
Microsoft's “Love” of Linux - pedrocr
http://pedrocr.pt/text/microsofts-love-of-linux/
======
juliangoldsmith
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 integrated into the Windows stack that it will
never come out. You can authenticate Linux clients against AD, but I doubt
they'll be writing a Linux AD server any time soon. I'd imagine most corporate
mail servers also support SMTP/IMAP, and Office365 has a web client. As far as
ActiveSync goes, that hasn't been a thing since 2007.

~~~
smacktoward
_> They won't release products like Office for Linux_

Because the market for desktop Linux applications is too small to be worth
considering.

The whole reason they "love Linux" now is because Linux on the server gained
too much market share for them to realistically oppose. They had to find a way
to make money in that market that didn't involve somehow boiling an ocean of
Linux machines. So they did.

Windows is still overwhelmingly strong in the desktop market, though, so they
have no such incentive to accommodate it there. Nobody retreats from a
battlefield they've already won.

~~~
dredmorbius
Microsoft have an established track record of offering, then withdrawing, MS
Office for alternate platforms (or refusing to offer it at all).

I seem to recall that there was an Office version for Sun Microsystem's
Solaris, which is 99.99...% of the way to a Linux variant. That was killed.

(This may have been MSIE or an Exchange-compatible email client, I'm
researching this still.)

OSX is better supported, though for a long time Microsoft's email client was
not Outlook but Entourage, a now-discontinued project. It had a typical-for-
Microsoft opaque binary data storage format, though it's proved possible to
extract useful information from this using Linux utilities.

Microsoft discontinued MSIE support on Mac in 2005, an issue given that many
enterprise Web / intranet tools relied exclusively on nonstandard MSIE web
extensions.

Office was never offered for BeOS, which I believe was a deliberate strategy
decision, though I'm not finding evidence of this (JLG should be able to
comment, if anyone has current contact). The lack _was_ seen as a kiss-of-
death for the OS and hardware.

Alternatively, what made RIM's Blackberry as popular among business executives
as it was was its integration with MS Exchange email servers.

Strategic control over what ports were and were not supported by Microsoft,
regardless of technical difficulty or merits, was a major element of that
company's monopoly abuses.

~~~
philwelch
You’re citing things that happened almost 20 years ago if you’re talking about
Solaris and BeOS.

~~~
dredmorbius
Precisely my point. The tiger rarely changes its stripes.

~~~
cwyers
Microsoft isn't a tiger, it's a group of people. There is some continuity, but
the people making those decisions are not the same people making those
decisions now.

~~~
dredmorbius
[https://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_meaning_of_the_phrase_...](https://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_meaning_of_the_phrase_%27miss_the_boat%27)

------
tw04
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, 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.

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, if it were they'd just tell everyone to use Office Online and move on
with life.

PS: I assume all these Linux on the Desktop guys complaining about not having
Office on Linux already are subscribed to o365 and use Office Online
exclusively, proving to MS there's demand. Right?

~~~
KingMachiavelli
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.

~~~
darkcha0s
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.

~~~
KingMachiavelli
> Most people need an operating system they are comfortable doing their daily
> work.

True, and Windows is very entrenched partly due to Office and legacy software
depending on it. Chromebooks and Mac OS seem to be adopted without to much
hindrance from a UI perspective. i.e How much more populate would Chromebooks
be if they ran the full desktop Office suite?

> not all non-devs work only in office.

Certainly not all but a lot of jobs, particularly in management consist mostly
of emails, meetings, spreadsheets, word documents + a few web apps.

Also, lets not forget about all the jobs where the computer isn't really part
of the job at all; it's just a tool to communicate (email) and for document
production/consumption. These machines are basically kiosks that Microsoft has
milking licenses out of for Windows + Office + 365 Storage.

Some businesses can switch to Google but many rely on existing Excel
spreadsheets elsewhere in their organization so there is a lot of momentum to
switch away from non-desktop spreadsheet and document applications.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
I disagree with this 'legacy software's moniker, all the most productive
software falls into this category.

Look at the Autodesk Suite, Adobe Suite, Enterprise Architect, blender3D,
Unity game engine, a traditional IDE like Jetbrains or VisualStudio.

They have waay more power than the their web-based or, worse yet, electron
competitors.

~~~
KingMachiavelli
I was only referring to software that's still tied to Windows out of
legacy/inertia. I'm not saying all desktop applications are legacy. But It's
appropriate because if those application were going to be rewritten today,
there is no way they would tie them exclusively to the Win32 API.

