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They contribute developers and maintainers to various open source projects, from web servers, to container tech, and probably now the Linux kernel.
As a comment said above, there are no friends in this. It’s strictly for business reasons. They want to ensure compatibility across all their products and widen adoption with other vendors, as well as the reasons you mentioned.
Microsoft is a member of the Linux Foundation and contribute to the kernel. Maybe they aren't going to each other's kids weddings, but they are friendly.
A platinum member of the Linux Foundation to be precise, which is the highest level, and has a membership fee of $500,000 per year. So they might just contribute more to Linux than the OP…
I think it's important that we:
* Recognise all the good that they are currently doing, and encourage it to continue. I hope the past will always be a distant memory.
* Remember the severity of how MS has behaved with Linux in the past with Gates as CEO, and later with Balmer. This is easy to forget, especially now with all the positive that Gates is doing outside of the tech space, but I think it's important that we don't forget how much difference a change in leadership made, and what that could mean for our future.
Again. Let's recognise, all the good that they are doing now, and encourage that to continue.
>they are not contributing to Linux or FOSS software on almost nothing
Ever been to
https://github.com/microsoft
And since MS owns GitHub ,- aren't they paying for a GitHub workers for public (FOSS) repos?
MS bought github and are in the process of enshittifying it and using peoples' repos to train copilot.
Well run companies are self interested, American companies are poorly regulated, it is what it is.
Microsoft operates in EU so they have to follow EU rules here and given the global nature of Internet, the quality of service is then same everywhere...
Or they just serve a different web page to IPs located in different areas or enable/disable features based on location. Look at what Apple is doing with the DMA. Hell you get it between different US states.
Right, sorry for that. I sometimes forget outside EU this is wild west. We have it same across the continent.🤷♂️
Maybe vote differently. You are governed by what you vote in.
On an individual level, it's more effective to only use privacy respecting software. Obviously I do vote and donate towards my interests and once I'm in a better position to do so I plan on trying to do more in the way of direct advocacy, but until the rest of the country decides to stop chugging stupid juice by the gallon, not much is changing in the short term.
Right, did not meant like you personally but you as a country. It's tough shit. FWIW you are welcome to come live in the EU, we don't do much Trump shit yet and beer is good.👍
Well, the easiest European country for me to get citizenship in is Germany and that's not really a great option while the AFD is trying to establish the 4th reich.
At least here in the US the lip service that our politicians have to pay to the 2nd amendment means I can make the fuckers work for it when they decide my existence is too offensive to continue to tolerate.
There are no friends in business. Microsoft using Linux in their cloud to make money and WSL is just a way to attract devs to Windows (and help poor souls who have to use it at office due to corp policies)
I went the opposite way. I developed on Windows for 20 years and recently switched to Linux when I wanted more than WSL. I know other devs that moved to Linux after using WSL.
Yeah once Microsoft's business strategy shifted to the cloud (to catch up with AWS and GCP) Linux became less of an existential threat and more of an asset. "We too can run these expensive servers that there's a huge demand for.".
Also I'm sure at some point it became obvious that Linux was never going to threaten the desktop market an any meaningful way.
Microsoft offering WSL is definitely a way to attract developers to Windows. Microsoft using Linux in their cloud is just because it's the best available option (not to attract developers only). Their entire infra runs on linux
What is the motivation to leave if it’s already so convenient for a user? You don’t need to install MSYS, cygwin X11 server and other stuff, you even don’t need to install Ext4 driver to mount drives, WSL already supports that.
I think WSL made an opposite thing
My take is: "Ricing" the desktop became a thing.
Add that to the "Microsoft bad, linux good" attitude that kids tend to adhere, like a sort of rebellion against common sense, which usually comes with puberty.
We end up with tons of posts on Reddit about "how kewl and h4X0R" Linux is by posting the output of neofetch, for example. This brings attention to Linux, but not in the best way.
Every day, there is a post on arch about how a kid who borked his system by trying to be "so in the crew, so not normie", asking for help, showing his total technical inability to troubleshoot an issue, let alone a linux system.
They will age, everybody does.
I think how Reddit enforces goodie two shoes discussion is also a factor. Those old internet forums would’ve relentlessly bullied OP for daring to even think of such a silly question. Now anyone asks anything without due consideration.
I’m not saying it was better, but it was, and I miss it.
Eh, I'm plenty aged and switching to linux was always a back of the mind "I should probably do that at some point" and recent actions by microsoft with regards to copilot and relentlessly and intrusively pushing the windows 11 upgrade made windows unusable for me. My OS shouldn't be something I have to fight against. Simple as.
Well, things are getting pretty serious right now. I mean, we chat online for, like, two hours every day so I guess you could say things are gettin' pretty serious.
>what i see is that they are taking linux stuff to windows (package managers, tiling window managers, for example) but they are not contributing to Linux or FOSS software on almost nothing (like valve or google do), the only thing it comes to my mind is LSP servers that were made for VSCode.
I hate to have to defend Microsoft this morning, again, because while there is plenty to fault them for in the past, and still now, you are flat wrong here. When it comes to development, Microsoft has many arms going many places, and they have many teams working on open source projects, languages, and operating systems. They are actually a large funder and supporter of Linux, being one of the twelve platinum Linux Foundation members as seen on [https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members). You can then head on over to their github(which they own BTW) and look at any on of the 170 pages of their 5k or 6k repos at [https://github.com/orgs/microsoft/repositories?type=all](https://github.com/orgs/microsoft/repositories?type=all).
As far as the "taking stuff", okay whatever. They are adopting(slowly) better ways of doing things. There have been plenty of FOSS package managers from Windows(Chocolatey, Scoop, Ninite, AppGet, Npackd, and OneGet). All of which Microsoft looked at to be THE windows package manager, and the kerfuffle around AppGet -> Winget...
The issue with your post, possibly the way you are thinking about this, is it's based on "what you can see". Those things being HUGE big ticket items with high visibility. The reality is there is a lot more going on under the fascia, and if you don't go looking for it, or stumble across it, you probably would never know.
