When is Linux not Linux?

Microsoft is a new company, compared to the Evil Empire we all knew in the late 90’s that was fighting to eliminate competition. But have they changed or is their approach different, but with the same playbook?

We have VScode, an excellent code editor with some really handy integrations, I switched to it from Eclipse when I started to write JavaScript. We have WSL, a Linux like layer on Windows 10 and later. We have WSL 2, a legitimate Linux kernel running under a hypervisor, perhaps next to Windows on the stack. Now we have WSLg, the ability to run X11 applications inside WSL 2, and in preview we have WSA, Windows Subsystem for Android. WSA builds on the work done for WSL 2, and presumably WSLg.

All of these technologies seek to extend and embrace Linux, Microsoft’s once most hated competing technology. Microsoft’s Azure can’t exist without Linux, otherwise they turn away a great deal of market share. It is often said that the Internet runs on Linux, and I agree that is largely true.

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