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StrawberryPigtails @lemmy.sdf.org

4d ago

Why Microsoft open sourced PowerShell and ported it to Linux

Why Microsoft open sourced PowerShell and ported it to Linux

In the comments section of a recent post I found out that Windows PowerShell had been ported to Linux. Had no clue it was a thing.

Went looking and found this old article attempting to explain why they did it. Not remotely interested in giving up Bash for PowerShell, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. The article seems to be from 2016.

I have never been more tempted to check the NSFW box, but I'll leave it open for now unless a mod complains. :-D

69 comments

In short: microsoft was afraid of losing devs to linux due to an increase in linux servers.
- How does this help though? If anything they would've helped themselves by porting more Linux commands to work natively in Windows. This move makes it easier for Windows admins and devs to switch to Linux. With the latest horrible moves in the Windows desktop space I can't believe they're trying to become the "RedHat of Windows".
  
  Embrace
  Extend
  Extinguish
  It's been the Microsoft Business plan since practically the beginning.
  
  If your os is windows and use ps, you can use ps on your linux vms as well. It prevents that you have to learn power and bourne. Such that it feels a bit more integrated. If you couldn't use ps, you had to use both shells which may lead to a migration to linux
  
  No one in there right mind uses Powershell on Linux
- They like Linux servers since they make boatloads of money from Azure.
  What they are scared of are Linux desktops and Macs. Windows is losing market share and Microsoft is to big to actual know why.
  
  "Why is everyone going to linux when we are shoving copilot into fucking notepad.exe??"
  
  It became untenable well before that for certain people. It's all stuff that can be changed or disabled but the Start Menu in Windows 10 with the tiles, and its default search on Bing was infuriating. I do tech support and some clients just don't bother to deactivate it. There is also the whole thing about Microsoft removing parts of the old Control Panel and its utilities.
  But another aspect of why they may also be losing market is how bad they have been with other architectures, like ARM. Windows for ARM seems to be lacking a lot. Even though they have been slowly getting better with emulation, they are still very much behind macOS and Linux. And I'm just a level 1 tech, but it seems like ARM devices and other low power architectures will slowly replace the old home desktops. They may have made a big mistake there.
  But they still hold the corporate world and governments by the balls so, it's gonna be interesting to see.
  
  I mean. For me it was the constant forced updates, the adversarial secret config options that may or may not be misdirecting lies that do nothing, constantly forcing edge install, every (forced) update causing worse performance and making the ui shittier, trying to shove one drive down your throat so they can harvest that sweet personal data, forced online accounts, etc.

69 comments