Microsoft open-sources PowerShell and ports it to Linux and OS X

PowerShell is an advanced form of command prompt. It is extended with a huge set of ready-to-use cmdlets and comes with the ability to use .NET framework/C# in various scenarios. If you have the skill to write scripts, you can create some very powerful ones to automate Windows. Microsoft has announced that it is open-sourcing the Windows command line tool PowerShell, and that alpha builds will be available today for Linux and OS X.

Rumors that PowerShell would become open source appeared on the Internet in July.  PowerShell source is now officially available on GitHub

PowerShell on GitHub

Microsoft also announced two major changes they made to PowerShell. The first is the PowerShell Editing Service, which will allow users to choose between a number of editors, such as Visual Studio Code. This will allow you to utilize some of the unique features of the editor, like Intellisense.

The other one is that Microsoft will be "extending the PowerShell Remoting Protocol (MS-PSRP) to use OpenSSH as a native transport. Users will have the option to use SSH or WINRM as a transport."

This initial release of PowerShell is Alpha based and is community supported through GitHub. Packages are available for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, CentOS 7.1, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan. The list of known issues is also provided on GitHub HERE (via).

What do you think about this move by Microsoft? Do you need PowerShell on Linux or Mac?