Posted on 09/25/2017 5:29:29 PM PDT by dayglored
Full Title: Will Microsoft love Linux to death? Shuttleworth and Stallman on whether Windows 10 is free software's friend
If you believe Satya Nadella, then Microsoft loves Linux.
Under Nadella's leadership, Microsoft has a discovered a new enthusiasm for open-source software, leading it to join the Linux Foundation and build support for GNU/Linux directly into Windows 10.
Yet, in some quarters, there is skepticism that a company whose former CEO described Linux as a cancer could be reborn as a true believer.
The greatest suspicion is reserved for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which allows Windows 10 to run various GNU/Linux distros and software.
Stories about WSL regularly attract comments and Tweets referring to Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, a commercial strategy that a US anti-trust hearing was told Microsoft used to "smother" the Netscape web browser in the 1990s.
Opinion as to why Microsoft has changed its tune vary, from open-source operating systems being too popular on cloud platforms and on servers for Microsoft to sensibly ignore, to suspicion that this is part of a plan to undermine the use of Linux in the long run. But what do key members of the open-source and free-software communities think?
Richard Stallman is a free-software activist and creator of the GNU OS that forms part of the basis of modern GNU/Linux distros. He believes that Microsoft's decision to build a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) amounts to an attempt to extinguish software that users are free to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve.
(Excerpt) Read more at techrepublic.com ...
Besides, remember the SCO-Linux disputes? MS was said to have thrown quite a bit of support to SCO. See which side won?
It should be emphasized that Stallman did not say that he expects Linux to be extinguished. The article quoted his explanation.
History since 1980 gives Stallman 90% probability of being correct about MS planning destruction of Linux.
That’s my 2 cents, LOL.
(Actually, I think it is an absolute certainty.)
IIRC Shuttleworth created the Ubuntu Unity desktop with all sorts of adware.
I use Mint (based on Ubuntu) with the Cinnamon desktop.
Most everything is working.. I'm still having troubles with creating a path in 32 bit wine that works. I'm getting there though.
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