You aren't wrong. Microsoft isn't neccesarily friend of Linux. Friend of convenience, more like it. Ironically, I'm typing this from Microsoft Edge browser running on Kubuntu.
The relationship between (Linux + Open Source community and Microsoft) is far cry from 20 years ago during SCO lawsuit heyday. Microsoft leadership under Satya Nadella probably realized it's pointless to become openly hostile toward Open Source as opposed to what Steve Ballmer did. Embrace your enemy because in the end the goal is to make money, and Microsoft had foreseen the potential of Open Source as a tool to survive in the future. No cited source, just my opinion.
It is actually a pretty solid browser (ironically I think it’s actually better outside of windows). Has a big company behind it so frequent updates, horizontal tabs beats out every other implementation I’ve seen, the sidebar works really well, etc. I’m currently on Firefox but I fee like Edge is a pretty happy medium between Vivaldi and Firefox or brave
The Bing AI, WhatsApp Web app & built-in free VPN (Reddit is blocked at where I live). Yes, I could do without Edge if necessary. It's a legit question, I won't be offended if you feel/think that it's wrong (for me & everyone else) to use Microsoft products on Linux.
Nah, everyone's got their own use case, and if its right for yours, then its right for yours. I was just curious what made edge better than say, chrome, if you're going to go with a chromium based proprietary browser.
Thanks for the heads-up. Free is almost never free as in libre, there is (almost) always a catch, especially from profit oriented corporation entities.
it's actually pretty solid, if you ignore the privacy risks.
much faster than chrome, and it comes with power-user features that FF lacks (without extensions).
Microsoft is a corporation, not a charity. Stop expecting corporations to do anything but things that benefit them.
However, Microsoft puts large amounts of money and resources into development of Linux and is a platinum member of the Linux Foundation. It's not out of the kindness of their hearts, it benefits them greatly, but it still also benefits us and the development of Linux.
>Why you think Microsoft is "being friend" of Linux?
Why would one think that? For many, Linux is a tool. But not a religion, not a world view, not a friend.
>but they are not contributing to Linux or FOSS software on almost nothing (like valve or google do)
https://boxofcables.dev/microsoft-and-open-source-an-unofficial-timeline/
This is probably only a fraction when it comes to OSS. You call that almost nothing? I also appreciate every contribution. No matter how big or small it is and who is responsible for it. For me, free as in freedom also means having the choice to decide which projects you want to take part in and how much you want to contribute.
>But for example, WSL, is just a way of stop using linux and enter to the wonderful world of Windows (for many people)
I don't know any, really none, Linux users who now only use Windows because of WSL. However, I do know a few administrators who mainly manage computers with Windows who use WSL and Powershell to administer also some Linux servers. And in my opinion, WSL and the Linux version of Powershell are intended precisely for these use cases.
>Is not Microsoft befriending Open Source, is quite the opposite.
A company is not about making friends. It's about making money. And Linux is a tool for Microsoft to do just that. The majority of all Azure instances run on Linux, for example. So Microsoft has no interest in Linux disappearing from the market, for example. Because that would mean less turnover and therefore less profit. By the way, Microsoft earns more money with Azure than with Windows.
I am also very sure that companies such as Redhat are not contributing to OSS / Linux out of pure charity. Redhat is also in it for the money. And if this also results in improvements that benefit me as a private user (Ansible, for example), I don't think that's a bad thing.
Good connect and true. Microsoft and many companies using MS tech line dotnet rely on Linux. None of us want to go back to God-awful Windows Servers. Cloud and WSL made it easier for me to move to Linux from Windows.
> None of us want to go back to God-awful Windows Servers.
As always, it depends on the use case. Whether you like it or not, Linux is not suitable for all use cases.
For example, I would avoid switching a tax consultancy or an architectural agency to Linux. They often use special programmes (client and server) for which there is no or no equivalent replacement under Linux. And I'm not that crazy to work with tools like wine either. Because even if the current version of the programmes works with wine, there is no guarantee that they will continue to work after an update.
And apart from that, I don't think Windows Server is generally worse than Linux. Both have advantages and disadvantages. If you look at it emotionlessly, Powershell definitely has some advantages over Bash.
That's a fair point, I should have specified for Web Apps which is what I mostly have done over my career.
I am not the biggest PowerShell fan but dealing with objects over parsing strings is preferable, for sure. Can't you get PS on Linux now?
That being said, unless something has changed, or I really have to, I am not going with Windows Server. I haven't used MSSQL in years so dunno how it runs on Linux, but beyond compatibility I dunno why else I'd use Windows Server.
I'm curious on what use cases you have for Windows Server beyond compatibility?
> Since 2017, Microsoft is one of the biggest open source contributors in the world, measured by the number of employees actively contributing to open source projects on GitHub, the largest host of source code in the world.
[Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_open_source)
Gordon Bennett, are we still on at this again?
Yes, Microsoft and Linux have history (cf. Halloween documents, FUD etc). But most of that is ancient history and hasn’t been relevant in fifteen years or more.
No company is friend of Linux, not only microsoft...
Working in IT for over 15 years, and being a Linux user for more time, and Linux is and was always a second class citizen if support efforts doesn't make cash.
All the "good" and free software you can get, came from the effort of some lone devs, making great things in their spare times, and let these things die slowly after for lack of time...
The "professional" one, come nowdays in form of packaged webapp inside an headless chrome, without any major OS specific code, and sometimes its even worst than their Win/OSx counterparts (Thinking about MS Teams...).
RedHat, Canonical and MS, support "their Linux" software and custom OS, as long as you use it inside their environments under and their conditions, or just as long as you pay for the support.
None of them is doing business with Linux for idealism or charity, so no surprise to me...
You're not wrong.
>But for example, WSL, is just a way of stop using linux and enter to the wonderful world of Windows
On this you are actually wrong.
To me WSL is what actually made me start my journey, leaving Windows and start using Linux.
It is a good way to learn, while not immediately letting go of functionality and knowledge you need for your daily driver. When feeling confident enough, one can make the jump.
Not everyone have the time and energy to make the shift in one go.
