14 ms·

Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

142 points by watchdogtimer 8y ago

rbanffy 8y ago
They could even use WSL to put Linux on top of the NT kernel. It'd be called Microsoft GNU/Windows. Or they could ditch the GNU part and go for a non-GNU libc and userland like the article suggests. That wouldn't save nearly as much money as the article speculates because the Windows userland is humongous - NT is a small part of the whole, much like the Linux kernel is a vanishingly small part of the distributed effort of building desktop Linux distros.
- h1d 8y ago
  Is WSL that complete? There could be tons of edge cases where stock Linux binaries could behave slightly differently and could be a support nightmare.
  - AaronFriel 8y ago
    I regularly develop Haskell, Rust, Node, etc. on WSL. It's dramatically improved since the early days, and that was already pretty magical. I find it funny you mention "stock Linux binaries", the distributions that are available on top of WSL are stock Linux distributions. Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, etc. There aren't any non stock Linux binaries involved.
  - danieldk 8y ago
    It is surprising how well it works. I tried a massive compiled Prolog TK application that has been developed since the '90ies. It worked perfectly without much effort. https://danieldk.eu/Posts/2017-01-10-Alpino-Windows.html https://danieldk.eu/Posts/2017-01-10-Alpino-Windows.html
- ryacko 8y ago
  The last time Microsoft released a monolithic kernel was with Windows ME. Google has developed their own non-GPL userlands, u-root and toybox. Personally am surprised that Microsoft did not try to compete with OpenVZ and offer their own containers or easier to script sandbox.
gingerbread-man 8y ago
Here's a dopey idea: What if Microsoft open-sourced the Windows NT kernel? (While retaining some proprietary drivers, etc..) If handled well, a community would blossom around "NT," with multiple "unofficial" distros (maybe one with full POSIX compatibility), and lots and lots of happy developers. If things went really well, they might even achieve the resources necessary to create Windows Phone 2.0. Microsoft could still make money from consumer/enterprise support plans (i.e. AppleCare), and via commissions on sales in the Windows app store. And an open-source Windows could lead to growth as a cloud OS, driving revenue for MS Azure. Open sourcing the Windows kernel would be the ultimate culmination of Microsoft's turnaround, and IMHO a fair penance for evil deeds past. Nothing could do more to invigorate the open-source community. I would be so delighted I might even start to use Bing! It's never going to happen, but it is a very pleasant dream. Far better than "One Kernel to Rule them All!"
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  This is commonly suggested and I don't even think from a business revenue standpoint it would be a big deal for them. The biggest issue is that it is a 20 year code base with 20 year old bugs and open sourcing the whole thing would immediately generate open season on Windows boxes from a security standpoint. You'll see Microsoft open source new things as they go, and probably smaller components as they rework them, but I doubt you'll ever see a truly fully open source Windows, just because of the amount of work involved.
  - gingerbread-man 8y ago
    A very good point. But if that were the only impediment, I suspect Microsoft could come up with a rollout plan to mitigate (though not completely eliminate) this problem. Releasing a "preview" of the kernel source to trusted security researchers and academics might be a start.
    - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
      Believe it or not, trusted security researchers and academics already can request parts of the Windows source code, under non disclosure agreements, of course. But it's one of the largest codebases in the world, AFAIK, and it's immensely complicated. It's hard to quantify just how much work would need to be done to verify it was even marginally safe for release. And there's tons of licensing related issues as well, as far as where Microsoft may have gotten some of the code inside Windows. It's not impossible, but it's a big gamble, and Microsoft is not a company that gambles big. It's not really in their culture to do what you're suggesting. I would be thrilled if they did, but I'd be jaw-droppingly shocked if it did.
simonblack 8y ago
I suggested on Mini-Microsoft about 10 years ago that Microsoft do an 'Apple'. Apple took a free OS from BSD and put their own GUI over the top of it. I suggested that MSFT do the same sort of thing, that being to put their Windows GUI on top of the Linux OS instead of using the Linux X11 GUIs. This had the advantage that the underlying OS base would no longer need maintaining by Microsoft, and all their coding efforts could be allocated to the Windows GUI, thus permitting Windows versions to be released far more often than every 5 years as was the case back then. Being full of Softies, the crowd on Mini-Microsoft dismissed my suggestion out of hand, it being sacrilege of course to even think of marrying the 'upstart' Linux with the 'sacred' Windows code. Naturally, today I am smiling to myself that MSFT could have taken my idea and run with it, but were too hidebound to do so and have lost 10 years in the process.
