Microsoft's Growing Control of Linux

There's an enduring belief in the Linux community that the reason the year of the Linux desktop hasn't come about has nothing to do with lack of stable ABI, API, murky processes of app distribution, inaccessible development processes, basic functionality like graphics acceleration or audio being dodgy for decades, but is exclusively due to dastardly machinations of Micro$oft (with a dollar sign of course, as other, trillion dollar tech companies who use Linux, aren't in it for the money).

Please grow up and take a look in the mirror.

People have been warning this for a decade and nobody listened.

But I am shocked to know Lennart "Systemd" Poettering is working for Microsoft.

To be fair with Microsoft, they are only following Red Hat's playbook.

Red Hat has been doing this for 3 decades: they pay for conferences, they donate for projects and they hire developers working in such projects.

This was how Red Hat took influence over almost the entire Linux desktop stack: GTK, Gnome, Flatpack, Wayland, Systemd, Pulseaudio and many others fundamental pieces of software have their development process controlled by Red Hat employees.

Microsoft is just following what already worked.

> “Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.” — Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer

> Just the same, over the last few years, Microsoft has invested heavily in obtaining control over key portions of the Linux (and, to some degree, open source) ecosystem.

This seems incredibly disingenuous.

The article is implying there's a smooth continuity between these two sentences, and basically pretending Satya Nadella doesn't exist.

This is like saying "For years, Microsoft has completely ignored accessibility in video games. And now they're investing in the adaptive controller and forcing developers to implement accessibility features? Why? Why are trying to control accessibility?" without mentioning Phil Spencer.

> Well. If we’re simply being practical and objective… Microsoft seems to have achieved the “Embrace” and “Extend” portion of the old “Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.” business plan.

How? How have they done that? Leaving aside that Microsoft hasn't done EEE in a while, the article doesn't mention anything that could count as the "Extend" part of EEE. They haven't released an extended version of Linux with Microsoft-exclusive features, they haven't created special Github plans that only work if you're using Microsoft Office, they haven't released a special version of Git that only works with Visual Studio or VsCode, etc.

There's reasonable distrust, which Microsoft certainly has earned, and then there's paranoia.

It could also be that open source/free software has become so successful that Microsoft can't avoid bumping up against it anymore. The issue to fear, in my view, is legislation that would potentially eviscerate open source licensing models.

Microsoft, Red Hat, others providing money to open source initiatives is a double edged sword with good and potentially bad side effects.

Github was scary enough just as a monolith of FOSS code. In microsoft's hands, it's terrifying: they have shown lack of integrity in the past that makes their current professions (and examples!) of civilized behavior suspect.

Is your project dead or is it just that Github et all the PR's others sent? Is your project discoverable there or is it buried in irrelevant search results?

Could Microsoft open some of their older code? a FOSS (as far as possible) Win2k would still be of value to the world.

This is certainly not sane to presume that m$ is not pulling some strings in the shadows. Don't forget they own the linkedin database, they are "all-knowing" of ppl professional networks (or probably good chunks of them): targeted recruitment can be extremely efficient: you know, that "random" microsoft guy in the cafe who did offer you your current job. Amazon does employ the daughter of one of its most powerfull regulators in the USA... as a lobbyist (last week tonight show with John Oliver).

Is this that unfortunate that the "absolutely non-controversial" systemd (I don't run that horrible BIP) author ends up in m$? (irony).

"why ID software is not releasing doom glibc/linux builds anymore?" to learn that m$ bought their parent company. BTW, will that happen too for silk song (the game)?

How much of the linux kernel you have into the doz kernel?

Embrace, extend, extinguish. Microsoft's bread and butter.

Why wouldn't they want to control something, that is just a subsystem for Windows? Seems logical to me.

Scary.