why not? it's not like there is any competition.
Microsoft is making more money off Linux with Azure than several red hats combined.
Yes, but people find this interesting because historically, Microsoft was actively trying to destroy Linux (look up Halloween documents) and even said that Linux is cancer.
A lot changed after Satya Nadella took the helm. The modern .NET platform is really quite nice, and MS does a lot of ~~FOSS~~ open source work.
Obviously it’s good to be sceptical, they’re a large corporation and all they want is money, they’re not our friends. They’re just not as draconian as they were in the 90s and the 00s.
Usually FOSS is specifically copyleft licences like the GPL, which Microsoft don't use. Their open-source stuff tends to be MIT.
While you're correct, that's funny because as a developer using a framework like dotNET, MIT gives YOU more freedom. At least for anything statically linked where the GPL code would end up as part of your binary and force you to GPL your own code I believe.
MIT gives YOU more freedom
After years of debate about licenses for my own software (that only I use...), my philosophy has been boiled down to this: MIT for libraries. GPL for programs.
This way, other developers can freely use your library, and your program remains free.
Huh? FSF counts the MIT license as free, though they call it the Expat license they list it as both Free and GPL compatible: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#Expat It is also listed as an opensource licence by the OSI.
Thus by definition MIT is a FOSS licence.
I was skeptical when Microsoft bought GitHub but since then, they have fully reversed course and even made a formal apology on their historical stance on Linux.
They've even made several additions to the kernel, mostly to support WSL but still.
The rumor is that Microsoft is working on their own distribution.
Windows: What is my purpose?
User: You are a bootloader to install Linux.
Oh my god
While I see an extensive amount of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" and do agree that this is the typical logic of Microsoft.
It's obvious this is to try and avoid getting hit with similar monopoly accusations that their competitors are receiving.
"Look, Look!! We support other Operating Systems! We have a guide! We're not a monopoly! See, See!!"
This has way more to do with Azure is their main product and they know what people want to run on the cloud runs on Linux workloads. They've seen their Kuberbetes numbers, they know where the money is
and their OS is becoming an AD + 365 sub selling machine
There's definitely an element of that, but imo their recent embrace of WSL and linux tooling for development is just to try and expand their market share in the software development space. Very few devs develop on windows unless they're game devs, C# devs or working on something else that requires windows/Microsoft tooling, everyone else is on Linux and macOS because windows is bad for developing software.
It's basically an admission that their tooling is bad, but it's fine because you can just run linux development tools on windows now, so please don't switch to Linux fully
I love when people on the Internet say "X did Y quietly" to make it more suspenseful. This doesn't look quiet to me...
Microsoft must make 40% of their revenue off of Azure at this point. I would not be surprised if more than 50% of that is on Linux. Windows is probably down to 10% ( around the same as gaming ).
https://www.kamilfranek.com/microsoft-revenue-breakdown/
Sure there are people in the Windows division who want to kill Linux and some dev dev folks will still prefer Windows. At this point though, a huge chunk of Microsoft could not care less about Windows and may actually prefer Linux. Linux is certainly a better place for K8S and OCI stuff. All the GPT and Cognitive Services stuff is likely more Linux than not.
Do people not know that Microsoft has their own Linux distro? I mean an installation guide is not exactly their biggest move in Linux?
Do people not know that Microsoft has their own Linux distro?
MS has been at Linux expos since 2004! They started working on SUSE in friggin 2006! I truly don't get the amount of bile and ignorance the Lemmy community has towards them, it's like half these folks are still on 2001-era slashdot, talking about FUD and Micro$oft.
Yeah, Microsoft has been a shit company making mediocre products its whole lifetime, but the amount of unhinged hatred here does not in any way match the present-day company's actions.
So the Embrace-Extend-Extinguish continues....
They're having issues with step 3 on Linux
My perspective is that it's there so it shows up on search results for "installing Linux" and recommends WSL over bare metal. At least that's how I understand the wording.
But who knows.
This is a thing about huge companies. They can only ignore alternatives at their own peril.
The Windows team probably prefers you don't ever install Linux even though they wised up and created WSL (so they don't lose developers to Linux desktop the way they lost creative designers to Mac).
The other teams? VSCode, Office 365, Azure, GitHub, Bing, Skype, etc wisely DGAF what your OS is - just that it's supported so you can use it.
But depending on the software (looking at you Teams) they GAF which browser you use.
Thank you.
Ways Lemmy is already feeling like modern reddit: Instead of link to an article, we get screenshot of a post with a screenshot of the article.
Great! Then now you're ready to install Microsoft Edge on your fresh new linux installation: https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/edge/pool/main/m/microsoft-edge-stable/ 🤡
It comes with bing search pre configured for you so you don't have to look for the settings, we also hid them so you don't accidentally switch to duckduckgo because we believe Linux users shall experience the full potential of our services even out abroad on another OS
Embrace, extend, and extinguish
It makes sense for Microsoft to support Linux though...
They tried their hardest to kill Linux under Steve Ballmer but now they're moving (or in reality have moved) to a model where Xbox and cloud are their main income-generating industries. The former is unrelated to Windows/Linux and the latter is frankly more dependant on Linux than it is on Windows - Microsoft have been supportive of Linux through Azure for years now and it doesn't exactly make sense for them to be developing two different operating systems, so it's not far fetched to imagine they'll drop ~~DOS~~ NT as a backend for windows entirely in the future and move to a Linux backend, with Windows just being a closed source DM with tracking etc added on.
This covers embrace & extend, but I don't think the extinguish part makes sense - sure they may add features the FOSS community disagree with, but at worst we're in a similar position to where we are now with things being released separately for Linux and Windows
Why wouldn't they? Windows 10+ is a great development machine and Microsoft knows that a lot of developers develop with Linux. WSL is great for all parties - including Linux
I, too, have had the audacity to say WSL is useful on this community and it was also met with down votes. Purists hating and gate keeping, and then they wonder why Linux isn't more popular.
The thing is, I don't think a guide is really needed to install Linux. Most of it is pretty straight-forward. (The only tricky bit that comes to mind is making the USB that you've put your distro on bootable. That probably isn't obvious; and it might not be obvious how to get your computer to boot from a USB anyway if you've never done it before.)
Anyway, the way I see it, Microsoft's guide is more about how you can use Linux while still having Windows. If someone is searching for "how do I install Linux?" Microsoft would obviously prefer the answer to involve something that preserves Windows. First preference: WSL, second preference: Virtual Machine, third preference: dual-boot. And after that, you're on your own.
To be fair, WSL2 is actually a pretty decent system if you still need to have Windows installed for one reason or another.
Link to post: https://mastodon.social/@Linux_Is_Best/111202901396633888 Link to Microsoft guide : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/linux/install
Another thing they have "slipped" in recently is Linux (only Ubuntu for now) support in Microsoft Intune.
This change will make it possible to run Linux in a Microsoft cloud/azure workplace.
I mean, why not do that, from their perspective. Linux has been around for a long time and Windows still maintains market share. They don't feel threatened at this point, so might as well have the explanation of how to install Linux be a subtle ad for Windows.
Can't wait for this page to become a Rickroll for Linux community giving technical advice.
Let me just check out the window real quick. There may be flying pigs.
Even 10 years ago, this would've been unthinkable. Never would I have ever thought Microsoft would oublish a guide on instanjing Linux.
It makes sense. Over half of the Azure VMs are running Linux so there clearly is a demand for it despite the last 30 years of MS actions.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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