Blender, Jetbrains IDE's, and even VSCode (pretty sure Unity is multiplatform
too) are all working just fine with multiplatform and aren't dependent on any
particular OS. If you've ever had to deal with Autodesk like software, it's a
mess of old code and poor practices. It's a nightmare getting that kind of
software working for Enterprise/Educational environments. Just looking at the
Enterprise Architect site brings me back to the days when software used to
come on actual disks in large, book-like boxes.

Yes, the software is useful and has yet to be replaced by something more
modern, whether web based or at least multi-platform. But that's why it's
entrenched in many businesses and Microsoft is riding on the back of that by
making sure it's tied to their platform.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
I agree in principle, i really want most software to be multi-platform.

However I cannot ignore the reality that multi-platform software is fraught
with peril, either for the developer (QT and the like) or for the user
(electron).

Each platform moves, introduces updates, removes support and features (looking
at you, OsX!).

For some people the choice is: single platform, or no software at all.

------
derefr
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 components
bodged together over decades, about the place where sysvinit was before
systemd came along. I could totally see Microsoft releasing some FOSS Linux
über-network-client-daemon that combines DNS, NMBD, and Bonjour resolution
together (sort of like Apple’s mDNSResolver) in an attempt to “clean up” that
mess—where, just by coincidence, parts of the SMB stack begin to seep directly
into the operation of the system. Then a subsumption for
Kerberos+libpam+GSSAPI that also supports NTLM; etc. until eventually Linux
ends up needing to talk to a real Active Directory Domain Controller to boot.
Might be Microsoft’s one, might be a Linux FOSS one—either way, it gives
Microsoft an advantage.

...but, so far as I can tell, they’re _not_ doing this. I wonder why not?

~~~
zymhan
> ...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?

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

~~~
delusional
The people who make up the corporation are people. They need to be motivated,
and they no not mobilize immediately.

~~~
oneplane
Depends on shareholders, doesn't it? Those are the people that 'make up' the
corp. The rest are pawns that either fall in line or end up recognizing that
the only way to win the game is to not play (and thus quit).

~~~
skissane
If employees think their employer is doing something unethical, that harms
morale.

If morale is harmed, good people are more likely to leave. If an employer has
a poor reputation, it becomes harder to hire employees with in-demand skills.

Poor retention and difficulty in recruiting employees can end up harming the
business.

~~~
oneplane
Sadly there are far more workers with a broken moral compass than you'd think.
Luckily, there are also enough with ethics and key positions to somewhat
cancel that out, but I wouldn't say that unethical employers have a much
harder time than ethical ones. It's probably simply a different spread on
money/package/freedom within one such company. Plenty of people will believe
what they are doing is justified and ignore any signs of cognitive dissonance
if the pay check is right and internal communication is 'managed' enough by
HR.

------
raesene9
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 al.

With that said, I think there are some groups inside MS who would like to see
more desktop Linux support, thus announcements like the Linux Teams client.
It's probably a mistake to view MS (or any other v.large corp) as a unified
entity. There will be groups inside that corp. with differing goals.

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.

~~~
vrthrowaway
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.

~~~
darkcha0s
Just a question-- what would be a path you deem the best? Should Microsoft
just work in its silo, while Linux develops in its silo? Should Microsoft not
embrace linux? I feel like the 2 strategies mentioned by the author simply let
you point to the other one when the first one doesn't grip. I'm always at a
loss when these HN posts come about, because I feel like 99% of the
hate/sentiment stems from the time Microsoft was actually a shitty company
(I'm sure it is still shit in great lengths today, but not comparable to the
Ballmer years).

------
tracker1
It feels like this article is a lot of FUD spreading. MS is a business that
likes to make money. At this point, there are developer minded people at the
helm, and it makes more sense selling their software and cloud services than
chasing negative returns on Windows. I can see that side of it through and
through.

MS has open sourced huge amounts of resource and platform building code in
.Net Core the past several years, and ASP.Net earlier than that. They did buy,
and have expanded on the tools from Xamarin not shutter it. I'm not saying
they're altruistic in nature, no company is. I will say that their behavior in
the community, especially since Nadella took over has been better than any
other company of it's size or larger that I can think of.

I'm not saying forget or forgive the past, but accept the present.
Corporations, despite legalities, are not people. They are made up of people,
and a significant portion of management has rolled over in the past decade and
the outward facing culture shows that.

~~~
blub
You couldn't be more wrong.

Since Nadella is at the helm, Microsoft have started to aggressively gather
customer data from their desktop OS and many other products, including office.

