6 ms·
There is a non-zero chance WSL will make desktop Linux completely irrelevant even for developers.
by patrec 6y ago
There is a non-zero chance WSL will make desktop Linux completely irrelevant even for developers.
- znpy 6y agoit's called "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish"
- lproven 6y agoThis. It's been MICROS~1's primary tactic against competitors for at least 1/3 of a century now and nothing has changed: now the company just _says_ it likes FOSS. Does Windows set up dual-boot if Linux is installed first? Naw. Does Windows read or write Linux filesystems? Naw. Has MS open-sourced any significant or important parts of Windows where it won't benefit directly? Naw. It is in MS' direct interests if PowerShell or .NET are supported on other platforms; it makes them more credible tools. Did we get source for Explorer or anything? Naw. Calculator. Big fat hairy deal. Has MS open-sourced any obsolete products that might actually be of use or interest, such as the final versions of MS-DOS (25 years old) or Windows 9x? Naw. They contain things like Explorer and so on that are still used. Can't go actually _helping_ people. It's all marketing flim-flam. Don't believe the hype. Linux is doing great on phones and servers and so on. On the desktop, only ChromeOS is not a rounding error. So, if MS can embrace-and-extend the Linux desktop, and make Win10 a better desktop Linux than Linux, then it helps MS and it helps Win10. And with what it learns from that, it can apply to WSL in the datacentre and on Azure, where it can make Windows Server a better Kubernetes than Kubernetes. Which, let's face it, would not be all that hard.
- whizzter 6y agoMS doesn't care about Stallmans GNU goals. What they do care about are developers not being annoyed with working on a Windows machine (or nowadays using their Azure clouds). Speaking for myself, I'm coming from the gamedev world (lately webdev) and as such was mostly tied to windows due to various tools(Photoshop,Modo,3dsmax in the past,etc) but that didn't mean that I was going to suffer by using IIS or spend a fortune on Windows server licences or higher hardware reqs for appplication servers for no good reason. So yes, MS will ignore OSS for their core Windows stuff, HOWEVER they will probably also play nice in the wider OSS (If not FOSS) community since they probably see Azure as the third leg of the future (apart from Windows and Office) and as such will ensure that everyone who uses it (be it for Windows or Linux deployments) are happy with it (And trashing things in the OSS community will thus be counterproductive).
- lproven 6y agoThis is _precisely_ the sort of thought the company wishes to cultivate: * That they don't care about Free Software (they do, it is a hated enemy). * That they are ignoring the FOSS world (they're watching it closely and working out how to stealthily attack it). * That they'll play nice and so should be welcomed (they are a merciless enemy to be constantly wary of). In other words, their marketing team's message of "we've changed, we're nice and friendly now, trust us" is working perfectly.
- cjaybo 6y agoWhat motive does MS have to "watch and stealthily attack" the FOSS world? Which parts of that world threaten their existence? Looking at the last few quarterly reports, I'm inclined to agree with the parent commenter here, and your comment doesn't do much to substantiate your point as it stands.
- lproven 6y agoThis is the motive, as someone cited before me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis... I was merely agreeing. Look at MS' history. It used this tactic to kill or maim a long list of companies: Netscape, Lotus, WordPerfect, Aldus, Novell, Sybase, STAC, Central Point Software, Quarterdeck, and dozens more. It tried it with Sun and Java -- it failed, but only just. It tried it with the WWW itself with ActiveX and IIS ASP. Again, this only just failed. It has a long long history of being the nastiest, most deceitful, dishonest, back-stabbing company in the computer industry -- and that is saying a lot. It is not a coincidence that Gates became the richest man in the world. Cory Doctorow's Twitter summary is pretty good (short thread): https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1304811968398729218 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1304811968398729218 The LA Times did a great investigative piece on the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation _thirteen years ago_: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jan-07-na-gatesx07-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jan-07-na-gates... TL;DR -- it spends just enough money that Gates & Buffett don't pay tax on the interest of their wealth; it does not do ethical investment of any kind; its objective is whitewashing the reputation of a retired criminal, in which it is very successful. I have yet to see any evidence that the company culture that Gates created and Ballmer continued has changed in any substantive way.
- jodrellblank 6y ago> Linux is doing great on phones ... you're fine with Google taking Linux, hiding it inside a proprietary system, not releasing source code for things people want to use like Google services? > and servers and so on. A use case where the most desirable setup is to have the Linux servers on someone else's computing platform, preferably in another state or country, with minimal services running on it, preferably locked behind an SSH interface that only an automation tool accesses guarded by an automated deployment tool, trading the "Linux can run for years without reboots" former gloating for being able to kill/redeploy dozens of times per day. This is what counts as "popular" in 2020, Linux as a small piece of necessary plumbing that everyone wants to push away from human contact. A far cry from the dreams of Linspire, Ubuntu, Ubuntu-phone. Microsoft make WSL pleasant to install and use, and now it's one of the most talked about ways to deal with Linux. And you're pretending that what you really wanted was source code for Windows Explorer? Oh please. As if.
