[ctvo]

There is a large group of people on the internet who never let the Microsoft of the 90s go.

How does every single one of their business decisions get linked to some nefarious goal? The author doesn't even know what it could be, BUT DON'T FORGET! This company tried to patent everything decades ago! Don't forget they're not bringing bash to Windows out of the goodness in their hearts!

[bad_user]

Last time I checked Microsoft was threatening Android phone makers with patents, many of those being related to Linux itself, collecting billions in patent royalties, being in essence a patents troll for the whole mobile industry. From where I'm standing, this seems no different than the Microsoft that funded the SCO lawsuit or that has spread FUD about Linux and open-source for years.

So do tell me, how did Microsoft change?

[jefurii]

Maybe part of this deal is MS agreeing not to patent-troll Canonical?

[vhab]

There seems to be a lot of conspiracy theories going on, on what I personally believe to be a really straight forward and logical reaction.

From my perspective, "Bash on Windows" is a reaction to the wide adoption of OSX for development (In particularly web development seemed to have a mass migration).

For obligatory anecdote:

I'm a longtime and loyal Windows user. Windows has been my primary development platform even though parts or all of our stack ran on some flavor of -nix. I've always encouraged my team to do the same, primary motivated by the better UX on Windows.

But, like many in the past few years, I jumped the OSX bandwagon and moved the entire department over. This wasn't a fun transition, and came with many pains. But ultimately it was a necessary transition as the tools we needed just weren't supported on Windows.

Development became more complex, tooling became mandatory at every stage of development and only OSX offered us a reasonable balance between a -nix-like environment that ran the tools with decent UX.

Microsoft's move to bring Bash to Windows will likely motivate me to migrate back in due time.

While some may be spinning conspiracy theories, I'm personally just really glad Microsoft is moving in this direction.

[larrik]

You talk like developing on Linux means doing everything in the command line. *nix UX is nothing to be ashamed of, and I personally prefer it over Windows and OS X (especially OS X).

[vhab]

From an IT and "just works" perspective, Linux was a no-go for us.

It wasn't particularly about the UX on Linux desktops, but rather they don't fit in our company culture when it comes to how assets and IT are managed.

Which is why I wrote it from my own perspective as an anecdote.

As usual, YMMV

[swsieber]

Personally, the reason I like OS X over a random linux distribution is the sane keyboard shortcut defaults - CMD+C and CMD+V just work everywhere, as well as things like CMD+W.

Well, almost everywhere. And CTRL+F is still a little wonky depending on the app you're in.

[_lce0]

For me it's the other way.

In Linux there's a clear separation of CTRL for sending messages to the app --ALT for commands-- and SUPER for messaging the OS.

I found OSX very confusing trying to mix everything into a single key.

[swsieber]

Oh, that's an insight I've never thought about. It never occurred to me that they had different purposes.

[pessimizer]

Where on Linux do Ctrl-c, v, and x not work? I haven't had a problem with them anywhere in a decade. I have largely stuck to Gnome2, MATE, and XFCE, though.

[ninkendo]

The problem with Ctrl C is that it is also the shortcut for SIGINT when the terminal is focused.

Also most terminal emulators will forward all Ctrl combinations directly over the TTY rather than capturing them in the windowing system, so in practice Ctrl-V rarely works in a terminal either. Likewise for Ctrl-W, which is typically bound to backwards-kill-word, etc.

The way it ends up in practice, shortcuts involving the Command key on OSX end up being clearly defined and consistent, because apps typically can't override them.

[j_h_s]

You need ctrl+shift+c and ctrl+shift+v, etc. in a terminal.

[timlyo]

As a die hard Linux fan, I'll admit that it'd be nice if ctrl+left/right worked the same everywhere.

On most editors it moves me one word, on the command line it inserts the control characters.

Same story for ctrl+backspace and ctrl+a.

[hollerith]

Ctrl-v doesn't work in lxterminal.

("Paste" is on the right-click menu though.)

[ocdtrekkie]

Yeah, there's a development tool I was watching that worked entirely the same on Linux and OS X, but then it has to have a special sidebar for 'if on Windows, do this'. And this will likely be able to go away with Bash for Windows.

