7 ms·

Every few months we get another post like this, with a slightly different measure. Yes, lots of Azure workloads run Linux, and Microsoft makes it a priority. It

Every few months we get another post like this, with a slightly different measure. Yes, lots of Azure workloads run Linux, and Microsoft makes it a priority. It's not news anymore. At the same time, Azure itself runs largely on Windows servers in Service Fabric (https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric), so it's hard to count. With nested hypervisors as the normal architecture nowadays, this whole tally is pretty suspect. But we (the tech community) never seem to get bored with the "Microsoft is eating humble pie on OSS" story. Maybe that's exactly what Microsoft deserves after so many years of big-bad-wolf behavior. Unfortunately it makes their real engineering and OSS feats hard for us to see or acknowledge. Like Service fabric. Did you know that Microsoft built and open sourced an orchestrator that can manage tens if millions of nodes with totally diverse workloads (containers, VMs, and bare metal), nested hypervisors, and even nested orchestrators in a secure multi tenant context? That beats the crap out of kubernetes on a capabilities front, but it's not an easy story to sell. Or that Windows Hyper-V has done thin-VM/M container isolation on par with kata and firecracker for years? Or that many (if not most) Azure services are open source? You can run the entire azure stack on your home server closet if you like, especially including their biggest growth areas of kubernetes and ML/cognitive services. If you want an open source alternative to AWS, azure can be a real option. I enjoy the historical irony of this as much as the next guy, but we really have to stop letting it blind us to the awesome things MS is doing that don't fit that narrative. Microsoft is benefiting mightily by adopting open source culture, code, and practices as fast as it can. And if we can get our heads out of our own self-righteous asses enough to upvote the stories, we can profit from it too.

