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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Microsoft just announced that three different versions of the free Linux operating system — Ubuntu, Suse, and Fedora — are coming to the Windows Store, the app market in Windows 10.
It sounds weird, but it makes perfect sense. In early 2016, Microsoft announced the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), a way for developers to use full versions of Linux within Windows 10 itself.
Putting aside the historical ramifications here — Microsoft spent the 90s unsuccessfully trying to stamp out Linux, a free alternative to Windows — it was a move intended to bait programmers into using Windows 10.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-store-gets-ubuntu-suse-fedora-linux-2017-5
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Microsoft Store Gets Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora Linux
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Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...
(Score: 2) by Rich on Monday May 15 2017, @02:40AM
MS is not running a Linux kernel.
It's not about running anything. The FSF were adamant about asserting that no acceptance of any license should be needed to run any software. Cf. the whole EULA enforcability and UCITA thing back in the day and the rage about the GPL3 being some kind of EULA, too.
If Microsoft brings any Linux image to their store, they are distributing Linux, and that's where the GPL kicks in. With the explainingly worded section 7 I quoted, and section 6, too: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." E.g. Microsoft can't assert any patents against GPL code on the images anymore. Splitting hairs, there might be an attempt to sue Linux users outside of their distribution, so users would be only safe when they run Linux under Windows, but in turn there would be the (weird) workaround of replacing the repositories with identical source that once went through Microsoft.
I believe it when I see it actually being done. Maybe there will be a workaround where they only offer "loaders" in the store and leave the "viral" GPL stuff with external providers. But if they're going to provide the actual images, it would mean that desktop Linux as we know it is safe from (direct) Microsoft patent attacks.