- j1vms 8y ago
  Never too late for them to make a go for it, even today. But, to avoid alienating their huge existing developer community, they would first do well to get behind Mono [0] and maybe even, make it official (edit: Mono is "Sponsored by Microsoft", so already quite official indeed). In fact, as of 2014, there have been very promising signs in that direction. [1] [0] https://www.mono-project.com/ https://www.mono-project.com/ [1] https://opensource.com/business/14/11/microsoft-dot-net-empower-open-source-communities https://opensource.com/business/14/11/microsoft-dot-net-empo...
  - daeken 8y ago
    Mono isn't sponsored by Microsoft; they bought it. They also publish an insane number of things completely open source, developing them in the open. .NET Core being a huge one, but ASP.NET, VSCode, ChakraCore, TypeScript, and so many others. There are 2181 repositories in the MS Github account.
  - geofft 8y ago
    Microsoft acquired Xamarin, the corporate sponsors of Mono, in 2016.
- innagadadavida 8y ago
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
They could and they should. Linux is an amazing OS and to have a great UI on top of it that millions of people are comfortable with would be tremendous. Think about it. The year of Linux on the desktop brought to you by Microsoft.
- Ari_Ugwu 8y ago
  They should buy elementary OS. System_76 borrowed heavily from elementary OS to create Pop_Os which is a dream. Now that I'm saying it I hope they just swallow a little pride and become a major contributor to Pop_Os. Every devops and net admin I know would wiggle with joy to be issued a Dell XPS 15 + Pop_Os tuned with PowerShell and other MS tool chains fully supported.
  - suby 8y ago
    Pop os is just Ubuntu (gnome 3) with a different theme.
    - Ari_Ugwu 8y ago
      People say this but I've tried many times to add themes, make tweaks etc. Can we give some 'distro' makers a little credit? I couldn't make Pop_Os if you gave me 10 years....I know cause I've been trying for 15.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
paxys 8y ago
The most realistic path to this would be them buying Canonical. I doubt they are going to roll their own distro from scratch.
- devoply 8y ago
  please god, no! ibm rhel. microsoft ubuntu.
- h1d 8y ago
  If 2 of the biggest Linux distributors get owned by giants with their intention of trying to save themselves than save the market is going to be a bad ride. What other commercially supported option do we have for those concerned?
  - Vogtinator 8y ago
    SUSE?
- setquk 8y ago
  That’s what I thought. https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE
titanix2 8y ago
What interest would such a switch brings on the table? I can't see any, except reducing diversity in the computer landscape.
crispinb 8y ago
I'd like to use linux, and install it from time to time, but am always eventually worn down by problems, some trivial & some less so, that could mostly be solved, but at the cost of research & fiddling time I'm not interested in spending. The issues largely fall into two categories - missing software, and missing or undercooked hardware support. If Microsoft did signal to the market an increased long-term support for Linux with a concomitant warning about Windows' longevity, I suspect these issues would be mitigated. Bring it on.
- sho 8y ago
  I'm in the same boat and have the same thoughts. I'm essentially trapped on OSX, and have been for a decade - sure, with enough pain and effort I might be able to kinda-sorta get by on linux, but in practise the barrier is just too high. And windows has never really even been an option until fairly recently. I'd love to see real competition in the OS space for people who need both a decent app ecosystem and open source developer tools.
  - crispinb 8y ago
    > I'm essentially trapped on OSX, and have been for a decade Me too until this May, when it was past time for my aging MB Pro to retire. I really couldn't justify a new one given I don't even like them any more (the Touchbar was the coup de grace). Hence a Dell XPS 15, running Windows 10. I won't pretend the latter is anywhere near as good as OSX (less stable, less consistent UI, generally lower quality apps), but it does manage all the hardware well & gets the job done. WSL makes it livable-with. I'd prefer linux though for its window manager choices, single-rooted filesystem, lack of nags & faster file io (among other things). > I'd love to see real competition in the OS space for people who need both a decent app ecosystem and open source developer tools. Quite.
