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How Microsoft went from “Linux is a cancer” to “Microsoft loves Linux”
- jjgreen 6y agoCan you install Windows on a partition without it deleting a neighbouring Linux partition?
- mixmastamyk 6y agoIt never deleted partitions to my knowledge. But it would wipe out the boot loader. EFI probably avoids that these days however.
- freeone3000 6y agoIt aggressively wipes EFI, so the traditional way is still windows first, then Linux.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoThat's a shame, another reason "MS has changed" is less true than some would like to think.
- lvass 6y agoMicrosoft doesn't provide instructions or support for this but yes, it is possible to keep an existing Linux partition intact when installing windows, it will definitely wipe the EFI partition though.
- saghm 6y agoYes, assuming you have enough empty disk space for the Windows partition, you can do this. I haven't done it in a bit, but I think when you get to the disk partitioning step, you need to click "custom", which then shows your disk layout, and you can have it create the partitions in the empty space. The installer will make the Windows bootloader the default that loads after a reboot, but this can be easily switched back either in your BIOS or using a tool like efibootmgr.
- unnouinceput 6y agoWho in these days uses partitions? I use virtual machines. Get as hosting your preferred OS and then contain any and all operating systems inside VM's.
- throwaway7281 6y agoMicrosoft is just another company trying to make money anyway it can. Linux as a project would probably even exist, if nobody would pay for it - just because people can imagine another world, where not everything is about money. The difference in attitude is staggering and will not go away.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoIt definitely existed before people paid for it so you can take that as a given :)
- coliveira 6y agoSimple: MS went from living off their Windows OS to becoming a major cloud provider, where most services are implemented in Linux.
- fossuser 6y agoI think Nadella deserves a lot of credit for this strategy and Ballmer deserves a lot of criticism for his really wrong windows at all costs strategy that held MSFT back for years. Their turn around with Nadella is incredible and must be a really interesting story. https://stratechery.com/2018/the-end-of-windows/ https://stratechery.com/2018/the-end-of-windows/ For the people that argue that CEOs don’t matter, this is another compelling example of how important top down direction and leadership can be.
- YetAnotherNick 6y ago> For the people that argue that CEOs don’t matter Who argues that? Apple already gave us a solid proof of difference between a manager and great CEO decade ago.
- tome 6y agoIt's fairly common to see comment threads every week or two arguing whether CEO compensation is justified and whether they make any overall difference to the performance of the company.
- CurtHagenlocher 6y agoI've worked at Microsoft for over twelve years, and I think this radically oversimplifies the story. A lot of the changes that Nadella gets credit for were actually started during the Ballmer years, but it can take a really long time to change things at a company of 100k people.
- cpach 6y agoInteresting! Feel free to elaborate :) Stuff like releasing Vscode and Powershell under the MIT license, porting SQL Server to Linux, developing WSL… Did Ballmer contribute to/enable any of that stuff?
- ogre_codes 6y agoFollow the money. Most businesses follow the Jerry Maguire theory. "Show me the money!". When it became abundantly clear that Linux wasn't going away, and that cloud computing was growing fast, Microsoft pivoted. That plus Ballmer leaving along with all his preconceived Windows Everywhere notions.
- dylan604 6y agoCouldn't it also be that Microsoft is no longer concerned that the year of Linux as a desktop is never going to happen. Consumer use of Linux OS as a daily driver is never going to be a threat to Microsoft's strangle hold. They know this now. They did not 100% know this in the 90s.
- mohaine 6y agoI personally don't think they know this now. As originally defined year of Linux as a desktop is never going to happen but I know lots of people that never come close to a Windows desktop these days. Lots of former windows desktops have been replaced with Phones, Tablets and Chromebooks. While these are not all Linux, they do replace what would have historically been a Windows sale. MS losing mobile killed the idea of Windows everywhere and once they lost that they had to play well with others or risk sales in other places.
