Fair question.
It's one way for Azure to try and bring something g to the table with AWS being as dominant as it is. If Windows has a Linux kernel, which they heading towards, isn't it just another Linux distro with support?
They can't really take over Linux if they are intentionally making stuff like .NET Framework opensource, can they?
They are trying to survive, imo. As soon as there was talk of future versions of SAMBA stepping in to be more like a windows domain controller, Microsoft made sure GNU and FOSS community doesn't make something that could compete with AD but not compatible with it.
This is all about making sure if people want to use Linux, Microsoft can still be involved. Again, why they should stop dicking around and put Office on Linux, at least for VDI and thin clients. Maybe it will inevitably once they start putting the Linux kernel in future official releases of Windows, brave new world.
I won't be able to make that my host is, maybe a VM out of curiosity.