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[171.62 --> 174.38] Well, it's a sort of semi-commercial conference.
[174.68 --> 176.50] It's in a bit of a weird spot, if you ask me.
[176.58 --> 182.28] It's not like Linux Fest Northwest, which is completely hippie and free open source love
[182.28 --> 182.58] fest.
[182.58 --> 187.88] And it's not something like KubeCon, which is just almost entirely sales pitches.
[188.10 --> 194.32] It seems to be to be somewhere in the middle, like it's mostly commercial sponsored stuff.
[194.54 --> 197.22] And there's a handful of talks given by real people.
[197.60 --> 202.14] And the rest are given by employees of companies who would like you to go and use their service
[202.14 --> 205.24] mesh implementation, for example, or whatever it might be.
[205.24 --> 208.94] But on the whole, the quality of the sessions was okay.
[209.56 --> 215.18] I think probably about half of the sessions I went to were good, and the other half were
[215.18 --> 216.46] really not good.
[216.96 --> 218.30] What made them really not good?
[218.80 --> 219.84] Were they sales pitches?
[220.60 --> 222.00] Yeah, a mixture of stuff like that.
[222.20 --> 229.94] Like it was clearly just, I mean, a 45-minute long infomercial, or the presenter was an intern
[229.94 --> 234.90] and had never spoken to an audience before, or, you know, those kinds of things, really.
[235.38 --> 238.86] So maybe the bar was a little low on who was accepted to speak?
[239.58 --> 239.86] Yeah.
[240.00 --> 243.82] Well, I mean, the reason I was interested in going was because Jim Salter was down to talk
[243.82 --> 248.48] about ZFS, and who doesn't want to go and listen to Jim say how bad every other fire
[248.48 --> 250.42] system in the world except ZFS is, right?
[251.32 --> 254.22] Poor guy wasn't feeling terribly well, though, so he pulled out at the last minute.
[254.64 --> 257.58] And we were left hanging, unfortunately.
[257.74 --> 259.60] No Jim Salter ZFS love fest.
[259.60 --> 262.10] You got to get your updated ZFS talking points.
[262.20 --> 262.80] What are you going to do?
[263.20 --> 263.94] Yeah, I know.
[264.18 --> 266.80] Well, what I could do instead is talk about WSL2.
[267.38 --> 272.42] Scott Hanselman, who is a Microsoft employee, I have to say was probably the best presenter
[272.42 --> 273.36] that was at the conference.
[273.72 --> 280.80] And he just had this wonderful way with him where he was funny and actually engaging and
[280.80 --> 284.22] obviously clearly knew the subject he was talking about extremely well.
[284.22 --> 292.42] And he did a very slick demo of how WSL2 and GitHub and VS Code and Windows are actually
[292.42 --> 295.78] the perfect developer platform these days.
[296.72 --> 297.90] And who would have thought?
[297.98 --> 306.12] Who had on their bingo card 10 years ago, Microsoft would nail the developer experience on Linux,
[306.36 --> 309.72] on Windows, and just make it all work seamlessly together?
[309.72 --> 311.66] I mean, mind blown.
[312.22 --> 314.86] Well, yes and no.
[315.18 --> 320.46] I mean, they have, I think actually to give credit where credit is due, I think Microsoft's
[320.46 --> 327.88] pivot to focus on Linux open source and I would say broader development tools and development
[327.88 --> 329.92] platforms, which I think is really what they've done.
[329.92 --> 332.86] That has been very impressive.
[333.48 --> 334.78] They deserve all the credit.
[334.96 --> 342.40] You very rarely see these empires, these massive corporations make these huge pivots.
[343.02 --> 349.18] A lot of times companies just get locked into a way of doing business and they just only
[349.18 --> 352.70] have tunnel vision and they fight everything else to try to protect that business model.
[353.54 --> 358.42] Microsoft figured out that they had to sacrifice a little bit of Windows and adopt and embrace
[358.42 --> 361.08] a little bit more Linux open source and things like that.