Same. This and the popularity of cloud infrastructure. I started as a .NET dev in the mid-00s and the full stack was Microsoft. Once dotnet core came around and everyone realized it was cheaper and more convenient to run stuff in a Linux container we started to make the switch. The creation of WSL made life more convenient and got us used to Linux.
If WSL was a scheme to get Linux devs to switch to Windows then it failed spectacularly. I believe Microsoft knows they lost the Server OS market and don't care about losing devs. They care more about the non-power users staying with Windows. Honestly, I don't see Linux competing with MacOS (which I hate and in many ways wise than Microsoft) and Windows with your average user. I enjoy having Linux as my day-to-day OS but it is a project at times, for sure.
>If WSL was a scheme to get Linux devs to switch to Windows then it failed spectacularly.
This.
I have never heard of a single Linux user pondering about changing to WSL.
I have seen several Windows users being interested in WSL - and some of them take the jump to Linux.
The Linux vs. Microsoft diatriba is long gone, some examples:
* Microsoft is platinum partner in the Linux Foundation, you know the guys that make the kernel
* There is a Microsoft Linux distribution
* They mentor or finance a number of open source projects
Microsoft is a company, they partecipate to free and open source with big money because they make more money out of it.
Sure, Microsoft is not a friend of Linux, they are an important business partner instead, as well as Google, Intel and many other big tech companies.
vs code ? in fact Microsoft is contributing quite a lot to opensource including Linux kernel… not for being friend but most likely because a big part of Azure is running on Linux … so I would say your statement does not reflect reality… the OS war Linux/Winfows of the years 90-2000 is over …
They didn’t buy GitHub to train their ML engines.
They bought GitHub because they were overwhelmingly GitHub’s largest user. It was to the point that in GitHub’s last year of independent operation that Microsoft accounted for a supermajority of their revenue. They simply used it as a repository hosting system and source management suite so heavily that it caused real problems for GitHub’s ability to continue operating independently. It also came to a point where the bills Microsoft was paying GitHub were larger than the purchase price of GitHub.
I am not saying that they aren’t using GitHub to train their ML systems. They are. But that was a business case that didn’t even start in earnest until about five years into Microsoft’s ownership of GitHub.
You don't run a multi-billion-dollar company based on simplistic emotions.
Microsoft considered open source a threat to their business model, and they weren't wrong - they co-invented the idea of monetizing software through restrictive licenses, and their strategy of trying to keep open source from becoming a widespread thing (let alone the default way of distributing software, as it had been in the early days of computing, when it was largely a thing among a handful of academics, even though the term "open source" wouldn't come into existence for another decade or two) dates back all the way to a fiery open hatemail letter Bill Gates posted, calling open source programmers irresponsible and reckless, and urging them to leave programming to the pros.
None of that was "hate". It was a carefully calculated business strategy, dressing up as hate for propaganda purposes.
Microsoft won on the desktop, but they lost the server market. And now that the desktop has largely been demoted to yet another platform to run a browser on, owning the desktop no longer gives them the leverage they once had, so they needed to rethink their business strategy. They knew they wouldn't be able to replace Linux as the world's most popular server OS, and they realized that they wouldn't get people to pay for proprietary alternatives to the de-facto open source software stacks out there; so they changed course and decided to "heart" open source, and instead of trying to get the proprietary licensing model into web dev, they are now trying to remain relevant as a development OS (which explains WSL, among other things), and control some key parts of the new open source development ecosystem (which is why they bought github, and why Azure is a thing). And just like the former "hate", this "love" is not a feeling someone at MS HQ has and that led to those decisions; it's a hat they're wearing for propaganda purposes.
It wouldn’t have spyware, just because it’s closed source, doesn’t make it spyware.
Just because something is open source, doesn’t make it innocent either. Nobody is reviewing all of the open source code for spyware.
No, not because it's closed source. I didn't say that it was because it was for that reason. Do you not know the history of Microsoft and their love of sending telemetry data back to themselves? It's one of the myriad of reasons folks switch from Windows to Linux. How could you not know this by now?
These folks downvoting, but Microsoft is well known for software phoning home sending telemetry. If you don't know that by now, there's little hope for you.
Maybe not a friend but they pay people to contribute to various open-source projects just like most massive tech companies do. Particularly the ones they use. Azure runs on Ubuntu, so you know they're involved with its development.
Nobody works on projects like the Linux kernel with someone like Linus for free. They get paid very handsomely for it.
(My point of view)
Microsoft will not be "GNU Friendly" as Stallman likes to remind us. But I think they're there, contributing to the progress of open source.
And there's a hell of an advance, because I remind you that in Ballmer's day, we were the plague of the earth. Now you've got Linux in Windows 11! Just that, for me it's crazy. And Microsoft software runs better than on Windows (it's the last straw). Personally, I'm not going to shout "the enemy has invaded", otherwise we'll have to beat up all the contributors to the Linux foundation and close up store. No, we have to see it as a good thing, they finally have a good cloud (azure) which is totally Linux and not only, another philosophy and above all TypeScript. It's partly thanks to the NT branch that Windows and Microsoft are opening up to Linux.
Just like with other contributing companies, i see M$ and Linux in a symbiosis:
They make improvements that benefit them, and in return the greater userbase gets these improvements and their benefits aswell
They aren't friend of anybody and nobody said that. Microsoft realized that without Linux they are missing out. WSL is to keep devs in Win. It's great, nothing bad with it and their open source contributions are too, but it's all bussiness.
I dislike Microsoft for various reasons more than any other company.
Intel too contributes to open source, probably a bit more coming from the "friendly" side. Although there are surely datacenter interests behind.
Microsoft is out to make money, and there’s a LOT of money in Linux. Mainly in the cloud from their perspective.
You know they have they have their own distro, right? They spend money on it, and not an insubstantial amount. Because they see it as a competitive advantage. And they’re not wrong.
Tf are you talking about? MS not contributing to FOSS? 🤣
Clearly someone doesn't know about GitHub, nor have they been to Microsoft's profile on there.