[e40]

I agree with you 100%. The only thing I worry about, with "BASH on Windows" is how separate the subsystems are. On OS X I can interact with the desktop using osascript. Is there anything like this in the new Windows stuff? I fear there will not, based on what I've read so far.

[Roboprog]

More anecdata of that: we all have Macs for doing Java web server development at my job, which is for the UC (Davis), rather than some startup.

[gear54rus]

That abomination of a system called win10 came out just a few years ago, not in 90s.

Is spying on everyone and constantly sending telemetry even when disabled (to the extent people actually wrote a tool to go to every corner and forcefully disable it and even then it didn't work) not nefarious?

What are you even talking about here, they haven't changed a slightest bit.

Maybe I want to have updates that cannot be disabled? No, I want my machine to do what I want, not what MS wants.

Maybe I want to know that pic browsing app can't run without UAC (win8, looking at you)? I don't either, I just want to launch it.

They are still pounding that close-minded philosophy just like before. Their reputation is well-deserved.

I'm patiently awaiting another move in EEE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish) direction from them, this time with our last bastion - Linux.

[speeder]

I came from the gamedev side of things.

In there Microsoft now is perfectly still the 90s Microsoft.

From my point of view, the Linux on Win10 is a strategic move to incentive people use Windows as their sole desktop (since with this move many people won't have any reason whatsoever to use Linux at all).

I tried to convince lots of people on the Linux community that they need to react... of course, not blocking Microsoft (that would be silly, and unfree), but by fixing stuff that people wants fixed for years: Audio, driver support in general, ease of use, not having to edit text config files, and so on...

But instead I got EXTREMELY negative reactions, some people even told me they are against AMDGPU driver efforts because it would make Linux more accessible to stupid people that will need help.

[ocdtrekkie]

This is, honestly, why Microsoft doesn't need to "incentivize" using Windows as their sole desktop: The reasons are already there: People have wanted things fixed for years like audio, driver support in general, ease of use, not having to edit text config files, and so on...

Linux isn't really much of a threat to Windows because Linux hasn't even really tried to successfully reach consumer product quality. Linux developers need to focus on this.

[pjc50]

What do you think of the Steam work on this?

IMO they're doing it as a means of keeping their options open against the day when Microsoft decides not to allow a third-party app store on Windows and cuts off their air supply.

[ocdtrekkie]

That's definitely why they're doing it, and it's a good idea for a business to hedge it's bets this way. (Zynga would be sunk if Facebook ever blocked them, being dependent on one platform is a huge risk.)

But the likelihood that Microsoft would ever fully disallow third party install on Windows is nonexistent.

[sinxoveretothex]

> But the likelihood that Microsoft would ever fully disallow third party install on Windows is nonexistent.

Unless you can predict the future for as long as Microsoft exists, you can't say that.

I'm pretty sure that before the iPhone there were people saying Nokia was too big to fail, same for IBM before Windows probably.

I'm still on the fence about car companies. I sure have heard people very convincingly say that oil is a risk-free investment, that there never will be a time when oil isn't needed anymore. I have good reasons to disagree with that today.

Then again, Nokia still exists today, so I suppose a pedant could get technical about oil still filling a much diminished market in the future.

[ryao]

Having configuration files provides a superior experience to the Windows registry.

[ohnomrbill]

I like your approach sometimes. When dealing with people, I find it best to take positive changes in behavior at face value. I'm sure people could hang their past behavior over their head and treat them as though nothing has changed, but that seems sociopathic. Judging people more harshly based on past behavior is a pretty good way to keep yourself from harm, though. If it weren't unfair to others I would consider doing it.

With companies, I have no need to weigh their positive behavior more heavily. No one's feelings are at risk of being hurt; no friendships are on the line. If a company burns me with bad practices, it's safe and prudent to hold their mistakes against them. It should take a very long time for companies to build back goodwill, once lost.