They used to be very decent at this before Windows 10, but they went
completely nuts with telemetry. At the beginning they were completely opaque,
to the point that a German gov agency had to reverse engineer the
communications to see just wtf was being transmitted.

More recently the Dutch gov told them to fuck off if they don't cut off the
crap and MS was forced to negotiate new privacy terms with them.

Anything they have already and will open source pales in comparison to the
harms to our privacy, just like for Google. Although Google at least open
sources some useful things now and then... .NET is Microsoft's dev platform
that no one cares about except Windows devs. It started as a JVM/Java clone
and grew into its own product, but for anyone not already all-in on MS tools
it makes zero sense to use it when there's so much choice.

~~~
tracker1
Windows isn't great... It's a single product of many from a very large
company, and one that other than the assigned computer at work, I don't
typically use. Beyond that, I don't mind the telemetry so much, though their
decision to emphasis telemetry over test labs and staff is irritating.

Also, been a few hours since I read TFA, but isn't even a focus of TFA.

They aren't locking their services and much new software into windows, and
aren't using windows to leverage other things in ways that don't make any
sense.

------
pksdjfikkkkdsff
I can't really follow the article. Too much paranoia, or negativity, I guess.

All I care about is having a usable Linux shell and Linux tool on my Windows
machine. What else can you expect from Microsoft? Yeah, they are doing it so
that people don't switch over to Linux completely. What more can you expect?

Is it even Microsoft's job to establish a standard for 3d Graphics and what
not? Or is the ball in the park of graphics card vendors and game developers?

Why do I have Windows on my machine? I don't fully trust Linux to achieve the
same level of power management. I can play games. I have a dual graphics card,
which would be a hassle to use on Linux.

It would be notebook vendor's job to release Linux notebooks with good power
management. Chip vendors to release specs that enable Linux developers to
create such drivers. And so on.

~~~
gowld
Why wouldn't an Operating System developer be responsible for providing an
interface between hardware developers and applicaton developers?

~~~
pksdjfikkkkdsff
OpenGL seems to have coexisted with DirectX for a while. I don't know enough
about OS development to be able to judge if Microsoft prevented OpenGL from
achieving the same performance as DirectX.

Given the abysmal security history of Windows, my guess would be that it was
possible to get close to the metal as a driver developer, at least in the old
days.

Also MS couldn't be expected to take care of an interface that works on iOS
and Linux. They are responsible for Windows.

------
headmelted
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 the
web browser in the enterprise and mobile devices in the retail market (and
even then, it’s not really a competition - most casual users gave up computers
for smartphones years ago).

Viewed in that lens Microsoft _genuinely_ embracing Linux makes a lot of sense
- most of their revenue now comes from service contracts, and the one bedrock
they’ve always had is their second-to-none developer support. If developers
want them some Linux, then by gosh Redmond is going to give them more Linux
than anyone else. Maximum Linux for your organisations’ Linuxy needs!

Microsoft still has great support for gamers on Windows as an incentive not to
check out Wine/Proton and things happening there, but really, when was the
last time you paid for a Windows license for home use? One way or another
they’ve been literally giving the software away as quickly as they can for
years. The future is about services, and that means market share (if users
leave because they can get a free OS elsewhere then the license has to go).
Likewise, if it gets more developers to stay in the ecosystem, then Linux
support it is.

~~~
baybal2
Since when? That's nonsense. Browser and a whole operating system are two
different things

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
You're talking to SV web devs who's careers depend on and are entirely focused
on web tech.

~~~
headmelted
Exactly.

I sometimes wonder if people are so in the bubble that they don’t realize
we’re rarely the audience.

------
designium
I think the article misses a bigger fight which is between Microsoft's Azure
vs. AWS. All what Microsoft is doing is catering to devs who want better tools
to deal with servers in the cloud.

Imagine this potential tactic:

1\. Create great tools such as Visual Studio Code to serve as first point
contact with devs of all types and stacks 2\. Start creating plugin or easy to
integrate dev workflow in those types of tools with Azure 3\. Make it so easy
and reasonably cost effective that people may start switching away from AWS to
Azure

I don't think Microsoft is trying to kill or encroach Linux but instead
cooping those devs into moving to Azure platform where the market growth is;
while still protecting the existing cash cows.

------
gwd
> I think all of these would be strategic blunders from the point of view of
> Microsoft shareholders. But they’re the kind of things you do for love.
> Otherwise this is just “love” if your standard is abusive one-sided
> relationships.

This is awesome.

------
oblio
The author is partly right. You shouldn't trust Microsoft. But the landscape
has changed. Focusing too much on Microsoft as the sole, main rival of OSS and
Linux keeps you tunnel visioning like it's the 90's. And back then Microsoft
was huge and overbearing. Now there's many, many other threats to OSS and
Linux, several of them bigger than Microsoft.

Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook.

They're keen OSS contributors, where it doesn't matter for them and keen
closed source proponents, where it _does matter_.

------
guardian5x
This article makes it sound like Embracing is a bad thing, because necessarily
Extend, and Extinguish will follow. But it doesn't really work that way with
Open Source.

