The war was what servers run on, which is primarily Linux. Microsoft knows this, and realizes that they can make a ton more money building out a cloud service, and integrating all the stuff they have to it to build an ecosystem. Using Linux servers and windows services, or anything in between.
Windows users are still important to Microsoft, but businesses running on their cloud, using their services, are where the real big money is at. Such a market is still growing, and will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Its one thing to point to current profits of Azure, its another to point to potential future profits.
WSL is a step toward integrating existing windows developers and users to using their cloud. Buying github, building and supporting VSCode, and integrating WSL are all built for developers, and all sensibly integrate with Azure at some level, either directly or indirectly.
Normal windows users wont need or want to use Linux at any level and will probably go about their day without even knowing what WSL actually is. So the core userbase of windows probably wont change due to WSL what-so-ever.
A better argument could be made that ChromeOS is a bigger threat to the userbase of windows than anything related to WSL. (windows 10X anyone?) This sort of discussion can be dealt with at another time though haha
People Love to make outlandish statements like this without any real backing because "Linux" is not an OS, it's a kernel on to which there's literally 1,000's of distros built.
It's like claiming "cars are more popular than Ford" ... well duh!
As I pointed out to a friend of mine that likes to bang on about how popular PHP is and points at the number of servers running it, there's likely other reasons for what you're seeing that don't reflect in the stats. The fact that it's been proven you can get more performance from compiled languages (and that companies like Facebook don't just use PHP out of the box, they completely rebuild the compiler) and still get lumped in to the same stat pile speaks volumes to me about how "open source" is viewed in general.
If you want to compare operating systems by all means do that but you can't declare a kernel better than an OS so lets compare shall we ...
Across all Linux distros the total number of viruses / exploits known are far in excess of windows server distributions so out of the box Linux fans age old argument of "Linux is more secure" goes out the window.
Then you have to add in that every distro has it's "thing" that it's good at with some making good web servers, some good for files servers some for scientific needs, ect but none of them are the all rounder that Windows Server is and the bulk suck at the thing they don't do well.
I would rather one OS that does everything even if I have to some concessions than need to individually deploy 100 different distros which I then have to track all the security issues with, learn and manage independently and deal with patching / versioning on independently on my corporate network. I then need to weigh the cost of support contracts and maintenance in terms of my teams skill base, finding wide varied skill sets is pricey. This makes Linux a manpower and costing overhead nightmare unless I specifically get into bed with say Red Hat ... but we aren't comparing them, because if we were Red Hats adoption stats wouldn't be nearly as impressive would they.
Instead Linux fans only have to say "but the 90's happened" like that somehow brushes any argument for consistency away.
And on that point we get to the main reason I avoid Linux:
Yes it can do everything, and yes if you find the right distro it's better at the thing you want it to do.
But the ecosystem as a whole is fragmented, which results in half backed, badly polished software that you have to fight all the time or spend hours in a terminal window to manage.
This is the 21st century, a good OS just works, so well in fact you don't even know it's there.
Some common examples i've seen recently from Linux fans around me ...
GPU drivers are a pig.
Gaming in general is a badly written joke, yes most stuff will run but it's a battle to setup.
Each package store has it's pro's and con's
Every UI has hidden problems or concessions or issues.
Most of the statements are true, but miss the core point of my post unfortunately.
"Linux" is not an OS
Linux distros the total number of viruses / exploits known are far in excess of windows server distributions
This makes Linux a manpower and costing overhead nightmare
GPU drivers are a pig.
Gaming in general is a badly written joke, yes most stuff will run but it's a battle to setup.
Each package store has it's pro's and con's
Every UI has hidden problems or concessions or issues.
The core point of my post, was the first line.
Linux already won the war that matters long ago.
This isn't an opinion, its a fact.
I wasn't pointing to all the amazing advantages of Linux (the name I'll call all distributions that include the Linux kernel, which most people do in fact also call Linux, for simplicity sake) over Windows, or how Linux was X, Y, Z. I only pointed out the fact the current cloud runs on Linux, and been primarily Linux for some time now, and I don't see that changing.
Even Azure primarily runs on Linux ref
This isn't because Linux is inherently safer, provides a better place to game, isn't fragmented, or is inherently easy to use. Its because primarily of key 1 reason.