cyborgx7 7y ago
You are trying to defend Microsoft from these stories. But "Microsoft eats humble pie on OSS" is exactly the narrative they want out there. It gives them the cover they want to embrace extend extinguish Linux and other major open source projects.
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  > It gives them the cover they want to embrace extend extinguish Linux and other major open source projects. Were you alive when Microsoft reigned as the dark lord? The contrast between life then and now is so dramatic. They simply lack the power they once wielded over the world of computers and the internet - to everyone’s great benefit, including theirs.
  - machinecoffee 7y ago
    >Were you alive when Microsoft reigned as the dark lord? Yes I was. I worked in that stifling environment when anything not MS related was dismissed out of hand. Where MS's own marketing exhorted everybody to replace their 'legacy' unix systems with e.g. the wonderful system of Biztalk, Exchange and IIS. Yes, constant vigilance so that they never regain that position again, as I'm pretty sure they desperately want to.
    - TimTheTinker 7y ago
      > Yes, constant vigilance so that they never regain that position again, as I'm pretty sure they desperately want to. I doubt Microsoft wants to reign as a dark lord again at the moment - rather, they're attempting to grow their business through use of open technologies, like Google back in the 2000's. Although if any MS products/services become too dominant, I have no doubt that (like any other big company in such a position) they'll fall to the temptation to exploit their dominance for more money and power. It's not Microsoft that's evil -- it's people and their capacity to be corrupted by inordinate power.
  - cyborgx7 7y ago
    Lacking power is not to their benefit. You have drunken the coolaid all the way.
    - dang 7y ago
      Personal attacks will get you banned here. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? It would be good if you'd stop posting unsubstantive comments generally.
BrissyCoder 7y ago
I've been a dev for 20+ years now. I don't care about the OSS vs Proprietary argument at all. I care about my productivity and job satisfaction. Microsoft - in every sphere from IDEs to cloud platforms and now machine learning - has done more to make this stuff easier to learn, use and afford than any other organization.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  >I don't care about the OSS vs Proprietary argument at all. I care about my productivity and job satisfaction. That's kind of like saying, "I don't care about voting, I just want politicians to represent me."
  - Someone1234 7y ago
    Arguing on the internet isn't analogous to voting. Voting accomplishes things, arguing about OSS Vs Proprietary just wastes time.
    - whatshisface 7y ago
      It matters when you're involved in purchasing decisions and also when you're deciding whether or not to contribute to a project.
    - IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
      Well Oracle...is a counterexample to that argument.
  - arithma 7y ago
    I think it's saying that "software politics" and productivity are not one in the same.
- southerndrift 7y ago
  I would give that title to SUN. Without them, there would be no Java, and thus no Eclipse, and thus no incentive to advance the IDEs to the point they are today. That productivity and job satisfaction, you have it despite Microsoft. Imagine a world where MS wouldn't have spent their resources on killing Webbrowsers and Java, where you could run a jar file on any operating system with ease. Or imagine a world where exchanging office files between different programs would have been easy.
fauigerzigerk 7y ago
>But we (the tech community) never seem to get bored with the "Microsoft is eating humble pie on OSS" story. Maybe that's exactly what Microsoft deserves after so many years of big-bad-wolf behavior. And Microsoft absolutely relishes it. The tech community provides priceless support for Microsoft's key marketing message, which is that Azure runs everything and you don't have to go to AWS for first class Linux hosting. The humble pie they are eating is worth billions per bite.
- outside1234 7y ago
  And the next generation at Microsoft doesn’t even think this is humble pie - we think Linux (and open source in general) is the most delicious (and profitable!) pie we could possibly imagine.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ohthehugemanate 7y ago
  > The humble pie they are eating is worth billions per bite. Absolutely it is - I don't mean to deny that. Only that the story obscures a lot of value that we, the broader tech community, should be taking from their contributions.
lugg 7y ago
> Did you know that Microsoft built and open sourced an orchestrator that can manage tens if millions of nodes with totally diverse workloads (containers, VMs, and bare metal), nested hypervisors, and even nested orchestrators in a secure multi tenant context? No, and I don't really care. Is there something wrong with that? Am I limiting myself by ruling them out from the get go based on past behaviour? After a decade of out right ignorance of windows services what would it take for me to catch up in order to even begin to unpack and then finally even begin to leverage what you just mentioned? Is it even worth the time for me to try and grok it? Am I laughing that azure runs more Linux than windows? No. I assumed that was the case years ago because you're an idiot if you're still stucking on that windows teet after all they've done. And I don't care that you think Im a close minded idiot for speaking that truth. Why? Because not a single employer that matters to me thinks your knowledge of windows crapware is a competitive advantage in the environments most real tech operates in. Call me when Google starts running search off of windows boxes.
- ohthehugemanate 7y ago
  > Am I limiting myself by ruling them out from the get go based on past behaviour? Yes, by definition. You have every right to, of course! But yeah you're limiting yourself. > what would it take for me to catch up in order to even begin to unpack and then finally even begin to leverage what you just mentioned? What did it take for you to unpack/leverage k8s? Similar. SF runs on Linux, and is an orchestrator for fundamental components that you're used to: VMs, containers, and bare metal instances. There's nothing Windows-specific there. Particularly if you deal with a mix of stateless and stateful applications, or if multi-tenancy is an issue for you, SF has valuable strengths. > not a single employer that matters to me thinks your knowledge of windows crapware is a competitive advantage in the environments most real tech operates in. Hm, the only windows specific component I mentioned is Hyper-V. Other services tend to be solid implementations of open source projects you probably tolerate, like kubernetes or tensorflow. You know, places where MS is a major contributor. I was talking about our blindness to MS contributions across the spectrum - which you seem to exemplify pretty neatly. You can limit yourself however you want. Be careful with your blanket statements though; you just excluded a lot of companies from your list of "companies you care about" and "real tech." Airbus, Atlassian, Bitnami, Cisco, Dell, Docker, Facebook, Fujitsu, GE, Hashicorp, Intel, Kaltura, Lockheed, MongoDB, New Relic, Oracle, Nokia, Raytheon, Red Hat, Roku, Salesforce, Samsung, SAP, Siemens, Sony, SUSE, Symantec, Tableau, Trend Micro, and others all work closely with Azure and Microsoft tech... maybe those companies don't count as "real tech" to you. Either that, or you should consider re-evaluating your limitations.
shaklee3 7y ago
Which orchestrator are you referring to? System Center in no way competes with kubernetes since it's lacking 90% of the features. Maybe I'm bad at googling, but I can't find what you're referring to. Edit: I see the one you're referring to in that link, but again, it's not at all a comparison with kubernetes. It's easy at face value to say this one is better, but it's missing the point of kubernetes, which is extensibility, following standards, etc.
- sciurus 7y ago
  They linked it. Service Fabric. > Service Fabric is a distributed systems platform for packaging, deploying, and managing stateless and stateful distributed applications and containers at large scale. https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric
- oldmanhorton 7y ago
  RE your edit, Service Fabric came out well before any standards existed.
- cc81 7y ago
  >following standards What standards?
  - shaklee3 7y ago
    CNI, CSI, OCI
- GordonS 7y ago
  If you Google it you'll find several comparisons to k8s and others. I looked into this a while back, and Service Fabric was a clear winner over k8s, and resource use was a fraction of k8s too. But, I felt it needed to gain community traction before I could commit to using it - knowing my luck, I'd build something and Microsoft would abandon it because k8s... Kind of a chicken and egg problem, which is a shame really.
  - 7y ago
mataralhawiti 7y ago
" Did you know that Microsoft built and open sourced an orchestrator that can manage tens if millions of nodes with totally diverse workloads (containers, VMs, and bare metal), nested hypervisors, and even nested orchestrators in a secure multi tenant context? That beats the crap out of kubernetes on a capabilities front, but it's not an easy story to sell." Interesting .. Can you please elaborate more on this ?

