The End Days are Here...MS to sell it's own Linux distro

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I mean, it's not like they haven't "borrowed" open source software before (think: "BSD TCP/IP stack"), right? So why does this still feel like another long term effort to eliminate OSS/GPL/etc rather than a change of heart?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18 ... own_linux/

Maybe it's this other write up that contains the quote, "Further, ACS believes in Open Networking, and this will enable it to "use and extend" Open Souce, Microsoft, and Third Party applications". Almost looks like someone mistyped, "embrace, extend, extinguish" (or the author could be too young to remember it)?

http://www.digit.in/networking/microsof ... 27286.html

Although my guess is this effort will be no more successful than say, the entire lineage of Win CE through Windows Phone 8.1?

Or am I wrong?

(Note: I'm not some *NIX fangirl. I use whatever works best in a given environment.)

I've just read the headline and first paragraphs...
No... no... it can't be...

/e: Eeeh ok it's just whatever, no large-scale Windows powered by Linux desktop PCs...

That's surprising, even if it is server level.

Microsoft sponsors both Linux and Apache (the latter in particular, as this was vital to Windows 95's success), so I don't see why not.

MS didn't start sponsoring until 2008, long after Win9x was dead. From an Arstechnica article of the era:

"Microsoft's understanding of enterprise open source adoption is evolving"

The way I see it, if Obama (and plenty of F-500 corporations) have "evolved" on civil rights there's no reason Microsoft cannot likewise evolve on OSS. And they've had seven years & a change of top management since then. The question, though, is how they actually go about enacting such a thing. Much of their earlier implementations restricted access to the source to partners & of their entire library of OSS it seems much of it is under rather draconian licensing, as if 'GPL' is "the-license-which-must-not-be-named on the Redmond campus.

I'm hopeful, but not trusting.

So how long will it take for any kind of “Linux” operating system you don’t have to pay Microsoft to use to be outlawed? Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen

I think the DHS-ICE-9/11 ship has already sailed in trying to outlaw it via Congress. IIR there have been some half-hearted attempts in the past. And you can't say they didn't at least try with EUFI. That's probably the preferred route, corporate partnerships leading to hardware that makes Linux installs far less attractive to non-experts.

Linux is what managers once liked to call, "organic". Despite tight control over the kernel itself, distros are all over the map insofar as implementation strategies (see the thread on inits). As such, the phrase, "Nature will, uh...find a way" definitely applies.

Oh dear. Why though? Microsoft selling a Linux distribution is an oxymoron because Linus (Line-us) Torvalds who created the Linux kernel created it in order to be free. Ergo MS making it's own Linux distribution is a contradiction in terms, no?

^ But there already are commercial Linux distributions...

The GNU licence for Linux doesn't say that you can't sell it. "Free" in this case only means that you can copy and share the software without restriction but it doesn't mean that you can't sell copies for money.

Only a matter of making licences like the GPL, which their detractors shrewdly call "viral", legally unenforceable, or just of blatantly, systematically and bullyingly violating them and letting the FSF go bankrupt with lawsuits.

Laws could allow licences to grant or withhold only the specific freedoms big companies like Microsoft are interested in, forbidding other combinations. You can completely restrict the user from doing anything but passively running the software, and entirely depending on you for bug fixes and further development, and this is okay, but, on the other hand, if you give them total freedom with the sole exception of making proprietary derivative works, then this restriction is absolutely evil and intolerable, and it's only fair for everyone to violate it in defiance

Why is this restriction "evil"? I actually think that it's a good thing. Also, the GPL licence is enforceable under established copyright law in the sense that GPL can be interpreted as the copyright holders giving the users permission to distribute the software freely and making derivative works provided that they agree to the terms. The FSF has successfully won a number of court cases against commercial companies incorporating GSL licensed code into propriety software and violating the GPL.

I think it's a good thing, too, but I was talking about what seems likely to happen, and the way copyleft licences are often portrayed.

You misunderstand Open Source.

I'm not a fan of Windows, but I don't see the problem.

I think the 90s attitude to Windows no longer applies, there are too many players. Competition is good.

I tend towards the permissive end of the spectrum, however people need the pick the right license for the project. Those that only stick to one license becuase they are ideologically linked to it are going to have problems, down the line. GPL is suitable in some cases not all, an not not purely based on FSF recommendations but your own common sense.

The reality is Open Source has to be funded, and different projects are funded differently.

I think it is bad I found FSF had a page criticizing SaaS given this was one of the most effective and common ways of funding OS and many GPL projects. Even if it was just an opinion piece of one person, it make no sense at all.

I have to say GPL3 is a terrible license IMO, GPL2 is OK, but it isn't viable for every situation. People need to think clearly about the implications of choosing a license.

People should view OS funding purely from a goodwill perspective or from the POV of someone who sleeps in their university lab, or someone who take for granted they have other income.

Just take github the majority of licenses are permissive for a reason, it is more flexible. You have the linux kernel, then a s**t load of permissively licensed projects and some GPL.

Thankfully there is very little AGPL