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Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

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Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#71

Post by headmelted »

The author misses the bigger picture completely.

Microsoft used to see Linux as competition, and while that might still be true in some ways, it’s largely moot for a couple of reasons.

In 2019, Windows isn’t competing with Linux for desktop market share not because Linux poses no threat there, but because the desktop doesn’t matter anymore.

Windows, and the desktop operating system as a concept, is competing with the web browser in the enterprise and mobile devices in the retail market (and even then, it’s not really a competition - most casual users gave up computers for smartphones years ago).

Viewed in that lens Microsoft genuinely embracing Linux makes a lot of sense - most of their revenue now comes from service contracts, and the one bedrock they’ve always had is their second-to-none developer support. If developers want them some Linux, then by gosh Redmond is going to give them more Linux than anyone else. Maximum Linux for your organisations’ Linuxy needs!

Microsoft still has great support for gamers on Windows as an incentive not to check out Wine/Proton and things happening there, but really, when was the last time you paid for a Windows license for home use? One way or another they’ve been literally giving the software away as quickly as they can for years. The future is about services, and that means market share (if users leave because they can get a free OS elsewhere then the license has to go). Likewise, if it gets more developers to stay in the ecosystem, then Linux support it is.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#72

Post by zvrba »

pjc50 wrote: post #19
de_watcher wrote: post #3

Can add Visual Studio to the Office/DirectX/Outlook/ActiveDirectory section.

They're sort of heading in this direction with VSCode. I can imagine that VS itself is a non-portable COM-infested disaster area.

COM is anything but disaster. It's a really nice language-independent component framework. An ABI and marshalling standard, built upon ANOTHER, older, standard -- DCE RPC -- that allows e.g., C++ COM server to talk with Powershell, no extra effort required.

As opposed to what you (do not) have on Linux: generating bindings for each scripting language you might want to support, and no standardized way of doing IPC/RPC.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#73

Post by KingMachiavelli »

outside1234 wrote: post #43
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Office was available for Linux, some organizations could consider deploying Linux workstations with Office since that's what most users/employees need is basically a browser (100%/users) and the Office suite (50-90%/users). Office Online is severely gimped as noted in the article and is solely to counteract adoption of Google Office.

What is a good example of it being gimped? I honestly think its better online than the apps themselves.

In Office 365 Excel, there is no way to zoom out or in besides the browser's zoom which causes the whole UI to be scaled.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#74

Post by darkcha0s »

vrthrowaway wrote: post #61
raesene9 wrote: post #13

From what I see in general MS like Linux on the server, not so much the desktop. The reason for that is pretty obvious. They want as many organizations as possible to use their cloud platform, for that to work, they need first class Linux server support. On the desktop, they'd prefer people to be using Windows, but they want to ensure that developers who deploy to Linux have a great experience, thus WSL, VS Code et a…

They don't _like_ it, that's the author's whole point. They would obviously prefer that everyone pay for windows server, but they've lost that battle. "Like" is pure marketing. >You only have to look at MS presence at Kubecon where you'll often see MS staff with Macs or Ubuntu laptops on their stand. marketing in a market. I think we (or you and the author, I'm just re-iterating his points) are talking past each othe…

Just a question-- what would be a path you deem the best? Should Microsoft just work in its silo, while Linux develops in its silo? Should Microsoft not embrace linux? I feel like the 2 strategies mentioned by the author simply let you point to the other one when the first one doesn't grip. I'm always at a loss when these HN posts come about, because I feel like 99% of the hate/sentiment stems from the time Microsoft was actually a shitty company (I'm sure it is still shit in great lengths today, but not comparable to the Ballmer years).

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#75

Post by SimianLogic2 »

I used cygwin to do web development circa 2007/2008. It was a huge pain in the ass and one of the main reasons I switched to Macs. I've been back on Windows for a couple of years now using WSL and it's been pretty great. I'm excited for that integration to get even tighter with WSL2.

The broad categories I use professionally are office crap, web dev, and creative tools. Macs used to suck at the first and rule the last two, but they've really fallen behind in the last few years. The new macbook pro looks like a good machine, but I switched to a gaming laptop to get a better GPU and 64gb of RAM. This (2-year-old) machine does everything I need it to do and I'm now at a point where Macs are going to have to do something pretty spectacular to get me to switch back (or have Windows screw up in a comparable way to what Apple has done the last few years).

