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Ubuntu on Windows

(blog.dustinkirkland.com)
2049 points bpierre | 4 comments | 30 Mar 16 16:35 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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takeda ◴[30 Mar 16 19:39 UTC] No.11392296[source]▶
Surprised I don't see anyone else mentioning this.

This looks to me like typical Microsoft strategy that they utilized a lot 25 years ago.

1. when not leader in given market, make your product fully compatible with competitor

2. start gaining momentum (e.g. why should I use Linux, when on Windows I can run both Linux and Windows applications)

3. once becoming leader break up compatibility

4. rinse and repeat

Happened with MS-DOS, Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, and others.

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1. sabelo ◴[30 Mar 16 20:03 UTC] No.11392494[source]▶
Embrace, extend and extinguish. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
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2. wmccullough ◴[30 Mar 16 20:09 UTC] No.11392541[source]▶
Please GTFO. It's going to be awfully hard to extinguish all of their major technology When's it's developed in the wild and MIT licensed.
3. EdSharkey ◴[30 Mar 16 20:44 UTC] No.11392846[source]▶
I'm not ruling EEE out, but this move feels more like "staunch the bleeding" to capture more developers and retain the ones they have. I'd love to read a leaked Powerpoint or memo that explains the long-term strategy here.

I think this is a great move by Microsoft to be able to EXEC a competitor's binary files natively. But, I think it risks being an admission that Win32/64 syscalls and Windows file system semantics are a crufty boat anchor holding developers back. To admit that risks inviting more developers to bail on Windows.

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4. CamperBob2 ◴[30 Mar 16 21:05 UTC] No.11392997[source]▶
I'd love to read a leaked Powerpoint or memo that explains the long-term strategy here.

If MS's marketing department has half a brain at all, they will accidentally leak such a memo fairly soon.