    - zhte415 8y ago
      >I'd prefer linux though for its window manager choices, single-rooted filesystem, lack of nags & faster file io (among other things). Why not install Linux, and run Windows under a VM? Or if locked to the Windows install, run Linux under a VM?
geofft 8y ago
> In addition, for several years now, Microsoft's WSL developers have been working on mapping Linux API calls to Windows and vice-versa. A lot of the work needed for Windows apps to run without modification on Linux has already been done. This argument makes little sense: that "vice versa" is wholly unsubstantiated and without it the rest collapses. Making Linux binaries work on NT (which already has a subsystem concept; Interix proved that this could be done) in a way where they interact little with the Windows desktop, and making not just NT binaries but Win32 binaries work smoothly on Linux, are almost entirely unrelated problems. It is true that MS owns the code necessary to make this happen, that WINE is an existence proof that it can be done shockingly well even without that code, and that there is both code and expertise at MS for stuffing Linux concepts and NT concepts in the same kernel. But that's about it.
- halbritt 8y ago
  The existence of MSSQL-Linux is proof that Microsoft can get this done. The story is pretty interesting: https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/12/16/sql-server-on-linux-how-introduction/ https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/12/16/sql-se...
  - oaiey 8y ago
    Just that a database server is a very specific thing. Own memory handling, own file system handling, own scheduling, ... . The core of these systems give a shit about the operating system.
    - kerng 8y ago
      It's even more so true. The complexity of kernel calls is much higher when custom memory and scheduler involved I'd say. Getting Office running is probably rather simple in comparison.
      - jcelerier 8y ago
        > The complexity of kernel calls is much higher when custom memory and scheduler involved I'd say I really don't think so. MS used to render scrollbars in the kernel (was still the case in early Win10 versions)
crimsonalucard 8y ago
Let us not forget that like GNU Linux, Windows is actually a really good operating system.
overgard 8y ago
I see a lot of “why not” but no actual “why”. Microsoft loses strategic platform control and gains: ... crickets
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  I honestly don't think Microsoft cares about the Windows Desktop platform anymore. Certainly their actions regarding Windows 10 don't suggest that they do. My bet is that if they release a Linux distro, it will be Microsoft's take on ChromeOS, tied to Azure and Office 365 and all that, with any other stuff shunted off somewhere in a container or VM. Oh, you can install your own software from other sources at will, you'll just have to compile it yourself or rely on a network of repos and maintainers. It'll be the death of everything I actually like about computing and I'm not looking forward to it.
- DylanDmitri 8y ago
  While desktop platform control is important and probably has a positive ROI, the article argues that desktop OSs are already "good enough", and that Microsoft can probably find more profitable alternatives for their engineering effort. This is the same motive behind the switch to Chromium, that browsers are "good enough" and that the marginal gains of platform independence aren't worth the heavy investment.
  - overgard 8y ago
    I get a little uncomfortable when people talk about "engineering effort" like it's just some sort of power stream you can just repoint, because to me it belies a lack of understanding of what programmers do and the challenges they face. (I'm not accusing you personally of that, just that's what pops in mind when people talk about refocusing engineers. I always hear inexperienced project managers talk about having engineers "swarm" a problem, which is a dead giveaway that they're extremely naive). You can't just take a bunch of kernel devs and all the sudden have them work on sharepoint or web frontends or something. Not just from an experience standpoint but a lot of them wouldn't want to do it. Really "refocusing" tends to involve layoffs and rehiring.
- 8y ago
cwyers 8y ago
The Windows NT kernel has better hardware support and Microsoft is showing that they can run a full Linux userland on top of it. What do they gain from shipping Linux for the desktop?
- viraptor 8y ago
  > showing that they can run a full Linux userland on top of it There are still missing features. There's a lot of userland working, not nearly 100%.
