Yes. Microsoft really dropped the ball on this one.
So much of what Microsoft has been doing — GitHub, .NET Core, NPM, Visual Studio Code, Windows Subsystem for Linux, etc. — has been to build goodwill with “developers! developers! developers!” Taking the resources to do an acquihire (or hire + bonus) right is small relative to the PR hit.
Exactly. All the things you mentioned are great, and a sign that after decades of being insular, blindly corporately evil, Microsoft started becoming worthy of interest.
And when I first heard about WinGet I though, "Yay! They continue to catch up to the place where developers are! Good for them!", but then this surfaced.
> Windows Subsystem for Linux, etc. — has been to build goodwill with “developers!
WSL has been built for webdevs not to flock to *NIX from Windows, nothing else.
Even naming it "Windows Subsystem for Linux" is an insult, since it sounds as if it was something for Linux, when in reality it's a "Linux Subsystem for Windows" and doesn't benefit Linux itself in any way.
> Even naming it "Windows Subsystem for Linux" is an insult…
The developers of WSL have said* that was mostly a legal concern. Calling it “Linux Subsystem for Windows” (listing “Linux” first) has wider implications for copyright/licensing:
> Just who is allowed to call a product or service Linux, anyway?
> Linus Torvalds has an answer for that: Nobody. Not without his say-so.
> The term "Linux" is a trademark and Torvalds owns it. His assignee, an organization called the Linux Mark Institute (LMI), is empowered to collect licensing fees from companies and individuals who want to use the word commercially.
Are you telling me MS could not be bothered to even ask Linus? And if there's a fee to pay it? They're a multi-billion dollar corp telling us they love Linux now.
Alternatively, calling it something like Nix subsystem for Windows or maybe just LSW would also do the trick, this seems like a lame excuse.
So much of what Microsoft has been doing — GitHub, .NET Core, NPM, Visual Studio Code, Windows Subsystem for Linux, etc. — has been to build goodwill with “developers! developers! developers!” Taking the resources to do an acquihire (or hire + bonus) right is small relative to the PR hit.