- lproven 6y agoWell done for signally failing to get a single point I made. Well up to HN commenter standards -- perhaps you'll make it on to https://twitter.com/hn_commenter https://twitter.com/hn_commenter I am typing on Linux right now. I work for a Linux vendor. I like Linux and use it every day. I do not run Windows at all, anywhere, unless someone is paying me to. As for Android, there is this thing called AOSP. Check it out. You might also wish to contribute to Replicant, since you are so passionate: https://replicant.us/ https://replicant.us/ If you look hard enough on Google, you can probably find my (rather positive) reviews of Linspire from back when it was new. (It wasn't as good as Corel LinuxOS.) You'll also find me praising Ubuntu's efforts and bemoaning their cancellation. Linux is anything but small; it is huge. It is what allows me to keep the lights on and put food and drink on my family's table. MS executing its hallmark embrace-and-extend on it is _disastrous_ news and is one of the biggest dangers Linux has ever faced. Don't shoot the messenger.
- jodrellblank 6y agoHow do you explain your contradictory beliefs that "Linux is huge and doing great" and that Microsoft is desperately trying to make its tools look credible with marketing and hype, and at the same time Microsoft is bordering on world domination with _disastrous_ news that might extinguish Linux forever? Or where Linux is the dominant computing platform everyone serious uses, and at the same time in danger of being squished by Microsoft? > "As for Android, there is this thing called AOSP. Check it out." It's what you get if you remove all the things people want, like Chrome and YouTube and drivers and Google store, and are left with just a kernel which nobody cares about. It's what manufacturers take, and put something nice but proprietary on top before it becomes desirable. (btw, if Android counts as a huge successful use of Linux, how is Microsoft adding a Linux VM option to Windows going to extinguish Android?) > "MS executing its hallmark embrace-and-extend on it is _disastrous_ news" It isn't news, WSL has been around for years, and before that the Unix subsystem for more years. And why are you afraid that Microsoft doing literally anything with Linux might lead to you running Windows? How is that going to happen? > "Linux is anything but small; it is huge." Then how is Microsoft adding a Linux VM option to Windows a "disaster"? Is it huge and doing great, or tenuous and barely holding on? > "It is what allows me to keep the lights on and put food and drink on my family's table." You just said you would use Windows if someone paid you. Linux being extinguished wouldn't stop you from earning. Not to mention the doublethink involved in how Linux can both "be extinguished" and still exist in Windows, or how Linux being used in Android, extended in proprietary ways, is great, but being used in Windows is not great. Because it's just anti-Microsoft fearmongering, not anything which makes rational or reasonable sense. EEE was about standard protocols; if Microsoft extend SMTP or HTML and everyone becomes dependent on their version, they could leverage that to kill Netscape. If Microsoft put a Linux VM in Windows, that doesn't change what happens on your server, on your phone, on your laptop. If people start developing for "Microsoft Linux" because it's /better/ because Microsoft builds things people want, that's called "competition".
- louwrentius 6y agoThere is nothing to extinghuish, except for the notion of Linux on the desktop, that was never a thing anyway, except for a few technerds. Microsoft has indeed embraced Linux, in the context of Azure, they are making a ton of money thanks to Linux. And if people develop for Linux-based platforms, why not give them the tools?
- znpy 6y ago> There is nothing to extinghuish, except for the notion of Linux on the desktop Thanks you proved my point
- patrec 6y agoThere is something to extinguish: Apple. Microsoft had a significant problem that all the best (non-game) developers used macOS (and a few even linux), which severely damaged their ecosystem. They fixed that. Apple might be in for a rude awakening in turn when they realize the toys they enjoy selling for exorbitant profits had an ecosystem dependency on the professional products they more or less abandoned.
- louwrentius 6y agoYes I agree with that.
- jodrellblank 6y agoEmbrace is when they grudgingly agree to support something lame. Extend is when they improve it. Extinguish is when so many people prefer it that their improved version dominates the market. That is "Extinguish" is not Microsoft forcing you to stop using Linux it's Microsoft making Windows so good that you no longer want to use Linux. Linux users think improving things so people like them is bad, because Linux has a culture where you have to suffer the difficulties as a hazing ritual to prove your geek cred, and if you like popular, convenient, easy, pleasant, non-technical, user-or-business focused features that's inherently a "luser" attitude and a person to be scorned. That is, people who run around the internet fearmongering "Embrace,Extend,Extinguish" are simultaneously criticising Microsoft for making software so bad that nobody wants to use it and losing market share and desperately clutching at popularist straws, while at the same time terrified that Microsoft will make software so good not only will it dominate the market, but they peronsally will find it irresistable and be unable to muster the religious willpower to stick with Linux when faced with the temptation of something better.
- busterarm 6y agoYou underestimate most companies' (with significant internal engineering organizations) commitment to open source. It's been 8 years since I've even had to touch Windows professionally and without any overt effort on my part.
- ianai 6y agoWhere May I work at such places? How do I find them?
- louwrentius 6y agoFor every such workplace there are probably 100 companies that only support a Windows-based computer. I think you overestimate the prevalence of such environments.
- busterarm 6y agoThose companies most often are not hiring thousands of software engineers. That's the context where this matters.
- MivLives 6y agoOr they'll do what they do in the last two places I've worked. "Oh you're a dev? Here's a mac"
- wink 6y agoWell "not touching it at all" would've been great but I've had my main machine on Windows for about 2-3 years out of the last 14, so I don't think that's so rare. Since 2013 I didn't even have a job anyone with a Windows machine /could have done/, because the stuff simply doesn't run or compile. (Yeah, WSL and all, the box was too slow to compile stuff natively already).
- busterarm 6y agoThanks for sharing your story. This is the point I'm making.
- 6y ago
- louwrentius 6y agoI think that with WSL2 this is already the case. I have worked extensively with WSL, it is good enough. No need for a Linux VM.