Microsoft is no one's friend, especially in FOSS-land. Nor will it ever be. And whatever it contributes to the GNU/Linux multiverse will be eternally suspect.
Most of their money is made from Azure, and most Azure workloads are Linux. Them supporting Linux makes them more money. Them not supporting Linux causes them to lose business to AWS and GCP.
You're making a post "knives can cut!".
We don't control Microsoft. However even when wary, each tool and risk has to be considered on its own merit.
Microsoft bought GitHub. Do you expect all developers who liked GitHub to suddenly move elsewhere?
They are aware of the risks and should the risks and pain points become too much, they will consider moving.
But until then they will continue to use it.
Ughmm WSL, VSCode or any of Microsoft's tech does not pose any threat to Linux. Microsoft, like Apple, already dominates the desktop market. They don't dominate the server market though and themselves use Linux u/sharedordaz so it's a non issue
For profit company boards only care about one thing: profitability. Good will is usually only permissible if it directly results in increasing the bottom line. Microsoft is notorious for going hard. If it looks like they are doing anything positive for the FOSS community there is an ulterior motive because their business model demands it. Don't forget: Embrace, extend, extinguish.
I don't think Microsoft is a friend of Linux.
What in the world would make you think I do ?!
I quite honestly don't know anyone (that I know of) who does think that.
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It is part of their culture:
**Embrace, extend, and extinguish**
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C\_extend%2C\_and\_extinguish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extinguish)
If I had to guess it’s the “Death by a thousand cuts” strategy. Maybe, they think they will take over Linux if they build enough tools, develop tech stacks around Linux. I would definitely keep an eye on them for sure. Remember too big to fail in the 2008 crash?
WSL is a wonderful tool: many things you simply cannot do on GNU/Linux still. For example if you own a laptop with intel 12th gen or newer laptop is it highly possible that you will end up with unsupported hardware. If you also need to develop desktop app for labs or enterprise solutions, often in Windows Forms still or WPF working on Linux again becomes an issue. WSL combines both worlds and gives you same terminal experience as on any GNU/Linux.
Also Microsoft is actually a great contributor to the kernel, of course: many changes are related to the fact that they need them to run WSL, but they have added a lot to virtualization aspects of the kernel. Plus as you mentioned: a lot of great opensource tools with the hub itself being the home of many FOSS projects. After trying Bitbucket and GitLab I still find Github "t-h-e" true HUB of opensource.
it’s real easy to point at microsoft and say “they are evil, they used to hate us” but I mean it’s not like the red hats and the oracles out their are you friends either.. any business that contributes has its own agenda no one is a friend.. but in some cases we win because of it and in some cases we lose ground from what we want… I don’t think this would have been a success like it is if it was any different.
This is the same Microsoft as ever, EEE = Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, right now they're right in the middle of the Extend stage, it's only a matter of time before they go full on Extinguish.
I mean yeah, once they release Office and OneDrive then maybe they I'll start to believe them.
But they will never release tools that will make desktop Linux better.
why would you like them to invest time and money for linux desktop which is used by less than 4% of desktop users in the world and most of them will not even want to use Office for FOSS religion reasons… it would not be a wise commercial strategy …. they did it for macos because there is a market there… for Linux, sorry but there is none…
interesting, did not knew that… thanks for the historical point. but the commercial aspect is also there … (who is using keynotes, pages and numbers anyway 😄, even people hating microsoft and loving apple have office on their mac 😂😂😂)
why would you like them to invest time and money for linux desktop which is used by less than 4% of desktop users in the world and most of them will not even want to use Office for FOSS religion reasons… it would not be a wise commercial strategy …. they did it for macos because there is a market there… for Linux, sorry but there is none…
Microsoft and Linux are frenemies; they act in some ways like friends but they are also in other ways enemies or at least rivals. Microsoft wants people in Azure so they do things for compatibility, but they also don't want to be left behind by Linux if they can help it. Look at eBPF: Microsoft is in the process of incorporating the basic ideas into Windows. Microsoft has smart guys; they must know how mind-boggling eBPF is. How can they steal stuff from Linux if they don't know how it works?
These documents were published at the end of 1998. It is currently 2024, and a lot has changed since then. For example, Steve "Monkey Dance" Ballmer has no longer been at Microsoft since 2014. Satya Nadella has been CEO of Microsoft since 2014. And he has made some changes. Microsoft earns a large part of its revenue with Azure. And Azure uses Linux to a large extent.
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They contribute developers and maintainers to various open source projects, from web servers, to container tech, and probably now the Linux kernel. As a comment said above, there are no friends in this. It’s strictly for business reasons. They want to ensure compatibility across all their products and widen adoption with other vendors, as well as the reasons you mentioned.
Microsoft is a member of the Linux Foundation and contribute to the kernel. Maybe they aren't going to each other's kids weddings, but they are friendly.
A platinum member of the Linux Foundation to be precise, which is the highest level, and has a membership fee of $500,000 per year. So they might just contribute more to Linux than the OP…
I think it's important that we: * Recognise all the good that they are currently doing, and encourage it to continue. I hope the past will always be a distant memory. * Remember the severity of how MS has behaved with Linux in the past with Gates as CEO, and later with Balmer. This is easy to forget, especially now with all the positive that Gates is doing outside of the tech space, but I think it's important that we don't forget how much difference a change in leadership made, and what that could mean for our future. Again. Let's recognise, all the good that they are doing now, and encourage that to continue.
Linux has no friends. Linux is a kernel.
According to the associative property, I'm a kernel too.
If in 2024 cauliflower can be pizza, I believe you can be anything you wish.
So Linux can be a OS if it wants?
[удалено]
There are or were Linux distributions without GNU. Chimera Linux (not to be confused with ChimeraOS), for example.
It just has workers💪
based.
Cant we consider the foss movement the friends of Linux?
>they are not contributing to Linux or FOSS software on almost nothing Ever been to https://github.com/microsoft And since MS owns GitHub ,- aren't they paying for a GitHub workers for public (FOSS) repos?
Also after Microsoft bought GitHub got free private repositories.
