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Just look at Microsoft’s revenue breakdown that they publish. Windows revenue is alarmingly small. I don’t think it’s a loss leader but Microsoft gets almost n

Just look at Microsoft’s revenue breakdown that they publish. Windows revenue is alarmingly small. I don’t think it’s a loss leader but Microsoft gets almost nothing from OEM Windows licenses and basically nobody buys it retail. This is not coming to the Linux world. The moment this sort of thing happens, distros get forked.

geon 3mo ago
Aren’t ms completely dependent on consumer windows for mindshare? I doubt anyone would bother getting into programming with ms tech unless they just happened to run it on their desktop.
- eastbound 3mo ago
  MS owns Typescript and NPM and Azure and LinkedIn. I know you meant programming on Windows, but even if Windows disappears, many of us will owe our job to Microsoft.
  - solarkraft 3mo ago
    They own Typescript? I wasn’t aware that they control the organization, but that ought to be easy enough to fork. NPM is a bigger one, but also not too huge. Azure is only used by people who already have Microsoft/Windows buy-in.
    - chuckadams 3mo ago
      They created TypeScript, and maintain it now. It's not exactly a business for them, no one is buying "TypeScript Enterprise" subscriptions. It's all under the Apache License 2.0 and certainly big enough that if they started pulling anything untoward, it would see a fork. Sometimes Microsoft produces an unalloyed good, they're not a monolith.
    - embedding-shape 3mo ago
      > They own Typescript? I wasn’t aware that they control the organization, I genuinely don't know, got curious and went to typescriptlang.org to find some "About" page or "Governance" or something else, but couldn't find anything at all about it. It was exclusively developed by Microsoft for two years, and with no other clear governance/decision structure today as far as I can see, doesn't that exactly mean that Microsoft controls the entire "organization"? It's not clear what "organization" you're referring to either, the GitHub organization? I'd assume that's also 100% Microsoft controlled.
  - VorpalWay 3mo ago
    Dont forget they own github too. The vast majority of open source software is on there these days. Yes there are other options: gitlab.com, some project specific gitlab instances (freedesktop for example), forejo / codeberg, and the Linux kernel is off doing it's own thing with mailing lists instead. I even come across code on SourceForge every now and then still. But all of these are super niche.
  - SinkingRock 3mo ago
    And VS Code, and Github...
    - tosti 3mo ago
      Soooo... Not anything we couldn't miss.
- ufmace 3mo ago
  I don't think they are anymore. The vast majority of ordinary person computer/internet use has already moved to smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and other such devices. It seems nowadays many people don't even know the basics about how to use a desktop operating system.
  - smelendez 3mo ago
    Right. Laptops are basically work (or school) tools now for a lot of people. They might have one tucked away that they pull out now and then when they need it, similar to a power drill or a sewing machine. It’s not a daily use device. I think it helped Microsoft historically that people used their operating systems at home, although even then a lot of people would have learned Windows at work or school first.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Aerroon 3mo ago
    I find this hard to believe considering how bad the UIs are on phones and TVs. Even google.com does not offer feature parity between their desktop and mobile websites. My phone still didn't come with a functional paint or notepad apps. Google docs is a horrible experience on phones (but at least it works now - a few years ago it was straight up unusable). And you're telling me that this is the only computing platform for a lot of people? How is everything still so unusable about it then? My experience tells me that everything mobile is basically an afterthought outside of a few dozen websites and I guess phone games.
    - picofarad 3mo ago
      My phone still doesn't have a calculator app. The thought of trying to add one that isnt wolfram alpha is anxiety-producing.
      - Obscurity4340 3mo ago
        Calculator Note apps are much better anyway
- Grombobulous 3mo ago
  Microsoft will happily sell you someone else’s tech stack on Azure. My macOS-using employer gives much more money to Microsoft than Apple. Cloud SaaS things they’re using: Entra ID, Power BI, Sharepoint, corporate email (365), OneDrive. Microsoft applications installed by my employer on my PC: Teams, Office including Outlook, Defender. Our applications are Java running on Linux and we could migrate 100% of our platform to Azure without any issue if we had a reason to do that.
mrob 3mo ago
>This is not coming to the Linux world. The moment this sort of thing happens, distros get forked. I installed Debian 13 recently. The first time I opened Firefox ESR (installed by default), I got something that looked like adverts on the home page (banner blindness means I have no memory of what they actually were, only of the feeling of disgust). The Home section of the Settings page had options for "Sponsored shortcuts" and "Sponsored stories" enabled by default. Changing a default setting is a lot easier than forking software, yet it was not done.
- ekianjo 3mo ago
  thats entirely on Firefox
  - account42 3mo ago
    No, it's also on Debian for not disabling/removing that crap. Shielding the user from crapware (both the accidental and intentional kind) is the entire reason distribution maintainers exist in the first place.
- Grombobulous 3mo ago
  Rather than complaining to you that Firefox isn’t Linux, I’ll point out that Firefox is a great example. LibreWolf was forked to deal with the exact situation you describe.