- garmaine 6y agoMicrosoft's monopoly now is over Office, not Windows.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoCalling any phone, tablet, or Chromebook "Linux" is only true in the strictest sense that they us a Linux kernel. Everything that is the Linux Desktop experience was scrapped and replaced.
- thekyle 6y agoWell Chrome OS at least can install any Debian app. They work pretty well too and are the closest thing Chrome OS has to native desktop apps.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y agoWhat is interesting is that Microsoft tries to position their subjective attitudes (Linux is harmful/advantageous to their business model at a given point in time) as an objective truth. This is the same tactics used by unethical companies like Coca-Cola trying to convince the general public that soft drinks are not a serious cause of obesity.
- cs702 6y ago"Loves"? Or "embraces" (with the intention to extend)? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23241040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23241040
- tomnipotent 6y agoAnyone bringing up EEE 20 years after the fact loses all credibility in a 2020 conversation around Microsoft.
- Nullabillity 6y agoYeah, how dare anyone learn from history?!
- tomnipotent 6y agoYes, it's about as useful as couples bringing up two-decade old issues in fights they're having today. The Microsoft from 20 years ago does not look anything like the Microsoft of today, and trying to pretend it is is lazy and dishonest.
- Nullabillity 6y ago> Yes, it's about as useful as couples bringing up two-decade old issues in fights they're having today. VSCode, Edge, .NET Core, WSL, DX12, deliberately crippling cross-platform Vulkan drivers, ... And then you have the stereotypically anti-user bullshit, like the telemetry and enforced upgrades.
- tomnipotent 6y ago> VSCode, Edge, .NET Core, WSL, DX12 All things generally loved by the community (except Edge). > deliberately crippling cross-platform Vulkan drivers I find nothing doing a quick search for this. Do you have any evidence of this? > like the telemetry and enforced upgrades Neither of which have proven harmful to their users, other than the inconvenience of a forced restart. I'd rather have forced upgrades than the mayhem that existed before. How do these have ANYTHING to do with Microsoft from 20 years ago?
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoI'm having trouble calibrating my view of Microsoft in recent years, partly because of a story I heard a while ago. I'd be grateful if someone could give me a reality check on this: Some years back, one criticism I heard against Microsoft was that they threatened to assert patent infringement against Linux, but refused to tell the alleged offenders which particular patents Microsoft considered to be violated. And the end result was Microsoft (imho) legally extorting some Linux vendors for licensing fees. If that story is true, then is Microsoft still engaging in that behavior or similar?
- CrankyBear 6y agoThey did, but they started moving away from it. Their big change came two years ago when they opened up their patent portfolio to the Open Invention Network. That meant any company working with Linux can use their patents without royalties. For more on that see: https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-does-microsoft-joining-the-open-invention-network-mean-for-you/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-does-microsoft-joining-th...
- signal11 6y agoNot sure about Linux (and I have no inside info, just public sources), but around 2013-2014, the tech press was full of reports that Microsoft was making billions[1] from Android, by charging OEMs $5-15 per unit for patents Android allegedly violated. This report[2] from October 2018 seems to indicate that Microsoft no longer does this: > Ten to 15 years ago we were very focused on the competition between Linux and Windows,” says Microsoft’s chief IP counsel, Erich Andersen, in an interview with Yahoo Finance. “But today Microsoft is a very different company. With the rise of our Azure [cloud services] business, Microsoft has become one of the largest contributors to open source in the world. . . . We’re in a position where, as [CEO] Satya [Nadella] says, we love Linux. We love open source. That’s a big part of the future of our business.” [1] https://google.com/search?q=microsoft+android+patent+fees https://google.com/search?q=microsoft+android+patent+fees [2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-billions-android-patent-royalties-141047213.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-b... Anyone with first-hand knowledge care to comment?
- shmerl 6y agoI don't consider MS to be a friend of Linux, quite on the contrary, as a Linux gamer I see MS as still quite hostile. So all this "MS loves Linux" sounds fake, when we still don't get many games coming for Linux and MS pushing their DirectX lock-in. So don't buy their koolaid.