~~~
dleslie
Google proved the model for embracing, extending and controlling open source
by way of Android and the shift to Google Play Services.

Start open and let the walled garden grow within.

~~~
gowld
How does a not-open-source product control open-source?

Anyone can try to build an open source alternative to GPS on whatever hardware
they can obtain, using Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Without Google open
source, they've have to replicate it's functionality from scratch.

If AOSP never existed, Android would still be Android (GPL allows proprietary
Android) and would still be as popular as it is. iOS was never open source,
and did fine.

~~~
WorldMaker
When was the last time a Google-free AOSP fork had a successful handset on the
market? We've seen almost nothing but failures: Amazon Phone, Cyanogen, …

The market seems to have spoken that Android isn't Android without "Google
Play Services" secret sauce, and that's entirely proprietary walled garden.

------
tra3
I'm having a tough time drawing a conclusion from this article. In my
experience with commercial/open source projects the only reason they are open
source is because of some sort of market advantage. Is the author suggesting
that Microsoft doing all this OSS work out of the goodness of their collective
heart? Corporations are about making money, while that goal and OSS happen to
align we'll get open source from Microsoft. The second it stops being
strategically relevant: bye-bye.

~~~
ppseafield
I think the article takes issue with "Microsoft loves Linux" as a blanket
term, where it's more like "Microsoft loves† Linux‡"

(† supports in only a very specific way because of losing to Linux on the
server side.)

(‡ Linux as used only for servers. Linux as a desktop OS can still get bent,
and we're trying to get devs to abandon it when working on code that deploys
to Linux servers.)

------
SimianLogic2
I used cygwin to do web development circa 2007/2008\. It was a huge pain in
the ass and one of the main reasons I switched to Macs. I've been back on
Windows for a couple of years now using WSL and it's been pretty great. I'm
excited for that integration to get even tighter with WSL2.

The broad categories I use professionally are office crap, web dev, and
creative tools. Macs used to suck at the first and rule the last two, but
they've really fallen behind in the last few years. The new macbook pro looks
like a good machine, but I switched to a gaming laptop to get a better GPU and
64gb of RAM. This (2-year-old) machine does everything I need it to do and I'm
now at a point where Macs are going to have to do something pretty spectacular
to get me to switch back (or have Windows screw up in a comparable way to what
Apple has done the last few years).

What's the point of all this? I think this article misses the boat pretty
badly on who Micrsoft's talking to when it says it loves linux. It's talking
to web devs like me who work and deploy to linux, not software philosophers
who want to debate the meaning of free. From my point of view, they're doing
great right now.

~~~
thom
Could you describe your workflow with WSL?

------
JeremyNT
Data point: MS teams disables all of Teams' A/V features for Linux users based
on browser user agent. If you use chromium and spoof your UA as if you were
using Edge/Windows, said features work. [1]

Microsoft is what it is - a very large company with various business units
with differing priorities. I do feel like they are much improved from the bad
old days, where they seemed to enact a company-wide strategy aimed at actively
sabotaging Linux. In the face of that, I suppose indifference is an
improvement, and their "we love linux" marketing is at least an admission that
Linux support is a consideration for some elements of their business.

[1]
[https://github.com/meetfranz/franz/issues/1095](https://github.com/meetfranz/franz/issues/1095)

~~~
my123
A proper Microsoft Teams port for Linux is coming by the end of this year.

[https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/su...](https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/16911565-linux-
client)

~~~
JeremyNT
I wonder if they will stop disabling features for the chrome UA if/when they
release their electron app on Linux? One could hope...

------
yarg
With regards to Linux, Google seems like a far bigger danger.

Have a look at the "locking-in manufacturers" section of
[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-
on...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on-android-
controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/).

In a more general sense, cloud computing is the biggest danger to Linux, since
it allows companies to allow access to forked versions without needing to
distribute source - this is why the AGPL exists.

