I’m a little concerned Microsoft will make a linux distro and introduce proprietary components into it that will drive users of other distros to it because “why use any other distro when the M$ distro can run my games/microsoft office/whatever?”. Because that’s how they’ll kill linux: a bunch of proprietary kernel modules with which only Windows software can run.
We should have multiple linux mega-corps before that happens, otherwise we’re fucked.
How would that affect any of us? Linus Torvalds would still be the lead kernel maintainer, all the other FOSS distros would still exist, and all the people that currently use Linux (out of conviction, out of idealism, out of the FOSS/GNU philosophy) would stick with them, meaning de facto no change whatsoever.
Not everybody uses linux out of conviction, idealism, or principle. Many use it either by chance or convenience. The purists are probably not the majority of linux users.
There are people who already won’t switch to linux because windows has WSL. Gaming has held back many people from switching too, although that’s becoming less of a problem. However, if there were no reason to switch to other distros, and an M$ distro were to become the most used distro…
Do you know what M$ did when they had the largest market share for browsers? Do you know what Google is currently doing with their marketshare on the browser market?
Windows has a pitiful representation on the server side, but if that changed to an M$ distro with proprietary linux modules in order to make certain software work (or something more insidious that I can’t think of), it would change the server landscape too. And suddenly, you can’t write stuff for the most popular servers without installing M$ kernel modules or software.
The linux zealots are not the majority. Zealots never are.
Microsoft hasn’t changed all that much. They don’t see Linux as an OS to run games or MS Office with. It’s not a consumer platform and never will be, it’s more of a server/container maaybe workstation system for a tech-savvy/developer/scientist. Its UI is meant to open terminals and text editors, not movie players or game launchers. Microsoft loves Linux until it leaves the business area and try to sneak into consumer market. There’s nothing stopping them from doing harm to desktop Linux with all their „love” to Linux the modern mainframe system that happens to be industry standard. They can still patent things and do legality tricks (like in HDMI forums), try to put Windows on devices where Linux could be competition (one Linux handheld console = 10 more new Windows handhelds), bind consumers with something only Windows can run (Xbox Gamepass?) etc
The MS distro you’re talking about already exists - it is called Azure Linux (recently renamed from CBL-Mariner).
MS tried to ship a renegade JDK with proprietary features, back in the 90’s. That didn’t go very well for them, as they drew the ire of Sun Microsystems which was a decently sized player at the time. It was a clear licensing issue, and they lost the case. Point being: they’re historically not great at this kind of thing.
The GPL is designed to thwart this scenario, specifically for things like paid software (e.g. Windows). MS would have to move to a “free Windows software, paid service” model before any of this could happen. But the service must be optional, and they’d have to provide the source to anyone that wants it. That said, they’re on track to make Windows free (as in beer), so who knows?
Nvidia gets to ship binary Linux drivers, so closed-source binary packages for MS proprietary components on top of Linux might be possible. But again, I don’t think they get to charge for that.
WRT to drivers/packages, RedHat famously charges for access to their package repository, making automated patching and upgrading a nightmare if you go without. This is one hell of a GPL loophole and worthy of far more corporate exploitation. I can easily see MS following this path.
“The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” - John Gilmore - (Many) People will just fork away or happily sit somewhere else in the GNU family tree, far from anything MS builds. If the need arises, compatibility layers like WINE will show up eventually.
The chances of seeing an M$ Winix or something in the next decade are pretty slim, IMO, but to me it’s the worst case scenario / beginning of the end. I’m crossing my fingers that windows 12 is shitty, but not too shitty.
I’m a little concerned Microsoft will make a linux distro and introduce proprietary components into it that will drive users of other distros to it because “why use any other distro when the M$ distro can run my games/microsoft office/whatever?”. Because that’s how they’ll kill linux: a bunch of proprietary kernel modules with which only Windows software can run.
We should have multiple linux mega-corps before that happens, otherwise we’re fucked.
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They’d probably just buy canonical in this scenario.
Canonical would have to accept. Given their move towards proprietary code, that wouldn’t surprise me in the least, honestly.
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How would that affect any of us? Linus Torvalds would still be the lead kernel maintainer, all the other FOSS distros would still exist, and all the people that currently use Linux (out of conviction, out of idealism, out of the FOSS/GNU philosophy) would stick with them, meaning de facto no change whatsoever.
Not everybody uses linux out of conviction, idealism, or principle. Many use it either by chance or convenience. The purists are probably not the majority of linux users.
There are people who already won’t switch to linux because windows has WSL. Gaming has held back many people from switching too, although that’s becoming less of a problem. However, if there were no reason to switch to other distros, and an M$ distro were to become the most used distro…
Do you know what M$ did when they had the largest market share for browsers? Do you know what Google is currently doing with their marketshare on the browser market?
Windows has a pitiful representation on the server side, but if that changed to an M$ distro with proprietary linux modules in order to make certain software work (or something more insidious that I can’t think of), it would change the server landscape too. And suddenly, you can’t write stuff for the most popular servers without installing M$ kernel modules or software.
The linux zealots are not the majority. Zealots never are.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Microsoft hasn’t changed all that much. They don’t see Linux as an OS to run games or MS Office with. It’s not a consumer platform and never will be, it’s more of a server/container maaybe workstation system for a tech-savvy/developer/scientist. Its UI is meant to open terminals and text editors, not movie players or game launchers. Microsoft loves Linux until it leaves the business area and try to sneak into consumer market. There’s nothing stopping them from doing harm to desktop Linux with all their „love” to Linux the modern mainframe system that happens to be industry standard. They can still patent things and do legality tricks (like in HDMI forums), try to put Windows on devices where Linux could be competition (one Linux handheld console = 10 more new Windows handhelds), bind consumers with something only Windows can run (Xbox Gamepass?) etc
The MS distro you’re talking about already exists - it is called Azure Linux (recently renamed from CBL-Mariner).
A few things come to mind here.
The chances of seeing an M$ Winix or something in the next decade are pretty slim, IMO, but to me it’s the worst case scenario / beginning of the end. I’m crossing my fingers that windows 12 is shitty, but not too shitty.
I can only hope you’re right.
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