- tomnipotent 6y ago> as a Linux gamer I see MS as still quite hostile. You blame Microsoft because game companies decided to utilize their DX tech? That's a bit of a stretch, but to each their own.
- shmerl 6y agoGame companies can be blamed for their own things, but I totally blame MS for proliferating lock-in. Where is their backing of Vulkan? DirectX was and is used as an anti-competitive lock-in tool. MS has been doing this for decades and nothing changed in this regard in their attitude.
- tomnipotent 6y agoSo Microsoft should just throw away decades of work on DX because your feeling are hurt over Vulkan? Show me examples of Microsoft using coercive practices to make game developers use DX. Otherwise this is just more of the same "lets jump on the anti-MS bandwagon" hubris, looking for any angle to attack MS because that's the trend.
- shmerl 6y agoMS threw out their lock-in (ActiveX, Silverlight, whatever) when they lost browser wars and started collaborating on Web standards. What gives? Nothing stops them from being a good citizen when it comes to GPU APIs too. Except they profit form their lock-in and are hostile to competition (including Linux). So no, MS aren't friends of Linux. They only pretend to be friendly, when it suits them.
- Stierlitz 6y ago> It's been a long, strange trip but it's always driven by two motives: Making good products .. Really, really .. more like shifting it out the door if it compiles sucessfully!
- shrubble 6y agoThe issue of Windows 10 telemetry still remains, however. Something not available when Linux is installed on a system as the host OS.
- unnouinceput 6y agoUse local account, not online account. And use WPD to get rid of everything except automatic updates in Windows. Their telemetry and advertising vanishes. Also I cannot recommend enough - get a PiHole. That one will help you with Android crap from Google a lot and you can focus on your work instead of policing everything your spouse/kids do in your household.
- bergstromm466 6y agoThe goals of the Free/Libre Open Source Software movements and the Corporate Captialist profit motive directly contradict each other. The goal of Capitalism is to enclose/monopolize. I believe this whole 'M$ loves Linux' is a Trojan horse and we should always remain skeptical until the system changes. The question is: what are M$'s angle(s) - in the long term? I think the biggest one is ideology. M$ will say there are some 'limits' as to what can be open sourced... But those limits will be limits imposed by the current Capitalist system, not the organic human limits. Intellectual Property is better termed 'Intellectual Monopoly', or even 'Intellectual Slavery'.
- varispeed 6y agoMainstream doesn't use Linux because of no gaming ecosystem. There have been some attempts at getting games running, but for average user it seems too limited. Still in 2020 the Linux desktop experience isn't smooth - you often need to dig into configuration files and it is too easy to mess it up. Then you have Google purposefully turning off GPU acceleration in Chrome so people think that Linux is just slower than Windows. I think Linux is missing proper UX team dedicated to making basic user problems easy to solve without the need of PhD in computer science.
- pessimizer 6y agoPC gaming isn't the mainstream. I'd be surprised if more than 15% of computer users ever play (non-browser, non-smartphone) games.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mememan123 6y agoIt's called lutris. I play games on linux and Lutris does all the heavy lifting for me.
- SSLy 6y agoStill waiting for the non-web Office on Linux. Call me back when that happens.
- actuator 6y agoThat is a silly measure. Companies make products if they think there is good profit to be made there. Look at games. Civ wasn't released on Linux till Civ 5, that too because of Steam OS, four years after the Windows version came out. Apple released Safari for Windows but never bothered with Linux.
