Comment by gigatexal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gigatexal | Hacker News Reader

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Well yes. This is phase 2 of 3 the first being embrace (see Microsoft loves Linux) and the current one being extending. Only here they’re extending Windows to cater to Linux use cases. The next and final phrase is extinguish. If Windows becomes equivalent to running a Linux distribution but can also run the entire Windows ecosystem of applications not to mention all your games the way they were meant to be played, not via proton or any other translation layers, then what will be the point of greater Linux adoption among businesses and governments? Licensing? All Microsoft would have to do is make Windows free and make all that revenue back on upselling Azure and/or Office.

Personally I tried WSL2 out and it was pretty good. The problem was I was still running Windows and I absolutely can’t use to UI to save my life. I loathe it. I’m a huge fan of tiling window managers and Regolith’s my current DE of choice. And lucky for me my games run in proton, I work on backend systems such that I don’t have any dependencies in on anything that runs on Windows (Google docs for office work). So I would not be WSL’s target audience.

Yes, Microsoft is out to extinguish desktop Linux. They're afraid that 2021 could be the year of desktop Linux.

Wait, wasn't that 1999? 2000? 2001? ... Everyone stopped caring when mobile platforms became dominant.

To me, what matters most is privacy and freedom. -> Open-source transparency of code, data, and all that happens with it. (Including the ability to fully control and see what's happening in your system at the network level, like OpenSnitch - https://github.com/gustavo-iniguez-goya/opensnitch).

I don't see any of MSFT's actions threatening this on a really big picture level. It's always been and always will be up to 'the community' to build and make Linux and free software what it is.

Linux, especially Linux Desktop, is wonderfully flourishing right now, and I don't think it's because 'MS hasn't offered a more compelling alternative to Linux' in the cloud. More largely, it's because we've built what we've wanted. Maybe I'm naive about what we've been ungratefully depending on. If so, I'd settle for a mildly cautious and watchful neutral ground. All I can say is, please contribute to Linux and FOSS if you can. I do.

> Linux, especially Linux Desktop, is wonderfully flourishing right now [...] because we’ve built what we’ve wanted

I agree, but it has to be said that this has also happened because desktop features across the board have stagnated.

There has been little evolution of desktop features in the last 15 years on Windows and Mac; MS and Apple are focused on other things, namely services integration to increase revenue and convergence with mobile OSes to reduce costs. This has allowed the Linux desktop to catch on and solidify, by not having to constantly chase feature-matching. Same for hardware support: new devices and ports for the desktop and laptop market have been few and far between; if anything things are getting simpler (USB-C for everyone, no cd, no modem, etc).

I have no doubt that both Apple and MS could destroy the attractiveness of Linux desktops very quickly if they focused a bit more resources on evolving their desktops.

> There has been little evolution of desktop features in the last 15 years on Windows and Mac;

I don't think. Is there any example that you thought as evolution (maybe on Linux) ?

> Same for hardware support: new devices and ports for the desktop and laptop market have been few and far between;

What about Surface?

Step 3 is not extinguish- step 3 is exposing APIs or programs in Linux which only work when executing on Windows.

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