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I don't think open sourcing the entire OS is possible due to reasons raised by other posts, but maybe they could open source the kernel. This is the central par

I don't think open sourcing the entire OS is possible due to reasons raised by other posts, but maybe they could open source the kernel. This is the central part of Windows and what is actually important. Maybe they could even open source DirectX or some other proprietary library that became a standard over the years, like WPF, who knows.

justwalt 8y ago
How likely would open sourcing DirectX be? My understanding is that DirectX is a big reason that game developers prefer not to support other platforms. Wouldn’t that let competing platforms have a better chance? That would be a change I’d love to see. But I think a better change would be for newer games not using DirectX and choosing Vulkan instead.
- floatboth 8y ago
  Dropping DirectX and allowing Vulkan on the XBox would be the great move. Would that ever happen? Well, if they can drop EdgeHTML..
  - mariusmg 8y ago
    > Dropping DirectX and allowing Vulkan on the XBox would be the great move. The sad thing is Vulkan and DX12 are not gaining traction even on PC. Very few games support these low level apis , so adding support for Vulkan on Xbox seems pointless first and foremost.
- Const-me 8y ago
  Even if they want to, I think it’s technically very hard to accomplish. See this pic: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/display/windows-vista-and-later-display-driver-model-architecture https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/di... Many critical components are deep inside Windows kernel, in dxgkrnl.sys, they are very hard to unbundle from the rest of the kernel. Other critical components are in vendor-implemented drivers, both user mode (this part compiles shaders and implements many per-game compatibility hacks) and kernel mode (this one talks to actual hardware). Fortunately, there’re already third-party implementations of D3D on top of something else. Gallium 9, the main downside is no Intel GPU support. DXVK currently only supports D3D 10-11 and WPF is based on 9, but apparently some people are working on D3D9 support. There’s also VK9.

justwalt 8y ago

How likely would open sourcing DirectX be? My understanding is that DirectX is a big reason that game developers prefer not to support other platforms. Wouldn’t that let competing platforms have a better chance? That would be a change I’d love to see. But I think a better change would be for newer games not using DirectX and choosing Vulkan instead.

floatboth 8y ago
Dropping DirectX and allowing Vulkan on the XBox would be the great move. Would that ever happen? Well, if they can drop EdgeHTML..
- mariusmg 8y ago
  > Dropping DirectX and allowing Vulkan on the XBox would be the great move. The sad thing is Vulkan and DX12 are not gaining traction even on PC. Very few games support these low level apis , so adding support for Vulkan on Xbox seems pointless first and foremost.
Const-me 8y ago
Even if they want to, I think it’s technically very hard to accomplish. See this pic: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/display/windows-vista-and-later-display-driver-model-architecture https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/di... Many critical components are deep inside Windows kernel, in dxgkrnl.sys, they are very hard to unbundle from the rest of the kernel. Other critical components are in vendor-implemented drivers, both user mode (this part compiles shaders and implements many per-game compatibility hacks) and kernel mode (this one talks to actual hardware). Fortunately, there’re already third-party implementations of D3D on top of something else. Gallium 9, the main downside is no Intel GPU support. DXVK currently only supports D3D 10-11 and WPF is based on 9, but apparently some people are working on D3D9 support. There’s also VK9.