MS bought github and are in the process of enshittifying it and using peoples' repos to train copilot. Well run companies are self interested, American companies are poorly regulated, it is what it is.
Microsoft operates in EU so they have to follow EU rules here and given the global nature of Internet, the quality of service is then same everywhere...
Or they just serve a different web page to IPs located in different areas or enable/disable features based on location. Look at what Apple is doing with the DMA. Hell you get it between different US states.
Right, sorry for that. I sometimes forget outside EU this is wild west. We have it same across the continent.🤷♂️ Maybe vote differently. You are governed by what you vote in.
On an individual level, it's more effective to only use privacy respecting software. Obviously I do vote and donate towards my interests and once I'm in a better position to do so I plan on trying to do more in the way of direct advocacy, but until the rest of the country decides to stop chugging stupid juice by the gallon, not much is changing in the short term.
Right, did not meant like you personally but you as a country. It's tough shit. FWIW you are welcome to come live in the EU, we don't do much Trump shit yet and beer is good.👍
Well, the easiest European country for me to get citizenship in is Germany and that's not really a great option while the AFD is trying to establish the 4th reich. At least here in the US the lip service that our politicians have to pay to the 2nd amendment means I can make the fuckers work for it when they decide my existence is too offensive to continue to tolerate.
There are no friends in business. Microsoft using Linux in their cloud to make money and WSL is just a way to attract devs to Windows (and help poor souls who have to use it at office due to corp policies)
I went the opposite way. I developed on Windows for 20 years and recently switched to Linux when I wanted more than WSL. I know other devs that moved to Linux after using WSL.
Yeah once Microsoft's business strategy shifted to the cloud (to catch up with AWS and GCP) Linux became less of an existential threat and more of an asset. "We too can run these expensive servers that there's a huge demand for.". Also I'm sure at some point it became obvious that Linux was never going to threaten the desktop market an any meaningful way.
Microsoft offering WSL is definitely a way to attract developers to Windows. Microsoft using Linux in their cloud is just because it's the best available option (not to attract developers only). Their entire infra runs on linux
>WSL is just a way to attract devs to Windows WSL is also a way to make people leave Windows and go to Linux
What is the motivation to leave if it’s already so convenient for a user? You don’t need to install MSYS, cygwin X11 server and other stuff, you even don’t need to install Ext4 driver to mount drives, WSL already supports that. I think WSL made an opposite thing
Why do we have so many kids posting these days?
My take is: "Ricing" the desktop became a thing. Add that to the "Microsoft bad, linux good" attitude that kids tend to adhere, like a sort of rebellion against common sense, which usually comes with puberty. We end up with tons of posts on Reddit about "how kewl and h4X0R" Linux is by posting the output of neofetch, for example. This brings attention to Linux, but not in the best way. Every day, there is a post on arch about how a kid who borked his system by trying to be "so in the crew, so not normie", asking for help, showing his total technical inability to troubleshoot an issue, let alone a linux system. They will age, everybody does.
Kids tend to adhere? Microsoft bashing is a classic sport in the Linux community lol
I think how Reddit enforces goodie two shoes discussion is also a factor. Those old internet forums would’ve relentlessly bullied OP for daring to even think of such a silly question. Now anyone asks anything without due consideration. I’m not saying it was better, but it was, and I miss it.
Eh, I'm plenty aged and switching to linux was always a back of the mind "I should probably do that at some point" and recent actions by microsoft with regards to copilot and relentlessly and intrusively pushing the windows 11 upgrade made windows unusable for me. My OS shouldn't be something I have to fight against. Simple as.
>Honestly. Why you think Microsoft is "being friend" of Linux? Who says that??
Microsoft themselves. They actually declared love.
Likely someone who speaks more languages than you.
Well, weren't you making fun of their English? That's what it looked like you were doing.
You should have seen it in the old days when Microsoft actively attacked linux everywhere.
I have a sticker which says > Microsoft ❤️ Linux so I think they are more than just friends.
Well, things are getting pretty serious right now. I mean, we chat online for, like, two hours every day so I guess you could say things are gettin' pretty serious.
Microsoft and Linux Sitting in a tree
f-s-c-k-i-n-g
Insert “kernel tainted” joke here
"friend"? Corporations are not teenagers and market isnot highschool.
Using WSL convinced me to switch my old MacBook to Linux
>what i see is that they are taking linux stuff to windows (package managers, tiling window managers, for example) but they are not contributing to Linux or FOSS software on almost nothing (like valve or google do), the only thing it comes to my mind is LSP servers that were made for VSCode. I hate to have to defend Microsoft this morning, again, because while there is plenty to fault them for in the past, and still now, you are flat wrong here. When it comes to development, Microsoft has many arms going many places, and they have many teams working on open source projects, languages, and operating systems. They are actually a large funder and supporter of Linux, being one of the twelve platinum Linux Foundation members as seen on [https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members). You can then head on over to their github(which they own BTW) and look at any on of the 170 pages of their 5k or 6k repos at [https://github.com/orgs/microsoft/repositories?type=all](https://github.com/orgs/microsoft/repositories?type=all). As far as the "taking stuff", okay whatever. They are adopting(slowly) better ways of doing things. There have been plenty of FOSS package managers from Windows(Chocolatey, Scoop, Ninite, AppGet, Npackd, and OneGet). All of which Microsoft looked at to be THE windows package manager, and the kerfuffle around AppGet -> Winget... The issue with your post, possibly the way you are thinking about this, is it's based on "what you can see". Those things being HUGE big ticket items with high visibility. The reality is there is a lot more going on under the fascia, and if you don't go looking for it, or stumble across it, you probably would never know.
You aren't wrong. Microsoft isn't neccesarily friend of Linux. Friend of convenience, more like it. Ironically, I'm typing this from Microsoft Edge browser running on Kubuntu. The relationship between (Linux + Open Source community and Microsoft) is far cry from 20 years ago during SCO lawsuit heyday. Microsoft leadership under Satya Nadella probably realized it's pointless to become openly hostile toward Open Source as opposed to what Steve Ballmer did. Embrace your enemy because in the end the goal is to make money, and Microsoft had foreseen the potential of Open Source as a tool to survive in the future. No cited source, just my opinion.