- Zardoz84 8y ago
  WSL is a slow joke compared against native GNU/Linux. Also, you missed that WSL don't support GUI apps. However the inverse, Wine, works very well and sometimes it's faster that native Windows
  - aasasd 8y ago
    Just a passing note, if WSL can run programs with GUI libs, those programs likely can draw to a Windows-native graphical server. (I've briefly used this technique with CoLinux the userspace-Linux-for-Windows).
gcbw2 8y ago
No. They just plan to use developer tools (chrome based browser + vstudio) to push their one-push-publish-to-cloud. embrace (chromium), extend (dev tool features that will only work with vsStudio but is awesome), extinguish (tool now only work with vsstudio when serving from azure because they are moving faster than open standards.)
- jrs95 8y ago
  I don't think this is happening, Visual Studio is basically a legacy product at this point. Still developed and maintained, but not a major focus for MS, and they want to push Azure adoption as much as possible so I don't think we'll see IDE lock in like you're talking about.
  - gcbw2 8y ago
    What do you mean? VS is literally the only Microsoft product that shows up here on HN every other week!
h1d 8y ago
If it happens, it would be the most jaw dropping event of the decade. But MS has a room to keep their own ecosystem as losing it will have less diversity as we've seen when they dropped Edge not to mention the world will come to a halt without Windows that can run apps from the last 20 years. Having a UNIX kernel at the core would be really nice which would make developers easy to port apps between OS but how would the world deal with all the irreplaceable apps on Windows?
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Could Microsoft stop actively developing Windows, only provide security updates and whatever else is necessary?
  - h1d 8y ago
    People might actually like it when things don't change.
revskill 8y ago
Hell no, please don't bring Windows Virus to Linux :(
mbrumlow 8y ago
No. They will buy Ubuntu.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
pls stop
ngcc_hk 8y ago
Microsoft is always a business not IT. In fact, underlying the whole IT revolution they are the key to transform it to business to the horror of the whole industry. Software as a business is not a model even for ibm. We have share/guide then and even now you can run Ibm os on pc. Hence the question what is the business model. It is nothing to do with technology. It is as godfather have taught it - nothing personal but business. The article mentioned about azure, here Xbox, guess pc side the old business they do os and oem do hw (vs iphone and mac mode of integrated business down to make apple cpu), rental model ... Hence the question is not about whether it can but how. It is all business to Microsoft and google. A bit different on apple side in the past ... That is why we should be worry. The old embrace, extend and extinct is logical path for all business and empire. Anyway, they are moving and get that here and there like github. But would they worry as a buisness about java and android model. Let us see.
alexkavon 8y ago
I think yes in 10-15 years business-wise that it would be a good plan and great switcheroo. The reality though is that there is so much Windows technical debt, Microsoft employees looking for a promotion, and let alone future unknown technological advances and trends that it will never happen. It may be possible...but who cares (see: above ^)?
karmasimida 8y ago
Can't see it happen. Desktop Linux has no meaningful user base, with or without MSFT.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Well, Steam [1] is probably a good measure of "desktop" as it's usually home users that install on their personal computers? So, by that measure Linux has ¼ of the users of MacOS. The significance of that for you is not my call though. Steam's top seller in 2017 was PUBG at $600 Million, so assuming equal spread of revenue that 0.8% represents $4.8M you're leaving on the table. With less competition on Linux then there's possibly a higher revenue to be gained there for AAA titles? It might be worth risking a bit of dicking around with Proton/WINE to get your game working for a few extra mega-dollars? NetMarketShare.com gives similar ratios for Linux : Mac on desktop, giving Linux 2% of desktop/laptop installs. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey [2] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-23-valves-generates-record-breaking-usd4-3bn-from-sales-revenue-in-2017 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-23-valves-gen... [3] https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share...
  - karmasimida 8y ago
    > assuming equal spread of revenue. But I would assume the cost it is not. With your PUBG example, it was known for bad optimization and vulnerability for hacking from the beginning. The developer could optimize for Windows and benefit 96% or more of their customers, while it is hard to justify do the same for the 0.8% user base while the spending is probably the same. So no, I don't think $4.8M is easy money. And for smaller, even moderate successful titles, Linux version makes even less sense.
solatic 8y ago
Does this even make sense unless Office gets ported to Linux? Given that Office 365 is turning into Microsoft's main source of desktop revenue, porting Office to Linux is what will allow Microsoft to start to build an entire Linux desktop experience that still generate revenue for the company.
rmason 8y ago
Back when Windows 8 was causing all sorts of problems I did my annual top ten list of what's coming in the following year. One of my predictions was that Microsoft would move Windows to using Linux as the back end. Overall Windows would become much more stable, they might be able to get some Mac users to switch and they could put more people on getting the UI right. Like a lot of my bolder predictions on each years list I got it way wrong. In my defense I didn't know anyone at Microsoft at the time to run my idea by. Still think it makes some sense though in a way they ended up giving Windows at the *nix command line as a gift to Mac developers. I'm happy with Windows 10, for me it's just good enough.
