Ubuntu on Windows

Posted Mar 30, 2016 21:01 UTC (Wed) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
In reply to: Ubuntu on Windows by einstein
Parent article: Ubuntu on Windows

> but do windows users have some need to run some Linux app that's not available on windows? Just not feeling it.

Yes they do but you are probably not "feeling it" because you are not a Windows user.

Ubuntu on Windows

Posted Mar 30, 2016 22:29 UTC (Wed) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (4 responses)

WINE was developed to help bridge users from the proprietary Windows OS as they converted to free software.

This is intended exactly the reverse way, to leverage the free software community to promote a proprietary OS.

That Ubuntu would sponsor this is simply more revelation that their agenda is not friendly towards free software.

And those who see this in purely opportunistic terms: that's a consequence of the "open source" movement and its "pragmatism" -- which is really another way of saying its adaptation to corporate interests.

Ubuntu on Windows

Posted Mar 30, 2016 22:51 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

After such posts, I'm starting to think that _anything_ that is "bad for free software" in the end is actually a really great stuff for everybody (except Stallman).

Ubuntu on Windows

Posted Mar 31, 2016 4:48 UTC (Thu) by floriansnow (guest, #107824) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, great for everybody who does not care about computing freedom. I think the technical achievement here is neat, but all it does is let me run more Free Software on a non-free OS. And that additional Free Software is probably not all that useful to people who aren't familiar with it already, so people who could also run a completely free system. So if this is more than just a tech-demo, then it is a way to lure people back to non-free software.

Ubuntu on Windows

Posted Mar 31, 2016 5:44 UTC (Thu) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]

Uhm...
There's a large collection of workers in enterprise environments who are using computing resources dictated by corporate it policy.

Any technology advancement which makes it easier for them to use free software to do their job, even if they are forced by corporate policy to run a mix of free and non-free software, is a win...

Its called progress.

Hats off to MS and Canonical for getting things this far. It's an interesting technical achievement, with a lot of potential.

The work is far from complete from the sounds of it, even for getting a usable strictly command-line linux developer's environment working. But there is obvious potential here to make it easier for people to pick up traditional linux user-space and make use of it even if they are forced to use windows (or choose to use windows) compared to having to run a VM or container.

I skeptical of the claim that Kirkland made that "most" of the ubuntu repository packages are going to work... but i give him the benefit of the doubt... its the first public demo of this..and if MS continue to put engineer resources into this then the claim might become reality. The only way to really know is to test packages and see what works and what doesn't.

My biggest concern is if MS takes the effort just far enough to serve their own purposes..but not far enough to serve actual use cases very well. I'd hate to see users asking Ubuntu and Debian packagers to service bugs specific to the windows 10 specific implementation of the linux ABI. At the end of the day, a lot of the magic here comes down to MS willing to spend the engineering resources to service the linux compatibility layer because they are the only ones who can do the work. The lack of open development, with a clear contribution friendly development model might keep this from being able to jump from interesting potential to real solution for real users. If people can't reasonably expect to be able to use a random ubuntu package successfully.. then developers, the stated target group, are just going to use a VM as a more reliable alternative, even if its a performance hit.

Ubuntu on Windows

Posted Mar 31, 2016 6:51 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

This is Microsoft's response to the decreasing fraction of competent developers willing to shackle their careers to the Windows ecosystem. Not long ago it was considered perfectly sensible to lock yourself into MS-only languages, libraries, and tools, but it's finally recognized as extremely short-sighted. Offering the ability to work like a normal developer helps to keep them closer to competitive.

Part of this is that developers who still are locked into MS are competing with each other in a shrinking market at cut-rate prices. So, there are still plenty of them, but they are the ones who work for less because they must.