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Microsoft's Linux Kernel

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Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#51
Well that is pretty nice. WSL gets that much more exactly like Linux.

What I really appreciate about WSL is that you get the accessibility of a bunch of OSS projects and a machine which has legit drivers for all of its component bits. What this means to me is that searching for a "linux laptop" won't be a chore, if it runs the latest Windows it will run Linux. And I can do development on the Linux side while communicating with senior management in power point on the Windows side :-). If they come up with a better/credible USB allocation scheme it will be icing on the cake.

I also think they should buy one of the X server vendors and bundle it (comments about X.org from Redhat not withstanding) I use Xwin32 on my laptop with WSL and its pretty seamless in terms of things that want to pop up a GUI.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#52
Microsoft: put a good POSIX layer into Windows. The times are mature now, and this allows your platform to benefit from a lot of open source system software easily, without portings and compatibility layers. At the same time, now that developers start to be annoyed big time by Apple nonsensical Mac handling, this gives a lot of devs, not developing primarily for the Win arch, the ability to evaluate Windows as a development machine.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#54
post #34
post #4

Embrace... Extend...

so microsoft's open source linux kernel is going to cause everyone to stop using linux...?

No, not everyone is going to abandon Linux; I'm going to define Linux in this context as the traditional Linux desktop where people run some sort of X11 or Wayland window manager or desktop environment on top of a Linux kernel running on bare hardware. However, it would be interesting to see what impact the popularity of WSL will have on Linux desktop environments such as KDE, GNOME and its derivatives MATE and Cinnamon, and others such as XFCE. For example, macOS has long been popular with those wanting a polished *nix environment with support for commercial software packages and certain types of drivers, to the point that some high-profile developers such as Miguel de Icaza adopted the Mac. Some may argue that the Linux desktop may have evolved differently had macOS not been an option. Even so, the existence of macOS has not led to the extinction of the Linux desktop. Now, what makes WSL different from macOS is every major PC manufacturer ships their PCs with Windows 10 by default, and WSL can be installed easily on any PC running Windows 10. You can run Linux alongside Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite without having to use WINE. The barrier of entry for using WSL is much lower for a lot of people than the barrier of entry for purchasing a Mac.

This leads to some interesting questions. If a significant segment of Linux users abandon FOSS desktops such as KDE and GNOME for the Windows ecosystem, what will this mean for projects such as Firefox and LibreOffice? What will it mean for KDE, GNOME, and other FOSS desktop environments and window managers?

Now, there will be a contingent of Linux users who won't migrate to WSL for a few reasons. There are some Linux users who won't use Windows, whether it's due to certain features such as telemetry and ads or whether it's due to some other aspect of Windows they don't like. There are some Linux users who need to run Linux directly on their hardware and thus WSL wouldn't fit their needs. There are also Linux users who care about using a stack of software that is fully free and open source and thus wouldn't switch to SWL.

But will there be enough remaining users in order to justify further development of the FOSS Linux desktop in the eyes of major projects like LibreOffice and Firefox? We will see.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#56
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "embrace, extend, and extinguish" was coined by Microsoft, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

Yes everyone knows where it came from, but the FOSS communities continued screeching and pot banging with that phrase and Microsoft is both tired, played out, and near pointless considering what Google is actively doing to the software world right now.

Dismissing legitimate concerns as screeching is pretty lame. Try making your your arguments without emotional manipulation.

Microsoft was a bad actor and leopards rarely change their spots.

Edit:Forgot to mention the classic whataboutism.

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed... It is Google now that does the extinguishing...

> It is Google now that does the extinguishing... Although, to be fair, they are really only extinguishing their own products.

Which were often acquired, or clones of something that died when it had to compete with Google

Re: Microsoft's Linux Kernel

#60
post #57

All the Linux with none of the freedom. Yaaaay?

The real advantage is that, if all of the applications are written for linux, one day, society may notice that the binary blob is vestigial/removable.

What if the next windows kernel was based on Linux/POSIX and it had VMs to run legacy windows programs?
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