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Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

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Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#101

Post by nonfamous »

baybal2 wrote: post #84
headmelted wrote: post #71

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 th…

Since when? That's nonsense. Browser and a whole operating system are two different things

Chromebooks would like to have a word with you.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#102

Post by pytester »

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. I'm not sure why anyone would expect differently.

I rather thought the point of the article was that Microsoft didn't actually love linux but pretended that it did to stave off irrelevance in markets where linux is kicking their ass (i.e. server).

As he said, if they really loved linux and this isn't just another "embrace, extend, extinguish" ploy sugarcoated in PR niceties they'd be porting office and directx and outlook to linux.

Which they're not.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#103

Post by garganzol »

lghh wrote: post #35
stevbov wrote: post #29

Why would any Linux shop use SQL Server anyways? Why would they use .NET Core? The only people I know pushing .NET Core are .NET people, not Linux people. My general rule is to never use a technology where your primary platform is a second class citizen. It just makes things a pain: not only could support be dropped in the future because there's no profit in it, its also harder to find answers to problems on the inte…

I'm a Linux person who likes .NET Core. I like C# quite a bit, and I don't think Linux is a 2nd class citizen for .NET Core.

Sometimes I think that Linux is the 1st class citizen for .NET Core when it comes to a server stack. .NET Core is seriously awesome since version 2.0 on all platforms.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#104

Post by devnonymous »

tw04 wrote: post #28

I'm not sure I follow what the author is getting at other than "We should hate MS and do our best to not work with them on anything!". First it was "MS breaks compatibility on purpose, screw those guys!". Now it's "sure, they're playing nice but they don't have a product in every market segment we want so they must have some nefarious master plan we haven't figure out yet!" Everytime I hear someone say "just look, th…

> Everytime I hear someone say "just look, they don't support office on Linux!" I ask: and what exactly do you think the market share is of guys who love Linux so much they use it on the desktop, but also would PAY Microsoft for Office vs. just using LibreOffice or Google's office suite? If you think MS hasn't done the math and figured out that solution would never break even much less turn a profit, I guess I'd ask anyone making that claim to show their work.

Microsoft crunched the numbers for the platform rather than the software and decided to steamroll over the ODF format[1]. The largest revenue for MS Office comes from enterprises who do care about paying less for the OS if all they are going to use is a wordprocessor or spreadsheet. Are you claiming that desktop linux would not have been adopted by enterprises if they could get the same document render and be editable exactly the same manner irrespective of the vendor software being used ?

MS has had a long dirty history. I am not opposed to giving them the benefit of doubt but it is way too little, and way too early to do this right now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open...

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#105

Post by CharlesColeman »

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. I'm not sure why anyone would expect differently.

Microsoft has a history that makes skepticism warranted. Look up "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish"

Off the top of my head:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#106

Post by tracker1 »

excursionist wrote: post #62
tw04 wrote: post #28

I'm not sure I follow what the author is getting at other than "We should hate MS and do our best to not work with them on anything!". First it was "MS breaks compatibility on purpose, screw those guys!". Now it's "sure, they're playing nice but they don't have a product in every market segment we want so they must have some nefarious master plan we haven't figure out yet!" Everytime I hear someone say "just look, th…

Microsoft has historically been the single greatest enemy of Linux and Open Source in general. The only reason they now changed face and hopped on the Linux train is that they realized they lost or cannot possibly win the battle when it comes to servers, embedded devices, a large section of developers, mobile, etc. > I can tell you unequivocally the thing holding back the average enterprise from moving their entire b…

MS has shown almost no effort to lock things into windows only for the better part of a decade at this point. I'm not saying they never did, just not seeing that recently.

I am only slightly disappointed it took so long to get MS Teams working properly in Linux. The changes in the past few months have the unofficial clients working much better... A/V calling/meetings actually works now (though I haven't tried sharing my desktop) and an official client, if not already out, should be eminent.

Office 365's online versions are definitely usable and leaps and bounds better than Google Docs. I have mixed feelings on Azure AD and a few other pieces.

Right now, Windows feels like the odd man out, it's what I'm using on my work Desktop, I've phased out my Mac usage, and mostly use Linux outside work and at work, my flows are mostly Docker. I use msys bash (via git) on windows and there are a couple gotchas.

I remember the crap they pulled in the late 90's very well... The MS I see today is not the same... the management, culture and interactions have dramatically changed... the people have changed. Companies aren't people, but made up of them.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#107

Post by vegarab »

baybal2 wrote: post #84
headmelted wrote: post #71

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 th…

Since when? That's nonsense. Browser and a whole operating system are two different things

Are they? cough ChromeOS cough

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#108

Post by DylanDmitri »

baybal2 wrote: post #84
headmelted wrote: post #71

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 th…

Since when? That's nonsense. Browser and a whole operating system are two different things

From user perspective, OS has become a commodity. https://xkcd.com/934/

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#109

Post by gowld »

excursionist wrote: post #62
tw04 wrote: post #28

I'm not sure I follow what the author is getting at other than "We should hate MS and do our best to not work with them on anything!". First it was "MS breaks compatibility on purpose, screw those guys!". Now it's "sure, they're playing nice but they don't have a product in every market segment we want so they must have some nefarious master plan we haven't figure out yet!" Everytime I hear someone say "just look, th…

Microsoft has historically been the single greatest enemy of Linux and Open Source in general. The only reason they now changed face and hopped on the Linux train is that they realized they lost or cannot possibly win the battle when it comes to servers, embedded devices, a large section of developers, mobile, etc. > I can tell you unequivocally the thing holding back the average enterprise from moving their entire b…

Whatever proprietary company is most sucessful will be the greatest enemy. If not MS, then Apple, or Google, or whoever.

If you believe in Open Source, you should focus on building and promoting (and fundraising for) open source. Until we get the same $5T-equivalent investment in Open Source that FAANGMwhatever have, Open Source will will trail the rest in many quality and network-effect dimensions that will hinder the virtuous sycle of growth.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#110

Post by petilon »

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…

> they won't move away from Windows-only APIs

Office already runs on MacOS and iOS

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