- jug 6y agoI think the traditional "desktop Office" is going away completely, even on Windows. They're building a new Fluent UI for React Native library and it's designed to work across Windows, macOS, iOS, Android. Microsoft Design has blogged [1] about it being the future for the Microsoft 365 initiative (of which Office 365 is a subset). They've also sunset the "Online" branding for Office Online. It's now simply "Office". [2] I think they're intentionally blurring the lines here to eventually have everything converge. And save many, many development hours while at it. I wouldn't be surprised if the "Windows Office" will become something hosted in their new WebView2 control (Chromium-based Edge renderer). [1] https://medium.com/microsoft-design/how-fluent-ui-unlocks-the-next-generation-of-microsoft-365-experiences-8b24809faf06 https://medium.com/microsoft-design/how-fluent-ui-unlocks-th... [2] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-apps-blog/why-office-online-is-now-simply-office/ba-p/760207 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-apps-blog/why-...
- unnouinceput 6y agoIt will never go away. Unless vendors will create a CPU that runs natively web, you'll always have "desktop Office". It's just that performance cannot be matched by web apps.
- CrankyBear 6y agoTeams is already there, Microsoft is bringing the others over, and you can do it today with: https://github.com/sirredbeard/unofficial-webapp-office https://github.com/sirredbeard/unofficial-webapp-office
- asciimov 6y agoEmbrace - <-- We are here. Extend - Extinguish
- unnouinceput 6y agoWe are at 2nd one actually, with their WSL. I keep telling people that right there is a move to migrate developers from Linux to Windows but every time I do that they downvote and disagree.
- morelisp 6y agoIt's what, 13 years since Scott McNealy donned a penguin costume, after a decade of trying to first compete and then migrate a developer base? How'd that work out for Sun?
- croes 6y agoEmbrace, extend and extinguish
- sacks2k 6y agoDesktop Linux still sucks. I used various flavors like Ubuntu for the past 8 years and finally got tired of the half-finished UIs, random bugs that were never fixed, and breaking issues with WINE when I upgraded (and had to spend hours of my free time trying to figure it out). This, in addition to all sorts of driver issues over the years where I had to download test drivers and compile it myself to get it working has made me never look back. My new setup is a windows 10 machine with the latest version of Ubuntu running (command line only) on Vmware workstation. I get all of the stability of a windows machine and can still run all of my favorite Linux apps. The Windows subsystem for Linux also works pretty well for most things. I also wonder if it has to do with the anti-commercial stance from most people in the Linux community. Besides a couple of niche apps, most open source is not polished in any way and since many OSS developer have day jobs, have no real incentive to fix a specific bug/issue.
- madjam002 6y agoPeople's experiences do seem to be hit or miss, but for me I have the opposite experience. I am far more productive with GNOME 3 than I am with the Windows desktop environment. I do boot into Windows pretty frequently to play some games but every time there is something that annoys me, whether it's adverts in notifications, being told to use Microsoft Edge _again_ or Windows updates that take ages to install. I much prefer Linux, not just for development but for every day usage.
- thomond 6y ago" half-finished UIs, random bugs that were never fixed" Interestingly this matches my experience of Windows 10 rather then Gnome or Plasma although they are all rough around the edges.
- lvass 6y ago> Desktop Linux still sucks. Let's not forget the "for my use case, given my technical prowess" is implicit.
- sacks2k 6y agoI could write my own device drivers. It's not something I should have to do to get my video card working correctly. I would rather spend the time on my own projects.
- somerandomboi 6y agoDid Microsoft actually believe that Linux distributions would actually surpass market share? I suppose they never realized that Linux kernel-based technology would hamper their dominance.
- nabla9 6y ago1. MS don't see Linux as a threat in the desktop. 2. MS lost the battle everywhere else.
- mythz 6y agoVery simply, most of the value of Open Source is being collected by major tech conglomerates leasing computing that's freely running OSS software without cost or licensing, of which they're the #2 biggest collector & thanks to the multi-billion in Infrastructure costs + natural lock-in their oligopoly business is protected ad infinitum. So of course they love OSS now that Azure is one of their largest money printers, it's no longer a threat & they've become one of the biggest beneficiaries of it.
- jeffrallen 6y agoSo...Microsoft loves cancer?
