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Isn't it a bit ironic, given your concern with 90s-era Microsoft practices...

...that your comment is basically just FUD?

I'm not saying your wrong! But your comment is, clearly, intended to make people feel fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Microsoft, the Windows platform, what MS may choose to do in the future, etc. And you don't have any particular factual claims to back it up (classic FUD tactic), just an appeal to authority ("as a senior sysadmin") and some handwaving about events that took place long before most of us were actually in the workforce. I mean, I'm the oldest dev on my team, and I was a teenager when the Halloween Documents were published.

We live in a very different world. I'm not saying MS wouldn't abuse their power if they could, but you know...what power? And how does WSL provide them an opening? At this point, I'm much, much more concerned about Facebook than Microsoft, and I think the onus is on MS critics to explain exactly what they fear. And no, chanting "embrace, extend, extinguish" is not an explanation.

> Isn't it a bit ironic, given your concern with 90s-era Microsoft practices that your comment is basically just FUD?

Apologies for not taking the time to sit down and list all the ways MS has been bad for the FOSS world and the user. For someone who references the halloween documents and the hn userbase in general I think most of this should be mostly obvious and not need specific hand-holding. As for your accusation of fud, fud by defnition is about false or disinformation in combination with the appeal to fear. I'm basing my comments off true information, and not using the fallacious appeal to fear but instead telling how proprietary systems do affect people.

> just an appeal to authority ("as a senior sysadmin")

A key point to the appeal to authority issue is that it isn't inherently a fallacy, and only becomes one with used in an informal fallacy, which I did not. In rhetoric establishing authority is an important (but often overvalued) aspect of argument. As a senior sysadmin, this makes my propositions more likely, but not logically certain. Not a fallacy at all.

> handwaving about events that took place long before most of us were actually in the workforce.

What does the date of these actions have to do with the issue at hand? The four principles of software freedom are still not met by MS, and that's just as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.

> We live in a very different world. I'm not saying MS wouldn't abuse their power if they could, but you know...what power? And how does WSL provide them an opening?

Where do I begin? First of all, we don't really live in such a different world. Fundamental principles of software freedom have been the same since the 80's when they were first brought up, (though they have been refined somewhat). Second, not only would MS abuse their power, but they already have and do! As for what power, I don't know how you can be serious and ask such a question. Instead of ranting I will just give you a good link to read. https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html

> At this point, I'm much, much more concerned about Facebook than Microsoft

This is a logical fallacy. We aren't talking about FB. I'm concerned about it too, but to handwave away MS issues in this way is not conducive to honest intellectual conversation.

> I think the onus is on MS critics to explain exactly what they fear.

We have, for years at that. See above gnu.org link for a start.

> And how does WSL provide them an opening?

You mean other than replacing a gplv2 kernel with a closed source proprietary one?

> As for your accusation of fud, fud by defnition is about false or disinformation in combination with the appeal to fear.

By what definition? FUD is literally just the words "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt." Nothing about those words requires the thing being referred to to be false or disinformation.

Less pedantically, propaganda/astroturfing doesn't need to be a lie or an exaggeration or anything of the sort, to serve its purpose. You get just as much of an effect from selectively highlighting some true facts while downplaying others.

The irony the parent is referring to is that you are highlighting some facts about Microsoft [which support the story you wish to tell] while downplaying others [which do not], and so your comment serves as effective anti-Microsoft propaganda (i.e. "FUD") whether or not every statement in it is true.

> As for what power, I don't know how you can be serious and ask such a question.

Likely because—at least if they live in SV—it's almost assuredly true that almost nobody the parent knows uses Microsoft products any more. They have no cultural power, in the sense of having control of cultural influencers. They might still have a large foothold in the enterprise, but—unless there is a massive resurgence—that foothold will die exactly one generation of IT people from now, when nobody of the new generation will have bothered to learn the Windows stack.

> We have, for years at that. See above gnu.org link for a start.

You are not debating charitably here. There is a difference—and you know it—between "what you fear" in a general, ideological sense; and immediate fears of what can and is likely to happen given the current landscape.

The parent poster is asking the latter: what about the current Microsoft—without reference to history, without knowledge of history—do you fear?

I think my provided link was extremely clear about the latter. Did you read it?

> what about the current Microsoft—without reference to history, without knowledge of history—do you fear?

Win10 and how it was shoved hard down everyone's throat -- and how it had taken upgrade liberties away from the vast majority, while adding unstoppable telemetry.

Is 18 months too much history for a 40 year old company?

"given your concern with 90s-era Microsoft practices..."

We'll, I must say I preferred them actually.

- the close button on my upgrade prompts didn't mean yes.

- clippy didn't send my files keystrokes and speech online on its own

- candy crush saga equivalents didn't just install on their own

- applications that I installed weren't deleted by the OS

- the computer didn't restart on its own because of updates, closing all ssh sessions and killing processes with days of work.

- etc.

Some of OPs comment is hyperbolic, but I think

> Microsoft has shown they are only interested in controlling the user, and not in giving the user control.

Is very well supported by their recent we'll-do-everything-possible to get Win10 on people's machines, force upgrades, forced (and ultra comprehensive, but mostly secretive until a month ago) telemetry.

> We live in a very different world. I'm not saying MS wouldn't abuse their power if they could, but you know...what power?

They have spent the last year and a half abusing their power of Win7 updates to force people into Win10, which takes away the power that people had to resist the Win7->Win10 upgrade. If you missed that, we truly do live in different worlds.

I agree that the telemetry is very very dodgy. However, on the forced update front, I have to side with Microsoft here.

