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Comment by jve | Hacker News Reader

I'm sometimes wondering whether Microsoft wants to tank their Windows Server or what? A great OS overall, but speaking as a service provider - the licensing makes so much effort on provider part to even offer a VM with Microsoft OS. Only recently (due to EU pressure?) provided License mobility where customer himself is responsible for software licences and can BYOL.

Otherwise it was on service provider to collect whatever software the customer is using and charge for it. And if you don't, prepare for a hefty fine. Windows of course provides SIL infrastructure to do just that, but all that implies server has to be configured in some way.

And then the price for the licence ofcourse...

I really like Windows Server OS, but the effort it puts on part of service provider - no wonders everyone wants and offers to deploy Linux.

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I suspect that those working on Windows are a different department entirely from those who handle Azure stuff. So while they're maybe encouraged to use Windows, they tend to favour what works best for them - which in many cases is Linux.

Azure is powered by Windows, https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-os-platform-b...

And that windows is backed by Linux if performance is key: https://cfp.all-systems-go.io/media/all-systems-go-2023/subm...

> PCIe card running Linux hardened OS....

That is not a server OS.

And I would assert it is Linux based instead of another firmware RTOS, because of licensing and yeah, if you want to be pedantic Windows was never designed to fit into the firmware of a network card.

> if you want to be pedantic Windows was never designed to fit into the firmware of a network card.

If you want to be pedantic, nor was the linux kernel.

Linux kernel by its nature was designed to be taken away, source code ripped off and massaged into anything with a CPU to run a custom modification of it.

There are lots of stuff running a "Linux kernel" that have little to no resemblance to a default build from upstream.

Yes but all this is not because it was designed for it. It wasn't. It is just the open nature of its license that made it possible as a consequence through external contributions.

I meant that Linux is basically a first-class citizen across Azure. I don't know what powers all of Azure, and I'd be surprised if it was Windows across the board. Probably a combination of both, really, I imagine they're quite pragmatic about these things as long as the money keeps rolling in.

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