geon 3mo ago

Aren’t ms completely dependent on consumer windows for mindshare? I doubt anyone would bother getting into programming with ms tech unless they just happened to run it on their desktop.

eastbound 3mo ago
MS owns Typescript and NPM and Azure and LinkedIn. I know you meant programming on Windows, but even if Windows disappears, many of us will owe our job to Microsoft.
- solarkraft 3mo ago
  They own Typescript? I wasn’t aware that they control the organization, but that ought to be easy enough to fork. NPM is a bigger one, but also not too huge. Azure is only used by people who already have Microsoft/Windows buy-in.
  - chuckadams 3mo ago
    They created TypeScript, and maintain it now. It's not exactly a business for them, no one is buying "TypeScript Enterprise" subscriptions. It's all under the Apache License 2.0 and certainly big enough that if they started pulling anything untoward, it would see a fork. Sometimes Microsoft produces an unalloyed good, they're not a monolith.
  - embedding-shape 3mo ago
    > They own Typescript? I wasn’t aware that they control the organization, I genuinely don't know, got curious and went to typescriptlang.org to find some "About" page or "Governance" or something else, but couldn't find anything at all about it. It was exclusively developed by Microsoft for two years, and with no other clear governance/decision structure today as far as I can see, doesn't that exactly mean that Microsoft controls the entire "organization"? It's not clear what "organization" you're referring to either, the GitHub organization? I'd assume that's also 100% Microsoft controlled.
- VorpalWay 3mo ago
  Dont forget they own github too. The vast majority of open source software is on there these days. Yes there are other options: gitlab.com, some project specific gitlab instances (freedesktop for example), forejo / codeberg, and the Linux kernel is off doing it's own thing with mailing lists instead. I even come across code on SourceForge every now and then still. But all of these are super niche.
- SinkingRock 3mo ago
  And VS Code, and Github...
  - tosti 3mo ago
    Soooo... Not anything we couldn't miss.
ufmace 3mo ago
I don't think they are anymore. The vast majority of ordinary person computer/internet use has already moved to smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and other such devices. It seems nowadays many people don't even know the basics about how to use a desktop operating system.
- smelendez 3mo ago
  Right. Laptops are basically work (or school) tools now for a lot of people. They might have one tucked away that they pull out now and then when they need it, similar to a power drill or a sewing machine. It’s not a daily use device. I think it helped Microsoft historically that people used their operating systems at home, although even then a lot of people would have learned Windows at work or school first.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- Aerroon 3mo ago
  I find this hard to believe considering how bad the UIs are on phones and TVs. Even google.com does not offer feature parity between their desktop and mobile websites. My phone still didn't come with a functional paint or notepad apps. Google docs is a horrible experience on phones (but at least it works now - a few years ago it was straight up unusable). And you're telling me that this is the only computing platform for a lot of people? How is everything still so unusable about it then? My experience tells me that everything mobile is basically an afterthought outside of a few dozen websites and I guess phone games.
  - picofarad 3mo ago
    My phone still doesn't have a calculator app. The thought of trying to add one that isnt wolfram alpha is anxiety-producing.
    - Obscurity4340 3mo ago
      Calculator Note apps are much better anyway
Grombobulous 3mo ago
Microsoft will happily sell you someone else’s tech stack on Azure. My macOS-using employer gives much more money to Microsoft than Apple. Cloud SaaS things they’re using: Entra ID, Power BI, Sharepoint, corporate email (365), OneDrive. Microsoft applications installed by my employer on my PC: Teams, Office including Outlook, Defender. Our applications are Java running on Linux and we could migrate 100% of our platform to Azure without any issue if we had a reason to do that.

mrob 3mo ago

>This is not coming to the Linux world. The moment this sort of thing happens, distros get forked. I installed Debian 13 recently. The first time I opened Firefox ESR (installed by default), I got something that looked like adverts on the home page (banner blindness means I have no memory of what they actually were, only of the feeling of disgust). The Home section of the Settings page had options for "Sponsored shortcuts" and "Sponsored stories" enabled by default. Changing a default setting is a lot easier than forking software, yet it was not done.

ekianjo 3mo ago
thats entirely on Firefox
- account42 3mo ago
  No, it's also on Debian for not disabling/removing that crap. Shielding the user from crapware (both the accidental and intentional kind) is the entire reason distribution maintainers exist in the first place.
Grombobulous 3mo ago
Rather than complaining to you that Firefox isn’t Linux, I’ll point out that Firefox is a great example. LibreWolf was forked to deal with the exact situation you describe.