Re:Microsoft submits Linux kernel patches to enable complete...
by etripe on Thursday September 17, 2020 @06:00AM
(#24502800)
As someone who obviously cares about open software, how do you feel about Apple's increasingly consumer hostile actions and their walled garden ecosystem? Haven't they "embraced, extended and extinguished" Linux in a very real way?
You are free to do that now. Maybe Linux meets your needs, or maybe Windows, or something else.
>> Lets say I decide to build a linux app that is dependent on Microsoft APIs, as you fear: what's stopping you from just not using it? If Microsoft allows this, and we're legal with the licensing, what gives you the right to (1) control how I build the software I want to build, and (2) control what kinds of software my users want to use?
Nothing gives me that right. The problem isn't about you or your users. The problem is that longer term, developers like that end up using MS APIs on Linux and then all Linux users are forced to use MS APIs and we all end up paying for it. I don't pay MS anything these days, I use Apple and Linux systems and I don't want MS and other developers to ruin one of my options.
Fortunately the Linux Kernel folks are well aware of this type of thing and don't allow GPL licensed shims that serve no purpose other than supporting proprietary binary blobs.