Why Microsoft needed to make Windows run Linux software

And how it could leapfrog Apple as the dev platform of choice.

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[moltonel]

Wind the clock back 15 years and Windows was the only serious platform for software developers. Linux was already an important consideration for servers, but on the desktop was even less of a concern than it is today, reserved only for the most hardcore fans. OS X was in its infancy, and only ran on weird, expensive, underpowered PowerPC hardware. This made Windows the development platform of choice by default. There simply wasn't any good alternative.

16 years ago I entered a programming school. 95% of the work was done on various *nix flavors. The rare times we used Windows was for some gaming side-projects or some specific software like 3d modelers. No need to be a "hardcore fan", Linux was already a very good alternative for development back then. I've never needed to do any professional work on Windows. Maybe Ars staffers have a view of "development" that is highly biased towards "game development" where Windows actually was much stronger at the time (much less so nowadays, even if the market share hasn't caught up yet).