From their POV, regular and forced windows updates are the best way to ensure we don't have XP-like situations, where people just keep running out-dated software with horribly exploitable browsers. This creates a maintenance nightmare for software developers. Could you imagine running a 16 year old piece of software, refusing to upgrade to a newer-one but still expect security updates? And Windows 7 is well on it's way to become the 'next XP', it's almost 8 years old now...

I might agree with you from a "public goods" perspective (but only if win10 had user control comparable to win7, and it doesn't)

However, Microsoft is in it for themselves. Not for the public good, not for the people who want to keep running their old system, not for the developers. Furthermore, whoever bought win7 was guaranteed support until 2020.

Your siding with Microsoft in 2016 is siding with "we already got the customer's money, now let's try to do the easiest thing for us rather than keep our promises; use dark patterns if we need, because it is easier to get forgiveness than permission". I am sorry, but I disagree with this attitude.

Hey your opinion is cool and all. But there are a lot of people who put a lot of hard work into this project, because we're developers too, and we think the idea of being able to run a full linux userland on top of the NT kernel is fucking cool.

This project has never been about EEE. It's not about controlling the user. It's the complete opposite. It's all about choice. I like a linux style development environment more than I like Windows style. In my free time I mostly write python applications and do webdev-y stuff, and WSL makes it really easy for me to do that.

But then again, that's just my opinion.

> being able to run a full linux userland on top of the NT kernel is fucking cool.

I could do that before with virtualbox. What kind of benefits besides slight speed increases would we see using the posix WSL?

>It's not about controlling the user. It's the complete opposite. It's all about choice.

If I create a prison for you, but then let you choose your cell, do you consider that a valid choice? That's what this is, and I know what you mean but the reality is that windows is a walled garden prison for the user.

>I like a linux style development environment more than I like Windows style.

Then why not dev on GNU+linux?

Also, notice the emphasis on GNU.

come on, there's no need to be disingenuous here - having the linux userspace run atop the windows kernel is much closer to docker than virtualization.

Fair point here, but in reality it changes none of my other arguments. If anything, replacing the linux kernel with the windows kernel and then giving the user half the userspace programs is still bad in my book.

> Then why not dev on GNU+linux?

So I can have sleep and wifi working properly and working 3D acceleration for Apps and Games.

> So I can have sleep and wifi working properly

Those have worked for properly for as long as I've been using GNU/Linux (5 years or so).

> working 3D acceleration for Apps and Games.

I believe those also work, but I don't play games that often so I wouldn't know.

It's more than a speed increase. There's memory usage benefits -- because it's not a VM, you don't need to dedicate a fixed amount of memory, regardless of what you're doing. The media situation on Linux is much worse -- the audio stack resembles a jenga tower, the media apis are worse, the media drivers are worse. Windows tends to have better backward compatibility for older but still useful programs.

Furthermore, most of the useful parts of nix tend to come from places other than gnu-based APIs. Languages like python, for example, are nicer under nix, but use few if any gnu-isms. Web frameworks and applications by extensions are more *nix friendly, but it's a rare example that restricts itself to Linux only. Sticking with just gnu and/or linux ends up being much more of a burden than it's worth.

> This project has never been about EEE. It's not about controlling the user. It's the complete opposite. It's all about choice.

well, those are the first two 'E's of the picture, if this is the case. with the latest edition of Windows 10 (S, i think?), microsoft have already prepared the stage for the third.

It depends on how you look at it. The classic EEE involved e.g. "embracing" a platform like the web by writing your own browser, and then "extending" said platform by adding nonstandard features to that browser—and encouraging their adoption—to steal mindshare of the platform away from the standard itself and toward your particular implementation, giving you control over the future of the platform. At which point you could "extinguish" the platform, or at least your rivals on it.

WSL doesn't look to be "extending" Linux; in fact, it's all about providing the exact ABI Linux itself provides, and running Linux applications and operating systems without requiring any porting. There are no e.g. WSL-only syscalls exposed to Linux applications, such that Linux applications would benefit at all of being aware of WSL or targeting it. As far as the code running under WSL is concerned, it's just POSIX.

To me, that's actually a strategy strangely opposed to classical Microsoft EEE: this move commoditizes the Windows platform. There are many developers who will now see Windows as "just another POSIX", and will experience less of the unique, Windows-only parts of the platform, making them less locked into Windows as a whole.

There's no plausible end-goal here where Windows would ever be given mindshare as "the Linux," in order to start on the "extend" phase. In fact, more likely, Windows IT people will be enabled and encouraged to switch to "standard" services like nginx instead of IIS, or Postgres instead of MSSQL—at which point they'll realize they've eliminated all Windows lock-in and they're now free to leave the ecosystem!

> WSL doesn't look to be "extending" Linux

Yet.

I don't trust Microsoft. But they're less evil than Apple, look at Apple is doing with its locked garden (no GPL, only one browser engine allowed, no JITing except for their Javascript engine, development only on their platform, etc., etc.).

On top of this, Microsoft is a smaller fish these days. They've lost mobile, probably forever. They're behind in search, ads, cloud, etc.

So they're, maybe not toothless, but definitely less harmful than they were in the 90's.

For EEE they need to be able to extinguish. They can't extinguish Linux or OSS now, it's basically impossible.

> I don't trust Microsoft. But they're less evil than Apple, look at Apple is doing with its locked garden (no GPL, only one browser engine allowed, no JITing except for their Javascript engine, development only on their platform, etc., etc.).

Hate to break it to you, but the Microsoft Store has the same limitations regarding browser engines as Apple's iOS App Store.

Nobody uses that and if they push it hard there's going to be major backlash, possibly even another anti-trust lawsuit.

Keep in mind they already have a conviction for anti-competitive practices. A second strike would probably be at least in the low billions, especially in the EU.