Re:DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux
by skohan on Wednesday May 20, 2020 @09:12AM
(#23246428)
I think it's hyperbolic to imagine that MS will manage to fully extinguish Linux outside of WSL, but that's not the only way they could damage the linux ecosystem by leveraging the foothold they are building in the FOSS world.
It's not so hard to imagine picking up a legacy project at some point in the future, and pretty much having to develop it on Windows and deploy to Azure because of some WSL-specific dependencies baked into the framework it's built on.
That's just one scenario, but the point is why would you expect that they wouldn't leverage their market-share to disadvantage competitors if they ever got into position to do so? Just because they aren't in that position now doesn't mean we shouldn't be put off by the fact that they're building those levers to fragment the ecosystem now.
It's not so hard to imagine picking up a legacy project at some point in the future, and pretty much having to develop it on Windows and deploy to Azure because of some WSL-specific dependencies baked into the framework it's built on.
That's just one scenario, but the point is why would you expect that they wouldn't leverage their market-share to disadvantage competitors if they ever got into position to do so? Just because they aren't in that position now doesn't mean we shouldn't be put off by the fact that they're building those levers to fragment the ecosystem now.