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

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#61

Post by vrthrowaway » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

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 other and you probably agree, but his whole point again is that the "Love" is just public facing market strategy.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#62

Post by excursionist » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

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 business to Linux on the Desktop is NOT Microsoft Office

It may not be office specifically, but vendor lock-in with various MS products is definitely a huge factor.

Also, every single "quoted" piece of your comment is cheap strawman.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#63

Post by morpheuskafka » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:38 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…

Doesn't Apple Mail still use ActiveSync to connect to Office 365?

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#64

Post by fermuch » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:39 PM UTC

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?

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#65

Post by Foobar8568 » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

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…

Because Microsoft makes some of the best tools for developers.

Because sql server is a fantastic product that has basically no real equivalent on the market.

And funnily enough, I always feel that .Net core primary platform was Linux and not windows. Same for visual studio code, and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, new sql server features won't appear first on the Linux version. And actually it's somewhat the case with sql server big data cluster.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#66

Post by winkeltripel » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #14

"I think all of these would be strategic blunders from the point of view of Microsoft shareholders" It seems to be working well for MS thus far, so I'm curious why the author thinks this.

it's referring to the author's suggestions to show authentic love.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#67

Post by zymhan » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

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?

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#68

Post by darkcha0s » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #38

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…

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 kind of an assumption is this. Most people need an operating system they are comfortable doing their daily work, not just a browser and a notepad. Jesus christ, not all non-devs work only in office.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#69

Post by Quarrelsome » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

Was this article really written this decade?

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#70

Post by Quarrelsome » Thu, Nov 21, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

Foobar8568 wrote: post #65

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…

Because Microsoft makes some of the best tools for developers. Because sql server is a fantastic product that has basically no real equivalent on the market. And funnily enough, I always feel that .Net core primary platform was Linux and not windows. Same for visual studio code, and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, new sql server features won't appear first on the Linux version. And actually it's somewhat t…

isn't Postgres an equivalent?