cyborgx7 7y ago

You are trying to defend Microsoft from these stories. But "Microsoft eats humble pie on OSS" is exactly the narrative they want out there. It gives them the cover they want to embrace extend extinguish Linux and other major open source projects.

TimTheTinker 7y ago
> It gives them the cover they want to embrace extend extinguish Linux and other major open source projects. Were you alive when Microsoft reigned as the dark lord? The contrast between life then and now is so dramatic. They simply lack the power they once wielded over the world of computers and the internet - to everyone’s great benefit, including theirs.
- machinecoffee 7y ago
  >Were you alive when Microsoft reigned as the dark lord? Yes I was. I worked in that stifling environment when anything not MS related was dismissed out of hand. Where MS's own marketing exhorted everybody to replace their 'legacy' unix systems with e.g. the wonderful system of Biztalk, Exchange and IIS. Yes, constant vigilance so that they never regain that position again, as I'm pretty sure they desperately want to.
  - TimTheTinker 7y ago
    > Yes, constant vigilance so that they never regain that position again, as I'm pretty sure they desperately want to. I doubt Microsoft wants to reign as a dark lord again at the moment - rather, they're attempting to grow their business through use of open technologies, like Google back in the 2000's. Although if any MS products/services become too dominant, I have no doubt that (like any other big company in such a position) they'll fall to the temptation to exploit their dominance for more money and power. It's not Microsoft that's evil -- it's people and their capacity to be corrupted by inordinate power.
- cyborgx7 7y ago
  Lacking power is not to their benefit. You have drunken the coolaid all the way.
  - dang 7y ago
    Personal attacks will get you banned here. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? It would be good if you'd stop posting unsubstantive comments generally.

BrissyCoder 7y ago

I've been a dev for 20+ years now. I don't care about the OSS vs Proprietary argument at all. I care about my productivity and job satisfaction. Microsoft - in every sphere from IDEs to cloud platforms and now machine learning - has done more to make this stuff easier to learn, use and afford than any other organization.

whatshisface 7y ago
>I don't care about the OSS vs Proprietary argument at all. I care about my productivity and job satisfaction. That's kind of like saying, "I don't care about voting, I just want politicians to represent me."
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Arguing on the internet isn't analogous to voting. Voting accomplishes things, arguing about OSS Vs Proprietary just wastes time.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    It matters when you're involved in purchasing decisions and also when you're deciding whether or not to contribute to a project.
  - IOT_Apprentice 7y ago
    Well Oracle...is a counterexample to that argument.
- arithma 7y ago
  I think it's saying that "software politics" and productivity are not one in the same.
southerndrift 7y ago
I would give that title to SUN. Without them, there would be no Java, and thus no Eclipse, and thus no incentive to advance the IDEs to the point they are today. That productivity and job satisfaction, you have it despite Microsoft. Imagine a world where MS wouldn't have spent their resources on killing Webbrowsers and Java, where you could run a jar file on any operating system with ease. Or imagine a world where exchanging office files between different programs would have been easy.

fauigerzigerk 7y ago

>But we (the tech community) never seem to get bored with the "Microsoft is eating humble pie on OSS" story. Maybe that's exactly what Microsoft deserves after so many years of big-bad-wolf behavior. And Microsoft absolutely relishes it. The tech community provides priceless support for Microsoft's key marketing message, which is that Azure runs everything and you don't have to go to AWS for first class Linux hosting. The humble pie they are eating is worth billions per bite.

