3 ms·

In all honesty, I wouldn't be that surprised if that happened at this stage - I don't know that they would have much to lose, but they'd potentially have an awf

In all honesty, I wouldn't be that surprised if that happened at this stage - I don't know that they would have much to lose, but they'd potentially have an awful lot to gain.

mrweasel 10y ago
I suspect that large part of Windows, perhaps not the kernel, but many of the required subsystems, are written by 3rd. parties and licensing will prohibit an open source release of Windows.
- xorblurb 10y ago
  There definitively are some third party components in Windows, but I believe in the core most is either written directly by MS or at least the copyrighted (or its handling) is transferred to them. Parts of an old NT kernel has already been published for a limited audience (mostly education and research, with some additional prereq and with the need of an explicit licence), so probably it can be done again.
- bostand 10y ago
  The kernel is full of third party libs too.
patrickaljord 10y ago
They still make money on every single pc/laptop that ships with windows which is still their biggest money maker with office. If they truely open source windows (BSD or else) it will be free to ship for OEM and Microsoft will lose one of their biggest source of income. tl;dr: not gonna happen
- keevie 10y ago
  Open source doesn't mean free....
  - kowdermeister 10y ago
    Be realistic, the next day 10 forks would appear distributing it for free.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      Windows is always pirated distributed for free doesn't mean they don't violate copyright laws and other restrictions. One can buy an oem or restricted region license for windows for 20$ but legally it's about the same as pirating it.
  - tormeh 10y ago
    Technically not, but look at CentOS. We'd have a knock-off Windows from Samsung or whatever in less than three months. Edit: Every OEM would have their own spin, for differentiation. Lenovo too...
  - patrickaljord 10y ago
    Actually it does mean free to redistribute, this is the essence of the BSD or even GPL licenses. And free to redistribute (for free) would be a huge loss for windows. Therefor, not happening.
- wongarsu 10y ago
  Android is open source, and still (nearly) everybody is locked into Google's version with licensing costs. Google open-sourced nearly everything, while managing to make their "apps" so entrenched that every customer expects them and even a lot of apps don't work without them.
  - taneq 10y ago
    > Google open-sourced nearly everything Nearly everything about Android the operating system. Android the app platform is deeply tied to Google Play Services, which is not open source and is once more deeply tied to Google's online services. And they've re-routed apps' access to basic phone data like GPS, camera and microphone through Google Play Services, so that if you want to use any app that uses those services you also have to let Google log those data. It's almost as bad as tivoization from the FOSS perspective, while also invading your privacy. Yay.
  - snnn 10y ago
    NO no no... Alibaba has a clone that they claim their OS, YunOS, is not Android and even it is not written in java, but can run most of Android apps.The OS is written in some java like programming language and close sourced.
- xorblurb 10y ago
  They can give access to the source code without necessarily using an Open Source licence for that.
DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
IANAL, but I expect it would open Microsoft up to countless patent, and perhaps copyright, lawsuits.
wongarsu 10y ago
If the license isn't extremely restrictive about what you can do with the source and your knowledge of it, it would be a huge boost for Wine and ReactOS. Since those two are the biggest threat to Windows on the Desktop, I don't think Microsoft would risk that.
- danieldk 10y ago
  If it's just the kernel and not the userland above it, I doubt it. Apple's open sourcing of XNU and Darwin was never an existential threat to Apple. The question is how much third-party code there is in the NT kernel. There may even be remainders of the cooperation with IBM tainting the source code (Windows NT did have an OS/2 personality at some point).
  - wongarsu 10y ago
    Based on what researchers who had access to the Windows kernel are saying, Windows has a decent amount of edge cases and special conditions to maintain backwards compatability with old software. For example if some popular software from 2000 abused some implementation detail that has since changed, Windows will detect that specific program and simulate old behaviour for it. I expect most of that stuff lives in the userland interfaces to the kernel, but at least Microsoft seems to consider those to still be kernel code.
    - xorblurb 10y ago
      If you think of kernel32 & friends, that's not actually considered kernel code. That is the "kernel" of Win32, which is mostly a userspace thing. The word kernel is just used in an overloaded way.
kodfodrasz 10y ago
I'm not sure what would they gain, apart from "internet points" for being Good Guy Microsoft.