- simpsond 8y ago
  I've thought the same thing for a long time (10+ years, I must be wrong). It makes sense from a business perspective as well. I still think it will happen, but not sure when. The addition of Ubuntu shell was a pretty interesting move.
- danieldk 8y ago
  Overall Windows would become much more stable, they might be able to get some Mac users to switch and they could put more people on getting the UI right. Like a lot of my bolder predictions on each years list I got it way wrong. Why would you think they would do this? NT is the architecturally more modern kernel. People should read up on the history of the NT kernel [1]. And if they should do this for non-technical reasons, I think it is more likely that they go for some permissively-licensed kernel (e.g. FreeBSD) to avoid the GPL. In the end, Microsoft did exactly the opposite: make it possible to run Linux binaries on Windows. Windows Subsystem for Linux is a testament to the strengths of the NT kernel. NT supports multiple 'personalities' and Win32 is just one personality, the Linux ABI is another personality. One could say that the Linux ABI is almost as native to the core NT kernel as the Win32 ABI is. At any rate, I think that the Windows desktop is getting less and less important to them. So rather than going through the massive work of porting Window on top of the Linux kernel, I think it is more likely that they put Windows in maintenance mode and make/fork something along the lines of ChromeOS or Android for client systems. (Disclaimer: I haven't seriously used Windows since Windows 3.1. It just bothers me when people misrepresent Windows or the NT kernel.) [1] https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vm...
techsin101 8y ago
If I was Microsoft I'd rewrite windows on top of Linux but keep API for apps the same before it's too late Mac is used by most tech companies because of terminal and tools it can run. But Linux can run all of them so windows built on Linux will have best of both worlds.
kgc 8y ago
They could. However, if they did, they would need to open source everything they ship with it, if I remember the GPL correctly. But also, I think it would be a daring and interesting business move. I'd probably start using Windows more if they did, and usage is the ultimate prize these days.
- fourthark 8y ago
  No, by the most common interpretation, apps don't need to be GPL'd, because they are not linked to the OS. This is what makes Android possible.
jchw 8y ago
I agree with the skepticism here regarding the ease of getting Windows software working on Linux. The Wine and CrossOver folks are doing the Lord's work but even they have their limits. Linux software tends to not rely on much. Linux makes it really hard to rely on much. The internals change often and the kernel is not nice to people who try to rely on implementation details, of what you can from usermode. You can hardly rely on libc when you are on Linux, and many try not to, to be more portable. Windows software on the other hand is wild. Just look at the myriad of techniques used by anti-debugging and anti-reverse-engineering tools. A Linux binary wouldn't dream of reimplementing the runtime linker itself, but that's exactly what many packers do on Windows, to obscure the import address table and make patching/debugging harder. Did you know you can write into another processes address space with WriteProcessMemory? Why do we even have that lever!? That's only considering usermode. But apps are just as eager to rely on kernel mode implementation details too, in the past it was even common to patch the SSDT to modify syscall behavior. Anti-cheat in video games can still do evil things even on Windows 10; nProtect GameGuard's kernel module seems to hide its usermode processes somehow. I'm pretty sure Linux kernel modules can't easily do that. I'd love better Windows compatibility on Linux. Heck, I'm excited by what Valve is doing with Proton too. But in the end, I think much of the Windows software library is just too deeply ingrained in the Windows legacy.
- pritambaral 8y ago
  > I'm pretty sure Linux kernel modules can't easily do that. They can, and rootkits in the past (unsurprisingly) have. But that's just technical ability; users willing to run things like that is a whole different matter, especially when we can just namespace and/or sandbox apps.
