4 ms·

By letting users run Linux, they are moving people away from the Linux distributions and into the windows ecosystem. This the embrace step, so they later can wa

By letting users run Linux, they are moving people away from the Linux distributions and into the windows ecosystem. This the embrace step, so they later can watch Linux distribution usage decline to nothing. That leaves Windows as the professional choice for Linux. Anything that moves users from Linux distributions to Windows is very bad for free software, since it's already a small market.

deleted 8y ago
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barrkel 8y ago
I really deeply disagree. You could use the same argument against Msys2 and Cygwin, yet they were key to me choosing the Unix command line as my common interface across all OSes when I was a teenager, with plenty of games that I wasn't going to give up any time soon to live in Linux. I think it's ridiculously naive to think that businesses are going to build on top of a closed source licensed system like WSL when with minimal effort they could choose Linux. The business risks of the former are huge and they're handing a big lever to MS to screw them in the future - why would they do that? If anything, WSL makes it easier to transition to Linux, because you can develop and test without committing to a big change or using clunky virtualization.
- Nullabillity 8y ago
  In theory I would agree with you, but clearly a lot of businesses are not rational. Just look at how many built stuff on top of MS products to begin with!
  - ta848347 8y ago
    How is that not rational? You're letting your biases cloud your judgement.
    - Nullabillity 8y ago
      > I think it's ridiculously naive to think that businesses are going to build on top of a closed source licensed system like WSL when with minimal effort they could choose Linux. The business risks of the former are huge and they're handing a big lever to MS to screw them in the future - why would they do that? All of that applies just as much to native Windows development, except you no longer have a canonical escape hatch (aside from WINE, I guess).
stinos 8y ago
My comment actually just addressed the part where the parent complains about MS not providing a way to create native Windows applications from within WSL. Maybe you wanted to reply to someone else? In any case: away from the Linux distributions When running Linux on WSL you're effectively still running it so you're not really away from Linux, are you? Actually you can even try and turn the argument around. For a windows user it is now probably easier than ever to try linux: no need for dual-boot or bootable media or virtual machines but a simple way to install and run it. So this might actually lead to more linux users, not less. But we'd need to count to be sure, everything else is guesswork.

deleted 8y ago

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barrkel 8y ago

I really deeply disagree. You could use the same argument against Msys2 and Cygwin, yet they were key to me choosing the Unix command line as my common interface across all OSes when I was a teenager, with plenty of games that I wasn't going to give up any time soon to live in Linux. I think it's ridiculously naive to think that businesses are going to build on top of a closed source licensed system like WSL when with minimal effort they could choose Linux. The business risks of the former are huge and they're handing a big lever to MS to screw them in the future - why would they do that? If anything, WSL makes it easier to transition to Linux, because you can develop and test without committing to a big change or using clunky virtualization.

Nullabillity 8y ago
In theory I would agree with you, but clearly a lot of businesses are not rational. Just look at how many built stuff on top of MS products to begin with!
- ta848347 8y ago
  How is that not rational? You're letting your biases cloud your judgement.
  - Nullabillity 8y ago
    > I think it's ridiculously naive to think that businesses are going to build on top of a closed source licensed system like WSL when with minimal effort they could choose Linux. The business risks of the former are huge and they're handing a big lever to MS to screw them in the future - why would they do that? All of that applies just as much to native Windows development, except you no longer have a canonical escape hatch (aside from WINE, I guess).

stinos 8y ago

My comment actually just addressed the part where the parent complains about MS not providing a way to create native Windows applications from within WSL. Maybe you wanted to reply to someone else? In any case: away from the Linux distributions When running Linux on WSL you're effectively still running it so you're not really away from Linux, are you? Actually you can even try and turn the argument around. For a windows user it is now probably easier than ever to try linux: no need for dual-boot or bootable media or virtual machines but a simple way to install and run it. So this might actually lead to more linux users, not less. But we'd need to count to be sure, everything else is guesswork.