Microsoft's “Love” of Linux • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#131

Post by purple-again » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #88

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…

I wouldn't say they'd never do an Office on Linux... If you look at how they've been leveraging web tech and Electron for VS Code and MS Teams, I'd be very surprised if we didn't see an Electron based version of Office in a couple years. Electron has an amazing cross platform appeal for developers and MS has taken advantage of that. Not to mention managing to write applications under Electron that don't suck (though…

I’m 90% teams doesn’t work on Linux and have been using the web app for a long time now. I sorely miss the slack desktop app and would to be corrected if this is possible now.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#132

Post by ripley12 » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #99

ripley12 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is still a 2nd class citizen, IMO – but I think that's improving rapidly. Some examples: -IDE support from MS is markedly better on Windows (real Visual Studio) and Mac (VS for Mac). VS Code+Omnisharp is still pretty rough around the edges for C#. -Many of the older .NET class libraries were just not designed with *nix in mind. System.IO still doesn't support symlinks https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/26310

> Many of the older .NET class libraries were just not designed with *nix in mind. System.IO still doesn't support symlinks Windows supports symlinks, so that problem is not unique to netcore on nix. Many of the newer APIs are designed with explicit support for nix.

Yup, but I think the problem stems from symlinks being relatively uncommon in NTFS compared to nix filesystems - it just wasn't a priority for the original .NET designers who were mostly targeting Windows. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlin...

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#133

Post by streetcat1 » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

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…

This is correct.

On the client-side, MS is not worried much about Linux desktop and hence will not invest in office for Linux.

On the server-side, Linux is a platform of choice for new projects (I would say Kubernetes and containers but those are based on Linux) and hence windows server moved to a more legacy state.

In this case, if Microsoft wants to be relevant for future projects, it must embrace Linux.

However, since there is no money in Linux as an OS, Microsoft is in the process of becoming a hardware company due to azure. And as such, it would like to commoditize its supplement which is the OS.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#134

Post by sam_lowry_ » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

fermuch wrote: post #64

derefr wrote: post #42

I’m honestly surprised that Microsoft aren’t working with Linux vendors in an attempt to solve Linux problems by more deeply integrating Windows-styled solutions into Linux, such that the Linux client ecosystem becomes more dependent on the Windows infrastructure ecosystem. That’d be the natural Azure-focused equivalent to “embrace, extend, extinguish.” For example, Linux DNS resolution is an arcane mess of upstream…

I thought system's resolvd was an attempt to fix all problems with dns resolution. Can you point me how it is not a solution, or how Microsoft could build something better instead of contributing to it?

So far, nss works more or less for me, except that .local takes a couple of minutes to resolve

# grep hosts /etc/nsswitch.conf hosts: files mymachines mdns [NOTFOUND=return] resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] dns myhostname

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#135

Post by tracker1 » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

xenorplxx wrote: post #33

Hm. MS started to support React, especially React Native project lately with their react-native-windows and AppCenter, but I honestly have no idea why would they do that instead of going with something like Electron, since they started to invest in Chromium and V8 anyway.

They've done a lot with Electron as well... Github now being a subsidiary of MS. VS Code is really nice, and Teams is decent. I'd be surprised if we don't see new cross platform Office releases based on the Web versions wrapped in Electron in the next couple years.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#136

Post by neilobremski » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

Within the company you have to remember that there are greedy executives (as anywhere) built on top of a fatty layer of incurious middle management and mixed in with enthusiastic tech heads. Whether or not the happy chaps working on the Linux support have their work mutilated by the fat cats has yet to be seen ... it's always like this in the beginning of an embrace. And in the meantime I think there's a lot of good being done even if it's just serving as a model for FOSS projects. So as the support fades and the dream dims, there will be things to pop up to continue the legacy.

In the meantime, I'm quite happy to see Microsoft participating feverishly. I much prefer that to the alternative of intentionally making my life hell when not using their software / systems.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#137

Post by TheCoelacanth » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

zymhan wrote: post #67

derefr wrote: post #42

I’m honestly surprised that Microsoft aren’t working with Linux vendors in an attempt to solve Linux problems by more deeply integrating Windows-styled solutions into Linux, such that the Linux client ecosystem becomes more dependent on the Windows infrastructure ecosystem. That’d be the natural Azure-focused equivalent to “embrace, extend, extinguish.” For example, Linux DNS resolution is an arcane mess of upstream…

> ...but, so far as I can tell, they’re not doing this. I wonder why not? Because maybe, just maybe, they're a tad bit less evil?

Nonsense, a publicly traded corporation is inherently an immoral psychopath. They are required to single-mindedly pursue shareholder profit.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#138

Post by hamsapelea » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:29 PM UTC

stiray wrote: post #130

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…

I have dumped windows completely after spending some time on windows 8 (fyi: system level developer, but... Well i did my share on aix, hpux, solaris, linux, vms too, but I did love windows... Before the age of manifests, putting com interfaces into kernel32.dll,...) What troubles me THE most on linux is interoperability of applications, there is literally nothing replacing microsoft "office" (not a product Office) s…

Hmm the average joe is already using google drive rather than office et al. Works on linux and mac better than the office stack works on windows.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#139

Post by Nullabillity » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #125

Nullabillity wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, Postgres actually works.

Except for in-the-box replication and failover options.

MSSQL's replication is a minefield of ways to screw it up completely.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#140

Post by tracker1 » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

purple-again wrote: post #131

tracker1 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say they'd never do an Office on Linux... If you look at how they've been leveraging web tech and Electron for VS Code and MS Teams, I'd be very surprised if we didn't see an Electron based version of Office in a couple years. Electron has an amazing cross platform appeal for developers and MS has taken advantage of that. Not to mention managing to write applications under Electron that don't suck (though…

I’m 90% teams doesn’t work on Linux and have been using the web app for a long time now. I sorely miss the slack desktop app and would to be corrected if this is possible now.

Yeah, teams was pretty badly broken even a few months ago... There's an "unofficial" client in Flathub, that's what I've been using and it mostly works now... the only broken feature I'm aware of that I haven't re-tried is the desktop sharing... but the A/V chat and webcam now work.