this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Embrace, extend, and extinguish
It makes sense for Microsoft to support Linux though...
They tried their hardest to kill Linux under Steve Ballmer but now they're moving (or in reality have moved) to a model where Xbox and cloud are their main income-generating industries. The former is unrelated to Windows/Linux and the latter is frankly more dependant on Linux than it is on Windows - Microsoft have been supportive of Linux through Azure for years now and it doesn't exactly make sense for them to be developing two different operating systems, so it's not far fetched to imagine they'll drop ~~DOS~~ NT as a backend for windows entirely in the future and move to a Linux backend, with Windows just being a closed source DM with tracking etc added on.
This covers embrace & extend, but I don't think the extinguish part makes sense - sure they may add features the FOSS community disagree with, but at worst we're in a similar position to where we are now with things being released separately for Linux and Windows
I think you mean NT, not DOS. DOS stopped being the backbone of Windows in 2000/XP.
That is the opposite of what I want to happen. I want them to release Windows (NT) under a free license, not to start basing Windows on Linux.
NT isn't even a bad kernel, it's everything around it that's the problem.
I'm not sure they'll succeed in extinguishing linux. But I do get the worry, especially with WSL.
What I am more worried about is them potentially extinguishing git via their control of github. In particular, with their github cli tool and such >.<