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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I've been dual-booting Linux and Windows for a while, with Windows as the fall-back option in case I wanted to use Office for something. Now that they tried to trick me into paying a subscription for their AI slop machine, I'm finally, fully out. It was a pain to actually track down and back-up the stuff that was held for ransom in OneDrive, but now it is done.
I have to wonder if anyone at Microsoft is paying attention. It’s like New Coke in the 80s. They quickly realized they fucked up and rebranded the original as Classic Coke. I’m wondering if there will be a Windows Classic coming out soon with no AI, no subscription, no forced cloud dependency bullshit. lol probably not but whatever.
Keeping with the soft drink analogy, I think Pepsi tried something similar in the 90s with Crystal Pepsi, which also failed miserably.
If “lime must go up” always, then they need to come up with a better way than product enshitification.
New Coke was different in 2 important ways.
It was actually a way to hide the flavor change in the switch to Corn Syrup instead of Sugar, and never intended to be permanent.
Pepsi existed
There's no real commercial competition for Microsoft. Linux is great, but there's nobody for a business to call when shit fucks up. And Apple's walled garden and high prices make it terrible for enterprise.
The bill I paid for Suse support contact at an old company I worked for begs to differ. The problem is home or smb are a rounding error for MS. They already got your money from hp or Dell etc. When you bought your computer. Making you the product with the ad and the ai bullshit to swallow your data to train their models is all icing on the cake.
As long as people do nothing other than complain and continue to use the product they have no reason to change.
There's enterprise support for several Linux distributions like
https://www.suse.com/services/premium/ (and SEL is a thing) or
https://ubuntu.com/support
Whether those distros meet the demands is a different animal.
As long as companies are eating that they will be ok. BUT, like most tech companies, at some point they will pull a broadcom and then the alternatives will thrive.
For the moment they don't care about what the customer wants because their most important market is enterprise, not the customer. I'm not sure what would change that except hitting a critical mass of C-suite people who get fed up with it.