[361.18 --> 364.76] To that end, I give them total and absolute compliments.
[364.88 --> 368.38] I think they've done very well and I think it's legitimate in a lot of ways.
[369.04 --> 372.86] But I think the Achilles heel to this dream fantasy that they're saying where you can have
[372.86 --> 376.98] Windows with your compatibility and your corporate integration and you have WSL and you're just
[376.98 --> 380.76] using GitHub and VS Code and everything's great because Edge is based on Chrome.
[380.88 --> 381.72] So let's have fun.
[381.72 --> 385.88] The problem is it's still Windows.
[386.22 --> 387.72] It's still got the registry.
[387.96 --> 389.66] It's still using NTFS.
[389.84 --> 395.14] It still has an onion layered approach to the control panel and all the legacy stuff that comes
[395.14 --> 395.50] in there.
[395.60 --> 398.68] It still does all of the things that Windows does.
[398.80 --> 405.62] It's still absolutely subject to the corporate tax strategy of Microsoft and whatever thing
[405.62 --> 408.28] they're pursuing for that particular release cycle.
[408.28 --> 411.18] Windows is absolutely still influenced by it.
[411.28 --> 415.16] And as a user, you have to put up with it and wait for the next fad so they can swap it
[415.16 --> 416.36] out and put the other thing in there.
[416.66 --> 417.72] I mean, like right now, right?
[417.74 --> 422.52] They're bundling in Teams or the bundle in Cortana or they'll put ads in the start menu.
[422.52 --> 427.08] It just doesn't matter because they're always doing something else because one of the fiefdoms
[427.08 --> 431.52] and Microsoft has finally gotten their chance, their moment, and they're going to get the
[431.52 --> 433.24] numbers and they get something built into Windows.
[433.34 --> 439.02] And you will always, always have to put up with that corporate strategy tax with a Windows
[439.02 --> 439.66] workstation.
[440.14 --> 443.84] And despite what they say, the driver model on Windows still blows.
[444.02 --> 446.78] The printing subsystem on Windows still blows.
[446.96 --> 450.00] The disk IO subsystem on Windows still blows.
[450.00 --> 455.88] The Windows UI is still bloated, old, and has lots of legacy if you go just one layer below
[455.88 --> 456.96] their new lacquer.
[457.58 --> 462.20] And so, yeah, you can run a Linux kernel in a really great hyper-virtualized environment.
[462.32 --> 462.94] Good for you.
[463.26 --> 464.72] And VS Code's a pretty good product.
[465.08 --> 466.66] But I could run VS Code on Linux.
[467.00 --> 471.82] I could have a real Linux subsystem with a real Linux kernel that has real file systems
[471.82 --> 474.40] and doesn't have all that Windows legacy bullcrap.
[474.90 --> 476.16] And so it's close.
[476.52 --> 478.28] Yeah, but your audio wouldn't work though.
[478.28 --> 479.14] Yeah, yeah, right.
[479.54 --> 480.32] I mean, you're right.
[480.44 --> 484.70] And there are, absolutely, there are situations where, like, Linux doesn't cut it.
[485.08 --> 486.24] And I acknowledge that.
[486.78 --> 490.16] And that's why I think it is really great that WSL is as good as it is.
[490.70 --> 492.62] Because there are people that just have no choice, too.
[493.34 --> 494.52] And they have to use Windows.
[494.94 --> 496.44] And for them, the subsystem's there.
[496.74 --> 500.42] Well, if I want to run Flight Sim, there is no other way for me to run Flight Sim than
[500.42 --> 500.92] to run Windows.
[501.10 --> 504.86] Yeah, and there's, you know, like, I can't remember the name of it, but there's some game
[504.86 --> 506.06] that my son Dylan loves.
[506.06 --> 510.18] And so he's, you know, he's snuck in a dual boot into Windows now.