MS Linux is a very clever way to keep Linux alive without disrupting Windows sales, something that's taken them a long time to figure out and isn't simple from

MS Linux is a very clever way to keep Linux alive without disrupting Windows sales, something that's taken them a long time to figure out and isn't simple from a technical standpoint, either. Here's the rub. Devs like Linux and open source. That's not going away. Users, however, overwhelmingly live on Windows. The stats aren't even close. Windows owns the desktop, full stop. How does Microsoft give devs what they want and users, too? By subsuming Linux into Windows. In other words, featurizing it. Rather than extinguish Linux (not doable), Microsoft is extending Linux's reach into Windows boxes. Frankly, it's brilliant and harkens back to the good old days of mainframe virtualization when the OS you run was completely irrelevant and unrelated to the OS the hardware was running. It's well know that one of the best ways to kill a competitor's product is to featurize it. In other words, add what they do as a feature to your product, making them irrelevant on their own. Linux had already done a pretty good job of making itself irrelevant on the desktop, lacking as it is does even a simple, standardized executable form that regular humans can double-click on and install. This is kind of Job #1 for software. But I digress. By making Linux a feature of Windows, it won't matter one whit where devs like to work. Their apps will simply run on Windows. Microsoft will provide that one-click executable and they will virtualize the entire environment so well that the Windows user will not know or care that Linux was ever involved. Linux users will get the device support they gripe about not having since the devices will all be virtualized, too. This is truly the best of both worlds. It's not E^3 (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish) because Linux won't be extinguished. Instead, it will continue to be the place where independent and open source dev happens to a large degree. The only change will be Microsoft facilitating the deployment of those "Linux" apps (that term soon to be irrelevant) to a wider audience, and that's a Very Good Thing.