In all honesty, I wouldn't be that surprised if that happened at this stage - I don't know that they would have much to lose, but they'd potentially have an awful lot to gain.

mrweasel 10y ago

I suspect that large part of Windows, perhaps not the kernel, but many of the required subsystems, are written by 3rd. parties and licensing will prohibit an open source release of Windows.

xorblurb 10y ago
There definitively are some third party components in Windows, but I believe in the core most is either written directly by MS or at least the copyrighted (or its handling) is transferred to them. Parts of an old NT kernel has already been published for a limited audience (mostly education and research, with some additional prereq and with the need of an explicit licence), so probably it can be done again.
bostand 10y ago
The kernel is full of third party libs too.

patrickaljord 10y ago

They still make money on every single pc/laptop that ships with windows which is still their biggest money maker with office. If they truely open source windows (BSD or else) it will be free to ship for OEM and Microsoft will lose one of their biggest source of income. tl;dr: not gonna happen

keevie 10y ago
Open source doesn't mean free....
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  Be realistic, the next day 10 forks would appear distributing it for free.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Windows is always pirated distributed for free doesn't mean they don't violate copyright laws and other restrictions. One can buy an oem or restricted region license for windows for 20$ but legally it's about the same as pirating it.
- tormeh 10y ago
  Technically not, but look at CentOS. We'd have a knock-off Windows from Samsung or whatever in less than three months. Edit: Every OEM would have their own spin, for differentiation. Lenovo too...
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  Actually it does mean free to redistribute, this is the essence of the BSD or even GPL licenses. And free to redistribute (for free) would be a huge loss for windows. Therefor, not happening.
wongarsu 10y ago
Android is open source, and still (nearly) everybody is locked into Google's version with licensing costs. Google open-sourced nearly everything, while managing to make their "apps" so entrenched that every customer expects them and even a lot of apps don't work without them.
- taneq 10y ago
  > Google open-sourced nearly everything Nearly everything about Android the operating system. Android the app platform is deeply tied to Google Play Services, which is not open source and is once more deeply tied to Google's online services. And they've re-routed apps' access to basic phone data like GPS, camera and microphone through Google Play Services, so that if you want to use any app that uses those services you also have to let Google log those data. It's almost as bad as tivoization from the FOSS perspective, while also invading your privacy. Yay.
- snnn 10y ago
  NO no no... Alibaba has a clone that they claim their OS, YunOS, is not Android and even it is not written in java, but can run most of Android apps.The OS is written in some java like programming language and close sourced.
xorblurb 10y ago
They can give access to the source code without necessarily using an Open Source licence for that.

DoofusOfDeath 10y ago

IANAL, but I expect it would open Microsoft up to countless patent, and perhaps copyright, lawsuits.

wongarsu 10y ago

If the license isn't extremely restrictive about what you can do with the source and your knowledge of it, it would be a huge boost for Wine and ReactOS. Since those two are the biggest threat to Windows on the Desktop, I don't think Microsoft would risk that.

danieldk 10y ago
If it's just the kernel and not the userland above it, I doubt it. Apple's open sourcing of XNU and Darwin was never an existential threat to Apple. The question is how much third-party code there is in the NT kernel. There may even be remainders of the cooperation with IBM tainting the source code (Windows NT did have an OS/2 personality at some point).
- wongarsu 10y ago
  Based on what researchers who had access to the Windows kernel are saying, Windows has a decent amount of edge cases and special conditions to maintain backwards compatability with old software. For example if some popular software from 2000 abused some implementation detail that has since changed, Windows will detect that specific program and simulate old behaviour for it. I expect most of that stuff lives in the userland interfaces to the kernel, but at least Microsoft seems to consider those to still be kernel code.
  - xorblurb 10y ago
    If you think of kernel32 & friends, that's not actually considered kernel code. That is the "kernel" of Win32, which is mostly a userspace thing. The word kernel is just used in an overloaded way.

kodfodrasz 10y ago

I'm not sure what would they gain, apart from "internet points" for being Good Guy Microsoft.