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Ubuntu on Windows

(blog.dustinkirkland.com)
2049 points bpierre | 1 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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more_original ◴[31 Mar 16 06:29 UTC] No.11395372[source]▶
> 2. start gaining momentum (e.g. why should I use Linux, when on Windows I can run both Linux and Windows applications)

Remember OS/2 2.x? It could run Windows 3.x binaries, including GUI programs. The result was that noone wrote programs for OS/2. Windows programs would run both on Windows and on OS/2, so why write another one for OS/2?

Why should anyone port Linux programs to Windows now? Just write for Linux and it will work both on Windows and on Linux. So now you actually have more reason to target Linux.

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1. _pmf_ ◴[31 Mar 16 09:00 UTC] No.11395859[source]▶
OS/2 had no initial market share, i.e. there were very few initial developers. Windows still has a lot of developers (LOB applications) who don't want to touch Linux with a ten foot pole.