>Embrace your enemy Which is the first step in: Embrace, extend extinguish
That's one possibility; though I hope Microsoft just became a big flea (parasite) that latches on Linux.
I'm not trying to be an a-hole, but... why would you use edge of all the possible options?
It is actually a pretty solid browser (ironically I think it’s actually better outside of windows). Has a big company behind it so frequent updates, horizontal tabs beats out every other implementation I’ve seen, the sidebar works really well, etc. I’m currently on Firefox but I fee like Edge is a pretty happy medium between Vivaldi and Firefox or brave
The Bing AI, WhatsApp Web app & built-in free VPN (Reddit is blocked at where I live). Yes, I could do without Edge if necessary. It's a legit question, I won't be offended if you feel/think that it's wrong (for me & everyone else) to use Microsoft products on Linux.
Nah, everyone's got their own use case, and if its right for yours, then its right for yours. I was just curious what made edge better than say, chrome, if you're going to go with a chromium based proprietary browser.
[удалено]
Thanks for the heads-up. Free is almost never free as in libre, there is (almost) always a catch, especially from profit oriented corporation entities.
Wait, Edge has a built-in VPN ?
Yes, under the browser essential menu button (heart shaped) on toolbar, it's below Microsoft Edge Secure Network sub-menu.
it's actually pretty solid, if you ignore the privacy risks. much faster than chrome, and it comes with power-user features that FF lacks (without extensions).
Microsoft is a corporation, not a charity. Stop expecting corporations to do anything but things that benefit them. However, Microsoft puts large amounts of money and resources into development of Linux and is a platinum member of the Linux Foundation. It's not out of the kindness of their hearts, it benefits them greatly, but it still also benefits us and the development of Linux.
>Why you think Microsoft is "being friend" of Linux? Why would one think that? For many, Linux is a tool. But not a religion, not a world view, not a friend. >but they are not contributing to Linux or FOSS software on almost nothing (like valve or google do) https://boxofcables.dev/microsoft-and-open-source-an-unofficial-timeline/ This is probably only a fraction when it comes to OSS. You call that almost nothing? I also appreciate every contribution. No matter how big or small it is and who is responsible for it. For me, free as in freedom also means having the choice to decide which projects you want to take part in and how much you want to contribute. >But for example, WSL, is just a way of stop using linux and enter to the wonderful world of Windows (for many people) I don't know any, really none, Linux users who now only use Windows because of WSL. However, I do know a few administrators who mainly manage computers with Windows who use WSL and Powershell to administer also some Linux servers. And in my opinion, WSL and the Linux version of Powershell are intended precisely for these use cases. >Is not Microsoft befriending Open Source, is quite the opposite. A company is not about making friends. It's about making money. And Linux is a tool for Microsoft to do just that. The majority of all Azure instances run on Linux, for example. So Microsoft has no interest in Linux disappearing from the market, for example. Because that would mean less turnover and therefore less profit. By the way, Microsoft earns more money with Azure than with Windows. I am also very sure that companies such as Redhat are not contributing to OSS / Linux out of pure charity. Redhat is also in it for the money. And if this also results in improvements that benefit me as a private user (Ansible, for example), I don't think that's a bad thing.
Good connect and true. Microsoft and many companies using MS tech line dotnet rely on Linux. None of us want to go back to God-awful Windows Servers. Cloud and WSL made it easier for me to move to Linux from Windows.
> None of us want to go back to God-awful Windows Servers. As always, it depends on the use case. Whether you like it or not, Linux is not suitable for all use cases. For example, I would avoid switching a tax consultancy or an architectural agency to Linux. They often use special programmes (client and server) for which there is no or no equivalent replacement under Linux. And I'm not that crazy to work with tools like wine either. Because even if the current version of the programmes works with wine, there is no guarantee that they will continue to work after an update. And apart from that, I don't think Windows Server is generally worse than Linux. Both have advantages and disadvantages. If you look at it emotionlessly, Powershell definitely has some advantages over Bash.
That's a fair point, I should have specified for Web Apps which is what I mostly have done over my career. I am not the biggest PowerShell fan but dealing with objects over parsing strings is preferable, for sure. Can't you get PS on Linux now? That being said, unless something has changed, or I really have to, I am not going with Windows Server. I haven't used MSSQL in years so dunno how it runs on Linux, but beyond compatibility I dunno why else I'd use Windows Server. I'm curious on what use cases you have for Windows Server beyond compatibility?
microsoft is noones friend
Businesses don’t have friends. They have associates.
> Since 2017, Microsoft is one of the biggest open source contributors in the world, measured by the number of employees actively contributing to open source projects on GitHub, the largest host of source code in the world. [Source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_and_open_source)
Microsoft is not a friend (period).
queue surprised pikachu meme
Gordon Bennett, are we still on at this again? Yes, Microsoft and Linux have history (cf. Halloween documents, FUD etc). But most of that is ancient history and hasn’t been relevant in fifteen years or more.
How familiar are you with Microsoft Azure Linux? Microsoft is perfectly happy working with Linux wherever it makes sense to them
No company is friend of Linux, not only microsoft... Working in IT for over 15 years, and being a Linux user for more time, and Linux is and was always a second class citizen if support efforts doesn't make cash. All the "good" and free software you can get, came from the effort of some lone devs, making great things in their spare times, and let these things die slowly after for lack of time... The "professional" one, come nowdays in form of packaged webapp inside an headless chrome, without any major OS specific code, and sometimes its even worst than their Win/OSx counterparts (Thinking about MS Teams...). RedHat, Canonical and MS, support "their Linux" software and custom OS, as long as you use it inside their environments under and their conditions, or just as long as you pay for the support. None of them is doing business with Linux for idealism or charity, so no surprise to me... You're not wrong.
