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Comment by 2trill2spill | Hacker News Reader

This sounds nice, but what about supporting operating systems besides for Linux and MacOS? A big part of using continuous integration is being able to test your code on the various platforms you deploy on. People have been asking for FreeBSD support since 2014[1] and Windows support since 2011[2]. For lots of projects not having Windows or FreeBSD support makes Travis CI not even an option for a CI tool. And from the outside looking in, it seems the Travis CI team doesn't care about adding support for other operating systems, it's been 7 years since the windows support issue was opened and there appears to be no progress.

[1]: https://github.com/travis-ci/travis-ci/issues/1818 [2]: https://github.com/travis-ci/travis-ci/issues/216

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Another way to look at this is that it has created an opening for competitors to fill that gap, especially appveyor, circleci, and codeship.

That TravisCI is still the market leader in the cloud CI space suggests that they're making the right call by letting others pick up the more niche parts of the market.

> That TravisCI is still the market leader in the cloud CI space suggests that they're making the right call by letting others pick up the more niche parts of the market.

Windows is one third of the server market and over 90% of the desktop market. Calling Windows a niche is simply wrong.

Depends on your perspective, I suppose. But I was just talking to a web- and app-based service company that started on the Microsoft stack circa 2001. They're migrating away from it partly because of tech issues, but mainly because it's much harder to hire people.

If you look at yesterday's "who's hiring" post, it's way, way less than a third of positions that are using Windows server technologies.

How many of those Windows servers are only running Exchange and Active Directory and nothing else? If I had to guess, I'd say 70% or more but maybe someone else has better estimates.

70%+ is probably accurate if you include the whole microsoft enterprise ecosystem (sharepoint etc in addition to what you mentioned)

windows is definitely a minority in web hosting

The windows devs I know just use whatever comes from Microsoft and are not interested in anything else. They believe Microsoft has the best tech :)

> That TravisCI is still the market leader in the cloud CI space

Is it?

I'm working on a platform which uses KVM and can run builds on pretty much any platform you want. It's still in alpha but if anyone wants to try it please reach out; email's in my profile.

Docs: https://man.sr.ht/builds.sr.ht/

Sample build: https://builds.sr.ht/job/2677

You plan on turning this into an actual service? BTW looks nice, I'll check it out when I get home. I like that your able to do this by your self but Travis CI can't with significantly more resources then you.

>You plan on turning this into an actual service?

Yes, but I'm taking my time and rolling it out slowly. It's used in production by a handful people for various projects, but it's lacking a lot of polish.

I'm still assuming it's been less then the 4 years since FreeBSD support was brought up and the 7 years since Windows support was brought up on Travis CI's issue tracker. But either way nice work.

Thanks for the feedback. I can promise you we are looking into this, and hope to have updates on these issues in the near future :)

The less developers cater to Windows, the better. Remember that usually it's the other way around, Windows receives support from driver/software developers, and it's seen by most as a feature of Windows. At any rate, Windows is a subpar choice for any server needs, so it's for the better.

> At any rate, Windows is a subpar choice for any server needs, so it's for the better.

This is simply not true. While I prefer a FreeBSD or Linux server to a Windows server, saying Windows is a subpar choice for all server needs is disingenuous and wrong. What if I need to run software on a server that only runs on Windows or I can only get commercial support from the vendor on Windows? Clearly Windows in the better server choice if it's the only operating system that can run the software I need. The UNIX == Good and Windows == Bad meme needs to die. Use the best tool for the job, sometimes that's a Unix OS sometimes it's Windows.

This doesn't mean that Windows is better, it just means you have no other choice because you were forced to by a vendor who didn't provide a native Linux binary.

Better software support does make Windows better in that circumstance. It doesn't matter what features or strengths Linux has over Windows if I can't run the software I need.

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