What's the point of all this? I think this article misses the boat pretty badly on who Micrsoft's talking to when it says it loves linux. It's talking to web devs like me who work and deploy to linux, not software philosophers who want to debate the meaning of free. From my point of view, they're doing great right now.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#76

Post by tracker1 »

It feels like this article is a lot of FUD spreading. MS is a business that likes to make money. At this point, there are developer minded people at the helm, and it makes more sense selling their software and cloud services than chasing negative returns on Windows. I can see that side of it through and through.

MS has open sourced huge amounts of resource and platform building code in .Net Core the past several years, and ASP.Net earlier than that. They did buy, and have expanded on the tools from Xamarin not shutter it. I'm not saying they're altruistic in nature, no company is. I will say that their behavior in the community, especially since Nadella took over has been better than any other company of it's size or larger that I can think of.

I'm not saying forget or forgive the past, but accept the present. Corporations, despite legalities, are not people. They are made up of people, and a significant portion of management has rolled over in the past decade and the outward facing culture shows that.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#77

Post by ShinTakuya »

raesene9 wrote: post #13

From what I see in general MS like Linux on the server, not so much the desktop. The reason for that is pretty obvious. They want as many organizations as possible to use their cloud platform, for that to work, they need first class Linux server support. On the desktop, they'd prefer people to be using Windows, but they want to ensure that developers who deploy to Linux have a great experience, thus WSL, VS Code et a…

According to a friend within Microsoft, what you described is basically how it works. More so than other large corps, Microsoft seems to be a disorganised mess.

Some groups fight the good fight, some groups do bad things to get ahead, some groups don't know what they're doing or are pressured by bad management, other groups operate extremely well but are assigned to the wrong tasks.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#78

Post by baybal2 »

juliangoldsmith wrote: post #17

Microsoft loves Linux because it makes them money. I'm not sure why anyone would expect differently. They won't release products like Office for Linux (though a web interface is possible), and they won't move away from Windows-only APIs. Neither of those actions would have any tangible benefit for the primary users of those produts (Windows users and Windows developers, respectively). Active Directory is so deeply in…

> Microsoft loves Linux because it makes them money.

No, no, no. That's not the reason. Have you actually read the article?

The reason is that Microsoft is doing a sophisticated stratagem against Linux. It wants to infiltrate the Linux ecosystem, and then when they can keep taps on every piece of essential software, they will pull the plug.

The same with patent pledge, they want to bait as much companies to use Linux thinking that Microsoft will not patent troll them, and then they will reveal their true intentions, and sue them all.

That trick even got a name now. People in the industry called Microsoft's infiltration strategy "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish"

Linux crowd will soon realise what trick they are trying to do, and I hope they will do that before it is too late.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#79

Post by elFarto »

Spooky23 wrote: post #56
juliangoldsmith wrote: post #17

Microsoft loves Linux because it makes them money. I'm not sure why anyone would expect differently. They won't release products like Office for Linux (though a web interface is possible), and they won't move away from Windows-only APIs. Neither of those actions would have any tangible benefit for the primary users of those produts (Windows users and Windows developers, respectively). Active Directory is so deeply in…

AD will be gone in the 2030 timeframe. Kerberos can’t survive in untrusted networks, and products like Azure AD and Okta are far more profitable, especially since the license that pays for AD (ie windows, even for Linux clients), is required anyway!

> Kerberos can’t survive in untrusted networks...

Wasn't Kerberos designed to work in untrusted networks?

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#80

Post by SirLotsaLocks »

wayneftw wrote: post #45
juliangoldsmith wrote: post #17

Microsoft loves Linux because it makes them money. I'm not sure why anyone would expect differently. They won't release products like Office for Linux (though a web interface is possible), and they won't move away from Windows-only APIs. Neither of those actions would have any tangible benefit for the primary users of those produts (Windows users and Windows developers, respectively). Active Directory is so deeply in…

At one time, Manjaro Linux came with Microsoft Office pre-installed. The apps were built with python jade application kit with embedded webviews that take you to the online version - https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/manjaro-ms-office-online...

That's impressive, has anyone else done something like this?
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