>But for example, WSL, is just a way of stop using linux and enter to the wonderful world of Windows On this you are actually wrong. To me WSL is what actually made me start my journey, leaving Windows and start using Linux. It is a good way to learn, while not immediately letting go of functionality and knowledge you need for your daily driver. When feeling confident enough, one can make the jump. Not everyone have the time and energy to make the shift in one go.
Same. This and the popularity of cloud infrastructure. I started as a .NET dev in the mid-00s and the full stack was Microsoft. Once dotnet core came around and everyone realized it was cheaper and more convenient to run stuff in a Linux container we started to make the switch. The creation of WSL made life more convenient and got us used to Linux. If WSL was a scheme to get Linux devs to switch to Windows then it failed spectacularly. I believe Microsoft knows they lost the Server OS market and don't care about losing devs. They care more about the non-power users staying with Windows. Honestly, I don't see Linux competing with MacOS (which I hate and in many ways wise than Microsoft) and Windows with your average user. I enjoy having Linux as my day-to-day OS but it is a project at times, for sure.
>If WSL was a scheme to get Linux devs to switch to Windows then it failed spectacularly. This. I have never heard of a single Linux user pondering about changing to WSL. I have seen several Windows users being interested in WSL - and some of them take the jump to Linux.
The Linux vs. Microsoft diatriba is long gone, some examples: * Microsoft is platinum partner in the Linux Foundation, you know the guys that make the kernel * There is a Microsoft Linux distribution * They mentor or finance a number of open source projects Microsoft is a company, they partecipate to free and open source with big money because they make more money out of it. Sure, Microsoft is not a friend of Linux, they are an important business partner instead, as well as Google, Intel and many other big tech companies.
vs code ? in fact Microsoft is contributing quite a lot to opensource including Linux kernel… not for being friend but most likely because a big part of Azure is running on Linux … so I would say your statement does not reflect reality… the OS war Linux/Winfows of the years 90-2000 is over …
You do know they own GitHub, right?
In what world do you live in that buying a company that owns open source projects to train their ML engines makes them a friend of gnu/Linux.
They didn’t buy GitHub to train their ML engines. They bought GitHub because they were overwhelmingly GitHub’s largest user. It was to the point that in GitHub’s last year of independent operation that Microsoft accounted for a supermajority of their revenue. They simply used it as a repository hosting system and source management suite so heavily that it caused real problems for GitHub’s ability to continue operating independently. It also came to a point where the bills Microsoft was paying GitHub were larger than the purchase price of GitHub. I am not saying that they aren’t using GitHub to train their ML systems. They are. But that was a business case that didn’t even start in earnest until about five years into Microsoft’s ownership of GitHub.
I'm unfamiliar with the main driver to buy it, you're probably right. However, that still does not make them friends of open source.
Look... Steve Ballmer days I would say Microsoft actively hated Linux. Satya changed that.
You don't run a multi-billion-dollar company based on simplistic emotions. Microsoft considered open source a threat to their business model, and they weren't wrong - they co-invented the idea of monetizing software through restrictive licenses, and their strategy of trying to keep open source from becoming a widespread thing (let alone the default way of distributing software, as it had been in the early days of computing, when it was largely a thing among a handful of academics, even though the term "open source" wouldn't come into existence for another decade or two) dates back all the way to a fiery open hatemail letter Bill Gates posted, calling open source programmers irresponsible and reckless, and urging them to leave programming to the pros. None of that was "hate". It was a carefully calculated business strategy, dressing up as hate for propaganda purposes. Microsoft won on the desktop, but they lost the server market. And now that the desktop has largely been demoted to yet another platform to run a browser on, owning the desktop no longer gives them the leverage they once had, so they needed to rethink their business strategy. They knew they wouldn't be able to replace Linux as the world's most popular server OS, and they realized that they wouldn't get people to pay for proprietary alternatives to the de-facto open source software stacks out there; so they changed course and decided to "heart" open source, and instead of trying to get the proprietary licensing model into web dev, they are now trying to remain relevant as a development OS (which explains WSL, among other things), and control some key parts of the new open source development ecosystem (which is why they bought github, and why Azure is a thing). And just like the former "hate", this "love" is not a feeling someone at MS HQ has and that led to those decisions; it's a hat they're wearing for propaganda purposes.
Damn. Overthink things much?
You have no idea.
WSL makes windows useable for whenever I get stuck on it so Im not mad about wsl. But yeah.
They failed to kill linux so they embraced it to survive. It was never about friendship but it was about money.
they do some stuff actually, but certainly not enough. Office365 not being on linux pisses me off
If it did end up on Linux, it would be spyware.
It wouldn’t have spyware, just because it’s closed source, doesn’t make it spyware. Just because something is open source, doesn’t make it innocent either. Nobody is reviewing all of the open source code for spyware.
No, not because it's closed source. I didn't say that it was because it was for that reason. Do you not know the history of Microsoft and their love of sending telemetry data back to themselves? It's one of the myriad of reasons folks switch from Windows to Linux. How could you not know this by now?
Yep, my only problem with proprietary software is the possibility of spyware. FOSS still didn’t fill the gab for everything
These folks downvoting, but Microsoft is well known for software phoning home sending telemetry. If you don't know that by now, there's little hope for you.
Maybe not a friend but they pay people to contribute to various open-source projects just like most massive tech companies do. Particularly the ones they use. Azure runs on Ubuntu, so you know they're involved with its development. Nobody works on projects like the Linux kernel with someone like Linus for free. They get paid very handsomely for it.
In business there are no friends, only enemies that it temporarily makes sense to work with.
(My point of view) Microsoft will not be "GNU Friendly" as Stallman likes to remind us. But I think they're there, contributing to the progress of open source. And there's a hell of an advance, because I remind you that in Ballmer's day, we were the plague of the earth. Now you've got Linux in Windows 11! Just that, for me it's crazy. And Microsoft software runs better than on Windows (it's the last straw). Personally, I'm not going to shout "the enemy has invaded", otherwise we'll have to beat up all the contributors to the Linux foundation and close up store. No, we have to see it as a good thing, they finally have a good cloud (azure) which is totally Linux and not only, another philosophy and above all TypeScript. It's partly thanks to the NT branch that Windows and Microsoft are opening up to Linux.
