Xamarin was also closed source and $1000 per platform per year (my employer at the time was paying $3k/year for the mobile devs to churn out iOS, Android, and Windows mobile apps from one Xamarin code bas). Immediately after being acquired by Xamarin the price was dropped to zero and it was announced that the entire Xamarin platform would be open-sourced (and this promised was fulfilled less than a year later).

This is not the Microsoft of Balmer where Linux was called a cancer. Under Satya Nadella the company is serious about providing the best office and cloud products regardless of what OS you use.

I was excited when I heard about WSL. Of course I found the name confusing, Windows Subsystem for Linux, isn't it a Linux Subsystem for Windows?

Then I realized that the COM ports are not routed into WSL. I need USB-to-RS232 converters to interface with our hardware. Of course, there is a web of contradictory blog posts and announcements when that feature will be finished - one post stating if I upgrade to Creators Update MVP Edition 120394782034785023845 Build 23904782390475 or later, I can use the feature! It took me 1h to find out what version and build of Windows I had, and 1 hour to install the new Creators Update, and 1h to reinstall WSL - and guess what, the feature was absent. What a clusterfuck.

I think MS is trying to both support and not-support WSL, in the sense of building it out enough to support their internal agenda, but not where complex SLAs are needed.

So, COM port access... I don't see that being hard; I envision it as boring API-wiring, since RS232 has been standard since before Windows and Linux existed, so it's likely the code's generally similar.

But in terms of high-level support, RS232 is primarily industrial-class, with a long tail of developers and workstation uses trailing after it. Industrial immediately means complex SLAs and - nooooo - industry certifications and the like. I don't think MS wants to invest that much into WSL.

With this said, a bit of poking around found https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2017/04/14/serial-suppo..., from last year. Are you on Insider Build #16176 or later?

For a company whose existence is largely due to selling software licenses, is this surprising?

That being said, I wouldn't be surprised to see a larger open sourcing effort at Microsoft in the coming months/years. Let's hope they do it better than Oracle.

If .NET, Powershell, VS Code are any indicators, they're getting really, really good at Open Source stuff. They run a really tight ship and all it takes is to point it in the right direction. Just look at this: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/50477

It's basically their May 2017 release plan for VS Code 1.24. Fully public.

My guess is that they're preparing some major announcements, I think at some point Windows will be Open Sourced and the consumer editions will be free. Basically we'll all be beta testers for the Pro and Enterprise editions. Which is not half bad, if they ramp up QA a bit.

> Office, SQL Server or even Visual Studio - even when most of them have better open source alternatives.

I'll leave the middle one, but c'mon there is nothing close to VS and the open alternatives to Office are not in the same ball-park.

My guess is upwards of 90% of users would not use features in MSOffice not available in Open/LibreOffice. Most organizations are "creatively encouraged" (ie. forced) to use MSOffice.

Similar for SQLServer - Windows shops kind of default to it.

VS is the exception.

Open/LibreOffice have better compatibility with old versions of office. Visio is another standout with no real Open Source competitor.

I would put anything made by Jetbrains in front of VS in the imaginary queue ordering the products in the same ball-park, not just close. Some of their products (Intellij Idea Community, Pycharm Community) are open source.