There's also potential for bad faith actors to utilise closed source build
tools to distribute releases that are technically opensource - but that cannot
be built by anyone but the distributor.

------
squarefoot
Even if Microsoft does really love Linux, I'd rather want to know _which_
Linux they love: a generic one such as any popular distro out there, or rather
_their_ own version of Linux, which could be a frankenpenguin where some
obscure proprietary technolgy, no matter how small, would magically make their
software run "better".

I am 100% speculating, of course, but if I was in Microsoft pants and wanted
to kill Linux because it makes essentially impossible to achieve domination in
some context (server, embedded, mobile, etc), once realized I can't destroy it
for failing many moons ago to understand its potential at step 1 of "first
they ignore you..." , the best alternative would be to embrace it, pollute it
discreetly injecting closed technology in key areas (all it needs is a key
driver or library), port some great software to it with seemingly innocuous
strings attached to the proprietary parts that will make it _run better or run
at all_ , have its users love my software and get used to it, make its use
appealing to business users as well (offering discounted pro support as an
example), acquire game companies and port their titles as above, etc. Once I
have say the 20 most used apps depend on that closed blob or technology, I'd
be ready to roll out my own distro which of course by being the favorite one
among "normal" users will be the one dictating other Linux distros future. To
make it short, Microsoft will indeed love Linux, although not before making
Linux one of their products.

As I wrote, that's pure speculation, but think of it when the first "best run
on WSL" Linux software comes out.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
To be fair, this sounds just like Google's strategy with Android.

------
throwaway8291
I'm in the camp of moving my stuff out of GitHub (thankfully so many nice
options, like GitLab, gitea/gogs, and of course sourcehut) because the only
reason I do not hate Microsoft is that I was able to avoid any of their tech
successfully for the past 15 years.

In it for the money, and gone if there's nothing more to capture. Simple
story. That's exactly how something like a community does not work.

------
ClumsyPilot
I am getting the impression the author is fighting yesterday’s war and on top
of that has not been following what's going on in windows/.Net development
lately. There has been a large-scale effort to open-source and port chunks of
Windows and .Net Framework

WinForms 'the win95-style UI'
[https://github.com/dotnet/winforms](https://github.com/dotnet/winforms)

WPF 'the Vista-style UI'
[https://github.com/dotnet/wpf](https://github.com/dotnet/wpf)

WinUI3 'the Modern-style UI' [https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-
xaml](https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml)

Windows Communications Foundation
[https://github.com/dotnet/wcf](https://github.com/dotnet/wcf)

And more stuff I am not aware of. Judge as you wish, but if you are going to
discuss the topic, they are important.

~~~
int_19h
None of the UI frameworks have been ported.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
Efforts like Avalonia and Uno platform enjoy a level of support from MS, and
Microsoft produces Xamarin Forms to enable Xaml-based cross platform
development.

Microsoft themselves have stated that it's a requested development, but they
have not yet figured out a sensible way forward.A lot of effort was invested
and I feel accusing them of ill will is unfair.

Meanwhile Linux UI/Graphics situation is a mess and Avalonia developers
struggle with it. The same flexibility that makes Linux a good as
embedded/server, makes it a horrible target for client application
development.

------
lasermike026
Hmmmm, Linux has proven itself on its own. The GPL has done its work. POSIX is
a working standard. Linux isn't completely POSIX compliant. I don't think
there is much Microsoft can do about it.

------
tyingq
_" 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.

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

~~~
tyingq
I'm not clear on why that would help shareholders as compared to current
course.

------
zwieback
TBH, Linux as a desktop productivity environment is a small enough market that
I wouldn't expect MS to make a big investment there. It's either iOS, Android,
Mac or Windows for the average user so MS is trying to stay relevant in those
areas by focusing on the server side and Windows client side.

------
sova
Tremendous. Well written and well played. If there are two facets to divide
and conquer (in this case, play along until you can conquer and conquer right
away) Microsoft is certainly doing their best to fulfill the Caesarian
commandment. Thanks for revealing this very snide practice, clearly if their
intent was an embrace of OSS there would be much revamped in the base layers
of their offerings. Yet, here we are. The number of life-seconds lost to
Microsoft greediness is likely measurable and might even out-exceed the wealth
of shrewd and pernicious altruists like Billy G. Not to be nefarious with this
comment, but to assume that propaganda is honest is to wonder why the
propaganda has to exist in the first place.

------
JackRabbitSlim
An anti-MS article full of FUD, Delicious.

