Azure Linux released at Build – where Microsoft revealed why it did not fork Fedora

Microsoft has announced the general availability of Azure Linux, a new open-source operating system distribution. The company built the OS from scratch, without forking any existing Linux distribution like Fedora. It is commercially supported, but the primary purpose is to run as a container host in Azure Kubernetes Service. The OS is described as opinionated as it only includes the bare minimum to run a Kubernetes cluster with a focus on Azure. Azure Linux is not comparable to Amazon Linux, but Microsoft hopes the community will build it into a similar product comparable to Amazon Linux.