  - jchw 8y ago
    I'm not so surprised that rootkits can exist on Linux, but I was under the impression the Linux kernel made it much harder to break out of the framework provided and patch over whatever you wanted. Sure, it's all Ring 0, but there's kASLR and you have limited visibility, maybe not even a map of symbols. Is it still possible to do this kind of attack today?
craftinator 8y ago
What to do when the OS you sell is junk.... Sell somebody else's OS!
andmarios 8y ago
I think that such a product, even if developed internally, it would be stopped by the business team. The reason being it would be better than Windows in many aspects. I'm a long time Linux user, but got an ultraportable lately and kept windows on a small partition (mostly for BIOS updates). Linux was installed without any issues, everything except the fingerprint reader works. The interesting thing is that it does not just work, it works better. The most pronounced difference is the touchpad. On windows it is frequently stuck —and it's not palm rejection because I never had an issue in Linux. The 3 finger click that is paste or _open in new tab_ in Linux, in Windows opens Cortana. With Linux battery lasts longer. With Windows, the fan starts turning without any reason while the process manager says _no process is running_. Very annoying. Windows constantly nug me because I used my skype account which, according to them, does not have an associated email. Applications go into full screen without any indication on how to close them. I have to search for software on the internet, via my browser. The other day I wanted to start Windows for a Lync meeting and it decided it has to install updates and restarted a couple times before allowing me to continue with my life. Perhaps the most infuriating thing was the candy crash tiles that greeted me when I first booted the computer. I'm not saying you should use Linux, but you should ask for better Windows.
thomasdd 8y ago
If Microsoft has an OS based on Linux and with good UI and MS support this rocks! Today it's not about OS, but about cloud services and Software used by users.... Email, Calendar, something more valuable... Anyway, Linux is about free configuration, make API for anything you wish, that is important for a user or (heavy-user). iOS and Apple already done this I think. (in some way, You can't change Apple Binary code, but You have API-s to change the behavior of MAC-OS in real world). It's complicated story anyway.
dmos62 8y ago
This [0] is a link to a portion of 2018 Bryan Lunduke's presentation where he gives a refresher on Microsoft + Linux, and goes on to discuss Microsoft's "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" tactics and how they're relevant here. [0] https://youtu.be/TVHcdgrqbHE?t=425 https://youtu.be/TVHcdgrqbHE?t=425
vickihectora 8y ago
Illegal Hacking and social engineering is my business I was 16 years old, never had a real job so i had the time to get really good at hacking and I made a good amount of money last +20 years. I'm not doing this to make few bucks here and there. I'm a professional computer expert who could earn 50-100 dollars an hour with a legal job. Stop reading if you don't have a serious hacking problem worth spending some cash on. Hit me up if you are risk taker. Send in your requests at lucidionysus/at/ hotmail/com and let my work do the talking.
hardlianotion 8y ago
Cool. Linux++
new_guy 8y ago
Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
marsrover 8y ago
When one of these companies realizes they can create a polished Linux distribution, using the absurd amount of funds they have, the future of desktop computing is theirs. And the funny thing is it is probably less work than maintaining their current solution. Also I don’t think it has to be an either or situation. There is nothing stopping MS from supporting NT systems and putting future development into Linux systems. Similar to how they’re doing .NET and .NET Core. Over time they can port their office suite and other programs and drivers to the Linux system and the users will come with them. And at this point they’ve already started to drive developers away from NT because of their Linux offerings. Let’s be honest, most developers would pick Unix in a heartbeat over NT (to develop in and deploy to) and now they have that option. Also if anyone with power at Microsoft is reading this and this is a path the company ever takes: don’t make a ChromeOS, make an Ubuntu.
jaclaz 8y ago
Only for the record, "Lindows" actually existed, it was the name (retired/changed because MS didn't like it [0]) of Linspire [1]: https://www.linspirelinux.com/ https://www.linspirelinux.com/ [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire
fetbaffe 8y ago
Microsoft will then have two OS flavors to maintain. How is that saving any money? This article is nonsense.
purplezooey 8y ago
They should bring back Xenix and make a desktop version, BSD-like (even though it's a sysV base) and open source. That would be cool.
icantrank 8y ago
Lindows
FatDrunknStupid 8y ago
If they open source, which is the current trend in the company, I'm in. I think Satya might make Bill rich.