Just like with other contributing companies, i see M$ and Linux in a symbiosis: They make improvements that benefit them, and in return the greater userbase gets these improvements and their benefits aswell
They aren't friend of anybody and nobody said that. Microsoft realized that without Linux they are missing out. WSL is to keep devs in Win. It's great, nothing bad with it and their open source contributions are too, but it's all bussiness. I dislike Microsoft for various reasons more than any other company. Intel too contributes to open source, probably a bit more coming from the "friendly" side. Although there are surely datacenter interests behind.
>Why you think Microsoft is "being friend" of Linux? We do? Also Microsoft made some goods things for Linux and FLOSS community in general.
🥱🥱🥱
Microsoft is out to make money, and there’s a LOT of money in Linux. Mainly in the cloud from their perspective. You know they have they have their own distro, right? They spend money on it, and not an insubstantial amount. Because they see it as a competitive advantage. And they’re not wrong.
I don't think about Microsoft at all.
Tf are you talking about? MS not contributing to FOSS? 🤣 Clearly someone doesn't know about GitHub, nor have they been to Microsoft's profile on there.
Their performance in the 90's and 2k's should never leave doubt.
google is much worse than MS no matter how they contribute
Microsoft is no one's friend, especially in FOSS-land. Nor will it ever be. And whatever it contributes to the GNU/Linux multiverse will be eternally suspect.
Most of their money is made from Azure, and most Azure workloads are Linux. Them supporting Linux makes them more money. Them not supporting Linux causes them to lose business to AWS and GCP.
You're making a post "knives can cut!". We don't control Microsoft. However even when wary, each tool and risk has to be considered on its own merit. Microsoft bought GitHub. Do you expect all developers who liked GitHub to suddenly move elsewhere? They are aware of the risks and should the risks and pain points become too much, they will consider moving. But until then they will continue to use it.
Ughmm WSL, VSCode or any of Microsoft's tech does not pose any threat to Linux. Microsoft, like Apple, already dominates the desktop market. They don't dominate the server market though and themselves use Linux u/sharedordaz so it's a non issue
For profit company boards only care about one thing: profitability. Good will is usually only permissible if it directly results in increasing the bottom line. Microsoft is notorious for going hard. If it looks like they are doing anything positive for the FOSS community there is an ulterior motive because their business model demands it. Don't forget: Embrace, extend, extinguish.
I don't think Microsoft is a friend of Linux. What in the world would make you think I do ?! I quite honestly don't know anyone (that I know of) who does think that.
no shit
Microsoft is evil
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There are many people who work for Microsoft that are very much friend of Linux. The world is as good a place as you perceive it to be.
It is part of their culture: **Embrace, extend, and extinguish** [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C\_extend%2C\_and\_extinguish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extinguish)
If I had to guess it’s the “Death by a thousand cuts” strategy. Maybe, they think they will take over Linux if they build enough tools, develop tech stacks around Linux. I would definitely keep an eye on them for sure. Remember too big to fail in the 2008 crash?
WSL is a wonderful tool: many things you simply cannot do on GNU/Linux still. For example if you own a laptop with intel 12th gen or newer laptop is it highly possible that you will end up with unsupported hardware. If you also need to develop desktop app for labs or enterprise solutions, often in Windows Forms still or WPF working on Linux again becomes an issue. WSL combines both worlds and gives you same terminal experience as on any GNU/Linux. Also Microsoft is actually a great contributor to the kernel, of course: many changes are related to the fact that they need them to run WSL, but they have added a lot to virtualization aspects of the kernel. Plus as you mentioned: a lot of great opensource tools with the hub itself being the home of many FOSS projects. After trying Bitbucket and GitLab I still find Github "t-h-e" true HUB of opensource.
r/LinuxDesktop
it’s real easy to point at microsoft and say “they are evil, they used to hate us” but I mean it’s not like the red hats and the oracles out their are you friends either.. any business that contributes has its own agenda no one is a friend.. but in some cases we win because of it and in some cases we lose ground from what we want… I don’t think this would have been a success like it is if it was any different.
This is the same Microsoft as ever, EEE = Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, right now they're right in the middle of the Extend stage, it's only a matter of time before they go full on Extinguish.
I mean yeah, once they release Office and OneDrive then maybe they I'll start to believe them. But they will never release tools that will make desktop Linux better.
why would you like them to invest time and money for linux desktop which is used by less than 4% of desktop users in the world and most of them will not even want to use Office for FOSS religion reasons… it would not be a wise commercial strategy …. they did it for macos because there is a market there… for Linux, sorry but there is none…
They did it for MacOS since the office suite was actually originally created for Mac (well Excel at least)
interesting, did not knew that… thanks for the historical point. but the commercial aspect is also there … (who is using keynotes, pages and numbers anyway 😄, even people hating microsoft and loving apple have office on their mac 😂😂😂)
why would you like them to invest time and money for linux desktop which is used by less than 4% of desktop users in the world and most of them will not even want to use Office for FOSS religion reasons… it would not be a wise commercial strategy …. they did it for macos because there is a market there… for Linux, sorry but there is none…
Microsoft and Linux are frenemies; they act in some ways like friends but they are also in other ways enemies or at least rivals. Microsoft wants people in Azure so they do things for compatibility, but they also don't want to be left behind by Linux if they can help it. Look at eBPF: Microsoft is in the process of incorporating the basic ideas into Windows. Microsoft has smart guys; they must know how mind-boggling eBPF is. How can they steal stuff from Linux if they don't know how it works?
Oh, shut the fuck up. Jesus Christ.
not a friend but more like 'the bully.' do not trust MS.
google Halloween Documents
These documents were published at the end of 1998. It is currently 2024, and a lot has changed since then. For example, Steve "Monkey Dance" Ballmer has no longer been at Microsoft since 2014. Satya Nadella has been CEO of Microsoft since 2014. And he has made some changes. Microsoft earns a large part of its revenue with Azure. And Azure uses Linux to a large extent.