- whizzkid 6y agoOne of the few things that are left for end-users to not to switch to Linux is the Office product. I am almost sure that Microsoft is not releasing it on purpose because they are afraid of losing a big chunk of their customers to Linux.
- kristopolous 6y agoThat's a long term losing strategy and I think they're smart enough to know it. I'm guessing their current response would be "we have Microsoft 365 for the web" which is becoming less and less adequate. They'll eventually need to decouple the two and sell them independently. At the end of the day, they're a commercial software company - platform wars aren't in their interest.
- whizzkid 6y agoI think they will hold on as long as they can to release it for Linux. You are right that they are a commercial software company but they are trying to keep the Windows as "the platform" for enterprise companies otherwise it will be too hard for them to sell everything as a package. office 365 for web is unfortunately not the same experience.
- kristopolous 6y agoMicrosoft's inertia is generation specific. My father (70) and his cohort will basically only use outlook while my nieces and nephews (~18) when they get into the business world, they're not only unlikely to have any loyalty to outlook and office but they're unlikely to use email as a first tier communication and may not even use traditional word processing packages as a primary method of long form expression. Nor will they have any of the branding impressions my father's generation had. A chromebook, macbook, or really anything else will be accepted as "alright, I guess I'm using this". The desktop metaphor is quite stable as is the software. They will be, and arguably have been for ten years, broadly interchangeable. Microsoft's current positioning is like 1980s IBM. The mainframe strategy worked so long as the people running the business thought they needed mainframes. As they retired out, IBM had to go elsewhere for profits. And I'd bet the farm Microsoft knows this. They've diversified into video games, source code management, cloud computing, etc seeing this future ahead. Also this isn't new for them. They're replaying their strategy from 1975-~1990. They never had the better products, they won because they had the better strategy. Office was a good cash cow, but it's increasingly becoming a harder fit
- cm2187 6y agoThe quote wasn't that Linux was a cancer, it was that some of the open-source licensing was a cancer, in the sense that it forces you to open source all of you own code if you were using a single library. And that's not completely wrong.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoLinux is a developer movement and attacking Linux means pissing off a large number of developers. Software companies want to attract developers and have good relationships with them.
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.is/SHvTr https://archive.is/SHvTr
- Hurtak 6y agoActually, just a few days ago, I got fed up with Apple and tried to switch to Microsoft, and make it my main development machine, and so far I have to say I am impressed. Twitter thread describing the experience: https://twitter.com/PetrHurtak/status/1314854634394185728 https://twitter.com/PetrHurtak/status/1314854634394185728
- nolok 6y agoWindows 10 is a surprisingly good OS, with a thin layer of crap spread over it (the tracking). But it's still surprisingly easy to remove that layer, and the underlying things is pleasant to use, with wsl as a real game changer, wsl2 even more so. I was always a windows person on my main computer and I liked 7 a lot but it still didn't quite feel right for devs, but windows 10 really makes us feel at home. Also you went with a surface pro, which has been a genuinely top of the line hardware serie from microsoft
- munchbunny 6y agoI was always a Windows native due to hobby game development. Back in the 2000-2010 times, that meant you were using Windows. The dev tooling on Windows for things that aren't .NET has gotten much, much better in the last 10 years. Sometime in the last 4 years I stopped feeling like I had to have a Linux installation available to switch for my programming needs, and I've mostly just been using WSL instead. I still keep the Linux installation around, but now it's months in between when I boot it up.
- AzzieElbab 6y agoWhy keep the fight going after losing the war for server market?
- vaccinator 6y agoIf Microsoft loved Linux, Windows 10 would be a lot different.
- throwawaymanbot 6y agoStill dont trust them. That MS lady who wrote to the Open Source software security group, saying that not allowing HTML email was bad, and a hindrance to security... umm yeaaaaaa......
- sai_c 6y ago1.Microsoft is a company. 2.Microsoft loves money. 3.Whatever makes them money gets their love. 4.Making money is the primary purpose of a company.