd be
lagging far behind. Apple being the only competition, would probably still be
selling Apple 2.

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joshsyn
Why is it that Linux is always playing catch-ups with device drivers, KDE,
GNOME, wayland to be on par with Windows or Mac equivalent? Cause there are
lack of resources, how many people want to invest their time for nothing in
return? Very less.

~~~
anonymou2
You value your freedom very little, if you think that it means nothing.

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joshsyn
Poor logic. I never said I don't value Linux or freedom. Last time I checked,
nobody dictates what you use. I don't understand why making profits is shunned
as such a problem? And takes away your freedom?

You are free to not use products from companies you don't like. Trust me I do
value Linux, currently typing this from my Ubuntu machine. I hope it speeds up
in development, but without the proper incentive, it simply is not happening.
Only companies I see in the desktop space are valve at the moment who have
vested interest on the gaming aspect. I don't think every developers are going
to say kumbaya and develop for Linux without getting any kind of financial
support. O.o

~~~
anonymou2
You said that people don't want to invest and get nothing in return. But you
do get two things: 1. freedom, since you are developing free software, freedom
for you and for others. 2. Maybe recognition. I figured that you didn't value
those things, perhaps I am wrong. Of course there is nothing wrong with making
a profit, the problem I have is doing so by artificially restricting what
people can do with their computers.