[bryanrasmussen]

well the thing is - Microsoft isn't a person, it's a company - as a general rule it is reasonable to assume that companies don't do anything out of the goodness of their hearts, when you also have a good deal of bad behavior in the past ( and 20 years ago can be the recent past for a company) it might make sense to keep an increase sense of skepticism.

[ocdtrekkie]

Twenty years ago isn't "recent history" for anything in the tech industry. People who were at Microsoft back when they were "really evil" in the 90s have since WORKED AT GOOGLE (or any number of other companies you might be a fan of), and even left Google, since then.

Very few people who made decisions you may be holding over them today, actually work at Microsoft today. You can legitimately hold a decision against a person for a long time... they're still the same person, more than likely. But a company is an amalgamation of it's employees. And employees come and go.

[sametmax]

In companies, this is not as important as the general policy and vision of the group. The entity is an autonomous system greater than its parts.

[bryanrasmussen]

I'm not a fan of any company. But a company is an amalgamation of its employees, and employees when they come in absorb the company culture ( that's why everyone says the culture is important) and that's why you don't change the company culture unless a significant number of high level employees all leave at once.

and my second point is - Steve Ballmer left in 2014.

[ohnomrbill]

That's exactly my point. With people, assume they can change for the better; with companies, judge them primarily by their bad actions.

[SEJeff]

And yet they still extort companies with their secret Android "patents". Perhaps people will treat them differently when they start acting like it. Nadella is getting there, but still has a lot of work ahead of him before hardcore Linux people (like myself) really trust the motives.

[ocdtrekkie]

There's almost nothing "secret" about how Microsoft handles patents (you know about it, so do I). What'd be really interesting is actually seeing what Google does with patents. While I've got no paper to prove it, Samsung changed directions in Google's favor massively when Samsung agreed to a long-term patent sharing agreement with them. (Previously, Samsung had been looking more and more like they were going to fork or leave Android entirely.)

I suspect some patent hijinks happened there, and you and I just don't know the details.

You want to talk about secret, ask Google for a copy of the secret contracts every Android OEM is bound to.

[SEJeff]

Ummmm the list of patents they assert Android violates are secret, hence the term "secret".

[ocdtrekkie]

The list of 310 patents Microsoft's asserted Android violates has been available for... almost two years now.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/chinese-govt-reve...

Hardly secret anymore. Meanwhile, the last copy of one of Google's secret contracts we have is five years old.

[toomanythings2]

Microsoft was also fined $2 billion dollars by the EU in 2004 for anti-trust violations so it's not just the 1990s.

In addition, Microsoft was under US Federal oversight until 2011, but then had it extended another two years for failure to comply with the original court order. So let's not forget that.

[scholia]

The EU fined Microsoft for bundling the Windows Media Player, and forced it provide a version of Windows without the Media Player. Nobody bought it, so apart from providing the EU with some cash, it was completely irrelevant.

It was also characteristic of anti-trust suits in general. They are much less about whether you committed a crime, and more about whether what you did can be redefined as a crime many years later.

The DoJ supervision was extended over the readability of Microsoft's enforced documentation of communications protocols, which it was ordered to rewrite.

In her ruling, Kollar-Kotelly blamed Microsoft. "Although the technical documentation project is complex and novel, it is clear, at least to the Court, that Microsoft is culpable for this inexcusable delay," she wrote.

But she also wrote that the company had been "overwhelmingly cooperative" in the years after the antitrust settlement, and that this latest extension should not be viewed as a sanction. http://www.pcworld.com/article/142004/article.html

[fucking_tragedy]

I am holding them to the same standard I would any other business. Very few play nice when there is a motive to milk customers for a larger profit each quarter. We've seen how "Don't be evil" worked out.

They are a public traded company. They are beholden to shareholders not consumers, their customers or myself.

It is profitable to entice users into your ecosystem and trap them there. Apple, Google and Microsoft all do it.

I do have to ask, though: After being slighted for years, why should they be given an immediate pass because of very recent events that make nerds happy?

[ascotan]

You forgot to use the $ in micro$oft.