Its Open Source
I believe "reach" is the key deciding factor of what gets "popular". JavaScript is popular and growing, not because its a good language (its not), but because its the language of the web.
PS. I think your barking up the wrong tree. I'm a ChromeOS fan, but as I mentioned earlier, this can be a story for another time ;D
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Linux already won the war that matters long ago.
The war was what servers run on, which is primarily Linux. Microsoft knows this, and realizes that they can make a ton more money building out a cloud service, and integrating all the stuff they have to it to build an ecosystem. Using Linux servers and windows services, or anything in between.
Windows users are still important to Microsoft, but businesses running on their cloud, using their services, are where the real big money is at. Such a market is still growing, and will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Its one thing to point to current profits of Azure, its another to point to potential future profits.
WSL is a step toward integrating existing windows developers and users to using their cloud. Buying github, building and supporting VSCode, and integrating WSL are all built for developers, and all sensibly integrate with Azure at some level, either directly or indirectly.
Normal windows users wont need or want to use Linux at any level and will probably go about their day without even knowing what WSL actually is. So the core userbase of windows probably wont change due to WSL what-so-ever.
A better argument could be made that ChromeOS is a bigger threat to the userbase of windows than anything related to WSL. (windows 10X anyone?) This sort of discussion can be dealt with at another time though haha
People Love to make outlandish statements like this without any real backing because "Linux" is not an OS, it's a kernel on to which there's literally 1,000's of distros built.
It's like claiming "cars are more popular than Ford" ... well duh!
As I pointed out to a friend of mine that likes to bang on about how popular PHP is and points at the number of servers running it, there's likely other reasons for what you're seeing that don't reflect in the stats. The fact that it's been proven you can get more performance from compiled languages (and that companies like Facebook don't just use PHP out of the box, they completely rebuild the compiler) and still get lumped in to the same stat pile speaks volumes to me about how "open source" is viewed in general.
If you want to compare operating systems by all means do that but you can't declare a kernel better than an OS so lets compare shall we ...
Across all Linux distros the total number of viruses / exploits known are far in excess of windows server distributions so out of the box Linux fans age old argument of "Linux is more secure" goes out the window.
Then you have to add in that every distro has it's "thing" that it's good at with some making good web servers, some good for files servers some for scientific needs, ect but none of them are the all rounder that Windows Server is and the bulk suck at the thing they don't do well.
I would rather one OS that does everything even if I have to some concessions than need to individually deploy 100 different distros which I then have to track all the security issues with, learn and manage independently and deal with patching / versioning on independently on my corporate network. I then need to weigh the cost of support contracts and maintenance in terms of my teams skill base, finding wide varied skill sets is pricey. This makes Linux a manpower and costing overhead nightmare unless I specifically get into bed with say Red Hat ... but we aren't comparing them, because if we were Red Hats adoption stats wouldn't be nearly as impressive would they.
Instead Linux fans only have to say "but the 90's happened" like that somehow brushes any argument for consistency away.
And on that point we get to the main reason I avoid Linux:
Yes it can do everything, and yes if you find the right distro it's better at the thing you want it to do.
But the ecosystem as a whole is fragmented, which results in half backed, badly polished software that you have to fight all the time or spend hours in a terminal window to manage.
This is the 21st century, a good OS just works, so well in fact you don't even know it's there.
Some common examples i've seen recently from Linux fans around me ...
That's just the last week or so.
Wow this is a lot, like a lot.
Most of the statements are true, but miss the core point of my post unfortunately.
The core point of my post, was the first line.
This isn't an opinion, its a fact.
I wasn't pointing to all the amazing advantages of Linux (the name I'll call all distributions that include the Linux kernel, which most people do in fact also call Linux, for simplicity sake) over Windows, or how Linux was X, Y, Z. I only pointed out the fact the current cloud runs on Linux, and been primarily Linux for some time now, and I don't see that changing.
Even Azure primarily runs on Linux ref
This isn't because Linux is inherently safer, provides a better place to game, isn't fragmented, or is inherently easy to use. Its because primarily of key 1 reason.
Its Open Source
I believe "reach" is the key deciding factor of what gets "popular". JavaScript is popular and growing, not because its a good language (its not), but because its the language of the web.
PS. I think your barking up the wrong tree. I'm a ChromeOS fan, but as I mentioned earlier, this can be a story for another time ;D