Microsoft provides Linux images in the Open Technologies VM Depot

Conclusions

VM Depot is certainly an interesting focal point for those who want to fire up a Linux-based virtual machine into Microsoft's cloud. Thanks to BitNami, the choice is extensive, but judging from the lack of comments and ratings, you will soon conclude that the depot is still under construction and does not attract many users right now. The need to use cryptic command-line commands to start the virtual machines is not very friendly, either.

By appointing MS Open Tech as the site operator, Microsoft is effectively marketing its commitment to interoperability, open standards, and open source. However, this is entirely tailored to its own services, especially Azure: If users prefer free software, then Microsoft at least wants the data to end up on Microsoft services and in Microsoft products. On the other hand, free projects do benefit from this kind of support. Thanks to the Azure connection, perhaps more users that have previously used proprietary products will become aware of Linux machines.

The Author

Tim Schürmann is a freelance computer scientist and author. Besides books, Tim has published various articles in magazines and on websites.

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