If anyone is embracing, extending and extinguishing its Redhat's giant
lovecraftian eldrich horror starting at Pid 1 as it's tentacles spread across
the (user)land to incite madness and crush the life out of system
administrators.

------
skohan
I don't think it's a particularly good thing for Microsoft to cozy up with
Linux, let alone any of the larger tech firms. In particular, I don't think
it's great that Microsoft is such a heavy contributor to the Linux foundation.

If the people who work on Linux become financially dependent on large tech
firms, this creates potential conflict-of-interest. For instance, is it
impossible to imagine that as Proton becomes more capable of making the
Windows gaming experience portable, there couldn't be pressure to kneecap it
in some way at the kernel level? If Ubuntu had dropped 32 bit app support as
planned, it would have done just that.

~~~
jrs95
Linux development is _already_ dependent on large tech firms and has been for
a long time.

~~~
skohan
I understand that. I’m saying I don’t think it’s a good thing.

------
oaiey
Microsoft loves Linux ... On the Azure Cloud. And nothing else. This strategy
was only discussed in this context and nowhere else I assume.

So do not interpret more in it than what is said. Microsoft earns money. What
does not earn Money is not supported.

------
will4274
This blog appears to argue that by bringing some but not all of it's products
to Linux, Microsoft is engaging in Embrace, Extend, Extinguish (EEE). That's a
tough sell. If you apply the same standard, virtually ever large company that
has ever contributed to Linux is EEE-ing Linux because they released some
product that doesn't run on vanilla Linux. The bad action in EEE is extending
APIs in incompatible ways and then dead ending them - it's hard for me to see
how not shipping Office to Linux qualifies.

~~~
simion314
I think the author refers at the fact you release just a bit of functionality
for Linux but if you want the full stack you have to use Windows. Like you
make .Net for Linux but only some parts, release other tools but not the admin
part etc.

I would be convinced when MS and Wine project has an agreement so the Wine
devs can access the Windows source code.

~~~
will4274
> I would be convinced when MS and Wine project has an agreement so the Wine
> devs can access the Windows source code.

This is exactly what I'm saying is absurd. Microsoft isn't EEE-ing by not
giving Wine devs access to Windows source. There is a difference between not
helping and actively sabotaging. Conflating the two is an unfair attack.

~~~
simion314
The part about Wine is not related, it was about what would convince me that
Microsoft "loves" Linux or at least is not intimidated by it. The WSL seems to
me as the first part of the EEE and the competition would be fair if Linux
could have it's own project Wine supported by Microsoft, as it is now it feels
as an exploit, MS can do WSL but Linux and Mac have to struggle with Wine and
the FUD around it.

~~~
zamalek
> Linux and Mac have to struggle with Wine and the FUD around it.

What FUD? I don't think I've ever seen someone spread FUD about Wine. Are you
referring to the website that lists how well games/apps work with it?

~~~
simion314
The accusation that Wine devs were looking at the Windows code and it is
"illegal"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341022)

~~~
will4274
This post is about ReactOS, not Wine.

------
shmerl
While things improved in some aspects (like recent freeing up of exFAT), as a
Linux gamer, I still see MS if not outright hostile, then surely by far not
friendly when it comes to Linux.

Thanks to Phil Spencer, they didn't join the Vulkan working group, and
continue pushing their DX lock-in. For Linux it means dxvk and vkd3d are
important tools to break it. When MS will start using Vulkan proper, I might
change my mind about them being hostile towards Linux.

Same applies to other lock-in cases the article mentions.

------
juped
There was more of a case in the 90s, but the fact is that today's Microsoft
has a strong open source development presence, and incompatibly embracing and
extending was always, even in the 90s, an odious GNU practice that they
happily perpetrated against non-copyleft Unix.

"FUD" is a mindkilling term, so I won't call this apparently sincere post
"spreading FUD", but I will suggest that you try PowerShell Core (MIT
licensed) on the platform of your choice.

------
de_watcher
Can add Visual Studio to the Office/DirectX/Outlook/ActiveDirectory section.

~~~
pjc50
They're sort of heading in this direction with VSCode. I can imagine that VS
itself is a non-portable COM-infested disaster area.

~~~
garganzol
COM is good and it is anything except disaster. It its raw form, COM is just a
small and natural abstraction over plain C interface.

Just like a C interface is a small and nice abstraction over plain
registers/stack call models of the past.

The advent of calling conventions like C was a huge step forward in 1970s.
Before that, there was a mad zoo of passing parameters via random CPU
registers and praying that you made no mistake and it would work without a
crash.