I'm waiting for the proprietary extensions to the bash shell that requires you to license your software because it was created with windows bash. MSVCRT.dll ftw

[e40]

I know this is touch-in-cheek, but my understanding is the subsystems are completely separate and can't talk with each other, so that means no msvcrt.dll.

[forkandwait]

When I first read your comment, I though you meant there is a large population who still think it is the Microsoft 90s when it comes to technology. Oh wait, I work for state government...

(SQL Server is the BEST! Outlook is the BEST! Everything can be done in Excel! Visual Source Safe is the BEST! Oh wait, TFS with a SQL Server back end is the BEST! )

[amelius]

> There is a large group of people on the internet who never let the Microsoft of the 90s go.

Those people should have a look at research.microsoft.com, and compare their (public) research output to that of companies like Apple or even Google.

[mikegerwitz]

Here's an example:

http://techrights.org/2016/03/10/charm-offensives-distract/

[sailingparrot]

So, Microsoft signed two deals related to Android/Linux with two companies, the content of those deals are undisclosed. That's pretty much all the facts we have, and this article is trying to tell us that this is an unequivocal proof of MS racketeering the open source community, seriously? Did I miss something?

[toolz]

Are you suggesting MS has legitimate claims to IP used in android? Patent trolling isn't something new to MS, so why would anyone reasonably assume MS isn't patent trolling in the absence of all the facts when we have plenty of information and historical data to make reasonable presumptions?

[scholia]

> Are you suggesting MS has legitimate claims to IP used in android?

Are you suggesting that MS has no legitimate claims to IP used in android? It seems to me that companies wouldn't do thee deals if there was no case to answer. It's not as though (for example) Samsung was a stranger to court action, and it's a much bigger company than Microsoft.

It's also a fact that Microsoft pioneered Unix on PCs in the early 1980s, and that Xenix was the most popular Unix of its day....

"Long before Linus Torvalds was able to write anything useful in C, there was a version of Unix from Microsoft called XENIX that was based on the seventh edition and BSD 4.1 with some interesting enhancements (multiple virtual consoles accessible via Alt-F1, Alt-F2,... Alt-F10 -- later inherited by Linux, record-locking facilities for database programming, etc) and an amazing level of PC friendliness that Linus will try emulate much later by essentially replicating all major design decisions that Microsoft put into XENIX for PC but using an independent codebase." http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/Finland_period/x...

[wstrange]

> It seems to me that companies wouldn't do these deals if there was no case to answer.

That is not the way the system works. For many companies it i s better to pay up for bogus IP claims rather than risk fighting it out in the courts and paying millions in legal fees.

[ocdtrekkie]

Arguably, Microsoft is known to be leveraging about 310 patents for this. There's a decent likelihood that at least a decent number of them are legitimate under current law (your views on where software patents should be aside). They may be able to defeat specific patents, individually, but that burden would be on them. Whereas the wholesale deal from Microsoft covers them from the legit ones and the illegit ones in the pile for probably an overall bargain.

It's probably pretty unlikely even most of the 310 claims would be seen as "bogus". Under current law.

[scholia]

Techrights is an anti-Microsoft hate site, and would never let actual facts -- or the lack of them -- get in the way of its bigotry....

[fit2rule]

How you think you're buying Android, but you're actually still paying for bits of Windows.

That's not fun for a lot of people.

[jrcii]

Their recent overtures toward open source are heartening, and for me did start to overcome the reputation of the old Microsoft. I was disappointed that they squandered that good will with the Windows 10 telemetry debacle.

[ocdtrekkie]

Yeah, unfortunately I feel like in their rush to catch up to other modern tech companies, they picked up a few of other companies' bad habits. Insisting on constant telemetry feels like it's plucked from the Google playbook, and I really hope Microsoft changes their stance on it at some point.

[MoreTuple]

Parts of Microsoft haven't let the 90s go, why should we?

[SunShiranui]

Mm? I don't see how one could think Microsoft has become any less nefarious than the past. Windows 10 is the prime example of this. If anything, I'm getting more worried.

[emehrkay]

Common theme: build an empire by whatever means necessary, "why you bringing up old shit?" when asked about it