outside1234 7y ago
And the next generation at Microsoft doesn’t even think this is humble pie - we think Linux (and open source in general) is the most delicious (and profitable!) pie we could possibly imagine.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ohthehugemanate 7y ago
> The humble pie they are eating is worth billions per bite. Absolutely it is - I don't mean to deny that. Only that the story obscures a lot of value that we, the broader tech community, should be taking from their contributions.

lugg 7y ago

> Did you know that Microsoft built and open sourced an orchestrator that can manage tens if millions of nodes with totally diverse workloads (containers, VMs, and bare metal), nested hypervisors, and even nested orchestrators in a secure multi tenant context? No, and I don't really care. Is there something wrong with that? Am I limiting myself by ruling them out from the get go based on past behaviour? After a decade of out right ignorance of windows services what would it take for me to catch up in order to even begin to unpack and then finally even begin to leverage what you just mentioned? Is it even worth the time for me to try and grok it? Am I laughing that azure runs more Linux than windows? No. I assumed that was the case years ago because you're an idiot if you're still stucking on that windows teet after all they've done. And I don't care that you think Im a close minded idiot for speaking that truth. Why? Because not a single employer that matters to me thinks your knowledge of windows crapware is a competitive advantage in the environments most real tech operates in. Call me when Google starts running search off of windows boxes.

ohthehugemanate 7y ago
> Am I limiting myself by ruling them out from the get go based on past behaviour? Yes, by definition. You have every right to, of course! But yeah you're limiting yourself. > what would it take for me to catch up in order to even begin to unpack and then finally even begin to leverage what you just mentioned? What did it take for you to unpack/leverage k8s? Similar. SF runs on Linux, and is an orchestrator for fundamental components that you're used to: VMs, containers, and bare metal instances. There's nothing Windows-specific there. Particularly if you deal with a mix of stateless and stateful applications, or if multi-tenancy is an issue for you, SF has valuable strengths. > not a single employer that matters to me thinks your knowledge of windows crapware is a competitive advantage in the environments most real tech operates in. Hm, the only windows specific component I mentioned is Hyper-V. Other services tend to be solid implementations of open source projects you probably tolerate, like kubernetes or tensorflow. You know, places where MS is a major contributor. I was talking about our blindness to MS contributions across the spectrum - which you seem to exemplify pretty neatly. You can limit yourself however you want. Be careful with your blanket statements though; you just excluded a lot of companies from your list of "companies you care about" and "real tech." Airbus, Atlassian, Bitnami, Cisco, Dell, Docker, Facebook, Fujitsu, GE, Hashicorp, Intel, Kaltura, Lockheed, MongoDB, New Relic, Oracle, Nokia, Raytheon, Red Hat, Roku, Salesforce, Samsung, SAP, Siemens, Sony, SUSE, Symantec, Tableau, Trend Micro, and others all work closely with Azure and Microsoft tech... maybe those companies don't count as "real tech" to you. Either that, or you should consider re-evaluating your limitations.

shaklee3 7y ago

Which orchestrator are you referring to? System Center in no way competes with kubernetes since it's lacking 90% of the features. Maybe I'm bad at googling, but I can't find what you're referring to. Edit: I see the one you're referring to in that link, but again, it's not at all a comparison with kubernetes. It's easy at face value to say this one is better, but it's missing the point of kubernetes, which is extensibility, following standards, etc.

sciurus 7y ago
They linked it. Service Fabric. > Service Fabric is a distributed systems platform for packaging, deploying, and managing stateless and stateful distributed applications and containers at large scale. https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric
oldmanhorton 7y ago
RE your edit, Service Fabric came out well before any standards existed.
cc81 7y ago
>following standards What standards?
- shaklee3 7y ago
  CNI, CSI, OCI
GordonS 7y ago
If you Google it you'll find several comparisons to k8s and others. I looked into this a while back, and Service Fabric was a clear winner over k8s, and resource use was a fraction of k8s too. But, I felt it needed to gain community traction before I could commit to using it - knowing my luck, I'd build something and Microsoft would abandon it because k8s... Kind of a chicken and egg problem, which is a shame really.
- 7y ago

mataralhawiti 7y ago

" Did you know that Microsoft built and open sourced an orchestrator that can manage tens if millions of nodes with totally diverse workloads (containers, VMs, and bare metal), nested hypervisors, and even nested orchestrators in a secure multi tenant context? That beats the crap out of kubernetes on a capabilities front, but it's not an easy story to sell." Interesting .. Can you please elaborate more on this ?