COM is no different. IUnknown is just 3 methods (QueryInterface, AddRef,
RemoveRef) over a plain C. It immediately brings an ability to use service
model design in APIs.

------
gmaster1440
Personally strikes me very much as an article making valid points but
generally in bad faith. Microsoft can both begin to change and embrace Linux
gradually as they've been doing recently and at the same time have an unsavory
past with the ecosystem. If anything, they're willingness to change, however
small, should be interpreted generally as a positive shift.

------
JohnL4
Oof. All these Linux-on-desktop replies.

(1) The web is (slowly) destroying MS on the client-side. Sure, there's a ton
of existing WinForms/WPF stuff now, but I think new development is on the web.

(2) Linux is destroying MS on the server-side. It is simply impossible to beat
the price (both AMZN and MS offer Linux images at half the price of Windows
images).

So, where does that leave MS? Competing with AMZN in cloud infrastructure.
They have the technical chops and maybe other-than-1st mover advantage gives
them a chance to present a cleaner experience, although it ain't easy being
sandwiched between AMZN and Digital Ocean/Netlify.

I think even Blazor is a stretch, dependent on the maturity of WASM, but...
requiring devs to switch from React/Angular? And competing with whatever else
moves to WASM.

Of course MS loves Linux. It'd be stupid not to.

(For now.)

------
neilobremski
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.

------
elldoubleyew
I would love to see MS release a version of Windows that is built on Linux but
with a custom GUI to look and behave like Windows.

They could even add support for Windows apps through WINE to make it _feel_
like a native experience. Especially if they are willing to dedicate
additional resources to better hardware optimization for WINE*

I have always hated Windows because I grew up on UNIX-like systems, whenever I
want to do something non-trivial involving the OS I tend to get lost and give
up pretty quickly. But I don't mind Windows GUI from a UX perspective, and I
would be interested in running a "Linux-Windows"

*I am not sure what MS official stance on WINE is, however I would imagine that supporting it is likely in their long-term best interests.

------
jasoneckert
I'm not too sure what to think of this article. There are some valid points to
me made for sure, but intent today isn't as clear cut as it was 20 years ago.

For example, almost 20 years ago, I stood in front of a group of _mostly_
sales people in a board room at Microsoft Canada to answer emotionally-charged
questions about this "Linux threat" that was looming. Just under a year ago, I
sat on a couch at Microsoft with some talented Microsoft developers drinking a
custom Americano listening to them talk about how Microsoft recognizes their
personal open source and ethical values in a way that makes them love their
job.

As a Linux developer and geek, it's difficult to hate Microsoft today.

------
zzo38computer
It seems possible to me that they may make Office usable from web browsers on
non-Windows systems (probably with a few features missing, some of that just
due to the limitation imposed by the web browser anyways), but probably not a
native Linux program. I do not expect them to drop Win32 and DirectX; however,
maybe later they might make a few contributions to ReactOS (although probably
not enough). What they say about Active Directory I suppose may be done in the
way mentioned in that article, seems not very unlikely to me.

I do not really think Microsoft "love" Linux all the way, although it seem to
me they do "love" Linux more than they used to, at least.

------
zoechi
When I had to deal with Windows 10 recently I got the impression MS has given
up on Windows completely. The last notable improvements were introduced in Win
XP. Most stuff that came later was just changing the look&view of a few
settings windows with the only effect that all consistency was lost and Win
looks more like a mess than a Linux desktop where some apps were built for X,
Kde, Gnome, ... It was also funny that SQL Management Studio crashed at the
same use cases as it did 10-15 years ago. It would be interesting if there
were any developers working on anything but cloud at MS the past 10 years.

~~~
Crinus
The last time there was a real UI and UX consistency was with Windows 2000 (or
ME, if you want to stay on the consumer side). With Windows XP Microsoft
introduced themeable controls but instead of making them available to all
applications, they used an opt-in mechanism (based on special EXE resources or
manifest files) so even nowadays unless you use that mechanism you get the
Win2K era of controls.

Even then, with Windows 7 _most_ things were consistent and if you really
cared about consistency even with non-themed apps you could always switch to
Windows Classic theme (which i always did, not so much because of consistency
but also because i just like that theme :-P).

Since Windows 8 with the introduction of Metro/UWP/WinUI/WinWhateverNext
consistency was thrown out of the Window, without even trying to pretend
otherwise (it isn't a coincidence that the UI guidelines for desktop
applications in Microsoft's site still use the Win7 theme).

------
stevbov
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 internet.

