Could you explain to me what you think an Extinguish step would look like in that sequence? Because I don't think there is a realistic one, and I don't think Microsoft thinks so either.
It's not so hard to imagine picking up a legacy project at some point in the future, and pretty much having to develop it on Windows and deploy to Azure because of some WSL-specific dependencies baked into the framework it's built on.
That's just one scenario, but the point is why would you expect that they wouldn't leverage their market-share to disadvantage competitors if they ever got into position to do so? Just because they aren't in that position now doesn't mean we shouldn't be put off by the fact that they're building those levers to fragment the ecosystem now.
So if you want a machine that can play games and run a Linux dev toolchain, that would require a Windows install. If you can incentivize folks who may never have installed Windows to do so, and keep them there as the only place they can both play games and use their preferred dev environment, then you've extinguished that portion of the desktop linux install base.
EDIT: Also I absolutely love the "I don't think Microsoft thinks so either." Microsoft is a for-profit corporation who's eyeing a way to get users who traditionally avoid them to come to their platform and stay there. They aren't some benevolent font of cool tech, they're trying to sell you products.
Microsoft is taking steps to embrace desktop Linux, we've seen that with WSL. Instead of ditching Windows for a different/better dev platform, just keep using Windows.
They are extending their own desktop Linux by adding the capability to use DX12 in Linux, so long as it's run on Windows. Note that they are not adding this capability to a straight Ubuntu install, let alone any other distribution.
To claim "Microsoft knows they can't Extinguish desktop Linux" is naive at best, and shill-like at worst. They don't need to completely eliminate desktop Linux for EEE to apply here. the "Extinguish" part comes naturally from fewer and fewer devs choosing an alternative to Windows.
Yes we are. I was talking about the motivation behind their action. And I think it's quite obvious that 'get businesses to use Azure over AWS' or 'get web developers to use Windows instead of Macs' is a much, much more likely motivation than 'Extinguish desktop Linux'. Why would they care about that? Desktop Linux is absolutely no threat to them, and there's no money to be made winning that fight more than they already have. Know what, I'll grant you that in their attempt to steal web devs over from MacOS, and getting a better user story for a web dev deploying Linux servers from Windows, they will probably also hurt desktop Linux - if nothing else, simply by creating another viable alternative for devs that isn't MacOS. But I can pretty much guarantee you that extinguishing desktop Linux is not their motivation - it simply makes no sense.
Presumably because we smart and they dumb. Or something, I don't know?
Personally, I think that their thirty years of experience and billions of dollars might make it possible for them to come up with a plan I wouldn't have thought of.
They don't have to kill Linux, and in fact, would not want that IMO, because then someone might bring another pesky antitrust suit against them. But if they can dent it in any way, they will.
For those who say Microsoft has changed, is a different company, is embracing open-source, etc.: if that truly is the case, wouldn't they release DirectX for all Linux distributions, not just theirs?
Microsoft is the dragon here. Even if it appears friendly you still don't cut a deal with it, or you become a pawn in its game.