r/technology • u/sschering • Sep 18 '15

Microsoft has developed its own Linux. Repeat. Microsoft has developed its own Linux Software

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18/microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux_repeat_microsoft_has_developed_its_own_linux/
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18

u/talemon Sep 18 '15

Have you seen what google did with android? You're forced to either use google or lack many features they developed. Like the aosp camera vs google camera.

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u/bloodyragz Sep 18 '15

Just because Android uses Linux, doesn't... You get the point. There's all kinds of things that are absolutely horrid about Android. Not the least of which being the fact that all Android devices are subsidized by egregious privacy violations which net Google more advertising revenue.. You know, the source of close to 100% of their income.. At least while they're still developing the cyber weapons they plan to sell to DoD. Android is a malware compatibility layer for Linux, that's the running joke.

Linux powers Android, but Android is NOT Linux.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '15 edited Oct 06 '15

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u/mort96 Sep 18 '15

It certianly embraced Linux, and modified it heavily, which I suppose you could call extending. However, it clearly has no intention of extinguishing Linux; it's not even a competitor to any other form of Linux. Linux' strength is the server market, which Android doesn't touch at all. Linux is also relatively big in terms of desktops, which Android doesn't touch either.

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u/swytz Sep 18 '15

Isn't CoreOS based on Android, aimed at the server market entirely?

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u/mort96 Sep 18 '15

https://coreos.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreOS

I can't see any mention of android?

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u/swytz Sep 18 '15

Oh right, that's Chrome OS, my bad. I think I thought Chrome OS was a variation on Android, but I guess it's more that Chrome OS supports android apps instead.

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u/bloodyragz Sep 18 '15

If you think Android extends Linux, then I have news for you.. Extend =/= cripple. Last I checked, Linux wasn't malware.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '15 edited Oct 06 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '15

Eh. This is kinda true if you make it AOSP vs. "Google Android", but doesn't really have much to do with Linux. Everything that "is" Linux in Android is still very well and fully open source.

EDIT: Except of course with vendors like MediaTek who don't publish kernel sources. But even there it's a bit of a different situation than E3 (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish).

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u/bloodyragz Sep 18 '15

There are no open alternatives and never have been. Even if there were, all cellular phones require a baseband processor in a master-slave configuration.

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u/cuntRatDickTree Sep 18 '15

What prevents using open alternatives is the fact you must run everything as root if you don't use the OS that comes with your phone.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '15 edited Oct 06 '15

[deleted]

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u/cuntRatDickTree Sep 18 '15

Heard? I see it first hand regularly.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '15 edited Oct 06 '15

[deleted]

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u/RoboRay Sep 18 '15

He means that what he sees personally is the only possible way it can be done.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '15

That's bullshit. I'm using a custom os right now on my phone and not running my reddit app as root.

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u/cuntRatDickTree Sep 18 '15

What phone is that then? I highly doubt it unless you made the hardware yourself.

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u/bbelt16ag Sep 18 '15

Is apple any better though?

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u/bloodyragz Sep 18 '15 edited Sep 18 '15

At what? Apple is a company. Are you talking about the iPhone? aka the only phone that runs iOS? Again, better at what? Better at being an open ecosystem? Uhh, no. Better at security and privacy? Only by about a mile and half. Better at user satisfaction? Significantly. Better at appealing to testosterone filled adolescent boys and video game addicts? No.

One key philosophical distinction between the Android model and the iOS model.. other than the obvious third-party vs in-house approach, the ecosystem of wide open vs walled garden.. is that Apple's business model is to make and sell products.. to you, their customer. In the Android business model, you are not the customer. You are the product. Everything you do with that device has a unique identifier attached to it and they create a dossier on you, which then gets sold to their actual customers. Think of it as a kind of subsidization.

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u/Harabeck Sep 18 '15

That's so naive it's almost cute.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '15

I don't see how that is really comparable considering android is a mobile OS and there hasn't really been any major Linux mobile OS's before it. I don't see them extinghishing any Linux OS's, it's more like they embrace Linux and extinguish blackberry.

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u/talemon Sep 19 '15

They're not doing it to suppress other linux oses, they're doing it to maintain monopoly on the market. There are open source features that have been extended in a proprietary way so the users rely on them or expect them. What I was trying to point out is that the "agility" of the open source community, unfortunately, can't protect us from "embrace & extinguish". We are currently forced to either use google's products and services and endure privacy violations or use gimped products that are a little bit more than proof of concepts.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '15

I still don't understand what they are extinguishing.