~~~
lghh
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.

~~~
ripley12
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](https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/26310)

~~~
zamalek
> 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.

~~~
ripley12
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...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlinks-
windows-10/)

------
ausjke
Microsoft "loves" linux because it failed to beat Linux with FUD etc.

Microsoft to me is the cancer to the OSS, why not just admit that you had
never, and will never love Linux, you are simply doing all these for financial
purposes solely, which is totally fine --- just don't ruin the "love" word,
it's so awkward.

Life is too short to be cheated multiple times, I will never trust Microsoft
since I switched to linux fully 15 years ago.

------
rcarmo
I’m going to add a data point here: I work at Microsoft and my primary e-mail
client is... Firefox. The Outlook web UI is so good these days that the UX for
mail, viewing attachments and booking meetings is much, much better than the
native app (which I only use for ensuring I have an offline database when
traveling).

And yeah, I use WSL extensively, and work from a Mac at home. There is a lot
more to the story than the article covers.

------
29athrowaway
Use SoftMaker FreeOffice, or SoftMaker Office. It is a pretty nice and
performant replacement for MS Office.

~~~
hamsapelea
Google docs works like a charm

------
xenorplxx
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.

~~~
tracker1
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.

~~~
WorldMaker
Office has been heading towards React Native and React Native for Web,
according to BUILD talks.

------
fortran77
The quote at the end of this piece is misattributed.

[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/12/05/fake-
honesty/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/12/05/fake-honesty/)

------
ogre_codes
How on earth can you have any kind of meaningful conversation about
Microsoft's Linux strategy and not even mention Azure?

Microsoft's Cloud service is one of their fastest growth businesses and Linux
is a huge piece of that.

------
wooptoo
The whole reason for doing WSL2 was running Docker on Windows, which is
currently one of the development "killer apps". AFAIK in the previous
implementation they could not get Overlayfs to work properly.

------
campfireveteran
0\. Embrace

1\. Extend

2\. Extinguish (or at least Exhaust Energy on Extraneous complexity through
Engineering design-by-committee feature creep)

(But never Excellent Enginerding, unless trying to gain status at a
conference.)

------
dabbernaught420
"I fucking love open source!" \- Microsoft

If this doesn't make you want to use the term 'free software' I don't know
what will.

------
magashna
"Embrace, extend, extinguish"

*nix is too big to really extinguish, but MS can certainly bear hug some cash out of them.

------
jeffdavis
The technology landscape has changed so much in 20 years. Is this analytical
framework still relevant?

------
Havoc
nah. MS was dangerous in windows era. And had another go at that with their
docx shenanigans.

...but in cloud era their teeth are just as long/short as google/AWS in my
opinion. No more win32 .exe home turf advantage.

That said I consider all 3 clouds dangerous in a sense.

------
simonblack
The only 'Loves' that Microsoft has are 'Love of Control' and 'Love of Money'.

If you ever trust Microsoft, you have only yourself to blame when you get
hurt. That's been true for at least 25 years, and I don't see it ending any
time soon.

------
Quarrelsome
Was this article really written this decade?

------
fearface
I love Linux, but I hate Linux Desktop.

------
bydl0coder
First, desktop Linux sucks, so there's no point of porting anything to it.
Second, office suites including MS Office are now cloud-based.

------
lawlessone
They'll turn linux in a microsoft app.

~~~
jabedude
I know this is hyperbole, but funny enough you can download "Ubuntu" for WSL
from the Windows app store: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/p/ubuntu/9nblggh4msv6](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/p/ubuntu/9nblggh4msv6).

------
50ckpuppet
Embrace Extend Extinguish

------
gowld
Every dollar and every minute of attention you give to proprietary software,
hurts open source.

------
1996
Dear new corporate overlord, if you want to disprove this, please invest in
wine!

It is an alternative option that would yield great dividends for both linux
and windows user. win32 binaries are just more multiplatform that .net/uwp/the
next shiny new thing you will try and fail to spin.

~~~
TomMarius
I think they want to go the HyperV route for this purpose, wine is not really
the solution a company like Microsoft would choose (based on their business
needs). HyperV based hybrid desktop seems to be much easier to develop,
maintain, sell etc.

~~~
1996
Easier, maybe, but it will not succeed. hyperv will be the next big shiny
thing to fail.

Meanwhile, wine keep my old binaries useful - and will keep them long after
uwp or whatever shades into obscurity.

~~~
TomMarius
I kind of agree with you, but that does not change anything about it being the
strategy of choice for Microsoft