142 points by watchdogtimer 8y ago

They could even use WSL to put Linux on top of the NT kernel. It'd be called Microsoft GNU/Windows. Or they could ditch the GNU part and go for a non-GNU libc and userland like the article suggests. That wouldn't save nearly as much money as the article speculates because the Windows userland is humongous - NT is a small part of the whole, much like the Linux kernel is a vanishingly small part of the distributed effort of building desktop Linux distros.

h1d 8y ago
Is WSL that complete? There could be tons of edge cases where stock Linux binaries could behave slightly differently and could be a support nightmare.
- AaronFriel 8y ago
  I regularly develop Haskell, Rust, Node, etc. on WSL. It's dramatically improved since the early days, and that was already pretty magical. I find it funny you mention "stock Linux binaries", the distributions that are available on top of WSL are stock Linux distributions. Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, etc. There aren't any non stock Linux binaries involved.
- danieldk 8y ago
  It is surprising how well it works. I tried a massive compiled Prolog TK application that has been developed since the '90ies. It worked perfectly without much effort. https://danieldk.eu/Posts/2017-01-10-Alpino-Windows.html https://danieldk.eu/Posts/2017-01-10-Alpino-Windows.html
ryacko 8y ago
The last time Microsoft released a monolithic kernel was with Windows ME. Google has developed their own non-GPL userlands, u-root and toybox. Personally am surprised that Microsoft did not try to compete with OpenVZ and offer their own containers or easier to script sandbox.

gingerbread-man 8y ago

Here's a dopey idea: What if Microsoft open-sourced the Windows NT kernel? (While retaining some proprietary drivers, etc..) If handled well, a community would blossom around "NT," with multiple "unofficial" distros (maybe one with full POSIX compatibility), and lots and lots of happy developers. If things went really well, they might even achieve the resources necessary to create Windows Phone 2.0. Microsoft could still make money from consumer/enterprise support plans (i.e. AppleCare), and via commissions on sales in the Windows app store. And an open-source Windows could lead to growth as a cloud OS, driving revenue for MS Azure. Open sourcing the Windows kernel would be the ultimate culmination of Microsoft's turnaround, and IMHO a fair penance for evil deeds past. Nothing could do more to invigorate the open-source community. I would be so delighted I might even start to use Bing! It's never going to happen, but it is a very pleasant dream. Far better than "One Kernel to Rule them All!"

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
This is commonly suggested and I don't even think from a business revenue standpoint it would be a big deal for them. The biggest issue is that it is a 20 year code base with 20 year old bugs and open sourcing the whole thing would immediately generate open season on Windows boxes from a security standpoint. You'll see Microsoft open source new things as they go, and probably smaller components as they rework them, but I doubt you'll ever see a truly fully open source Windows, just because of the amount of work involved.
- gingerbread-man 8y ago
  A very good point. But if that were the only impediment, I suspect Microsoft could come up with a rollout plan to mitigate (though not completely eliminate) this problem. Releasing a "preview" of the kernel source to trusted security researchers and academics might be a start.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Believe it or not, trusted security researchers and academics already can request parts of the Windows source code, under non disclosure agreements, of course. But it's one of the largest codebases in the world, AFAIK, and it's immensely complicated. It's hard to quantify just how much work would need to be done to verify it was even marginally safe for release. And there's tons of licensing related issues as well, as far as where Microsoft may have gotten some of the code inside Windows. It's not impossible, but it's a big gamble, and Microsoft is not a company that gambles big. It's not really in their culture to do what you're suggesting. I would be thrilled if they did, but I'd be jaw-droppingly shocked if it did.

simonblack 8y ago

I suggested on Mini-Microsoft about 10 years ago that Microsoft do an 'Apple'. Apple took a free OS from BSD and put their own GUI over the top of it. I suggested that MSFT do the same sort of thing, that being to put their Windows GUI on top of the Linux OS instead of using the Linux X11 GUIs. This had the advantage that the underlying OS base would no longer need maintaining by Microsoft, and all their coding efforts could be allocated to the Windows GUI, thus permitting Windows versions to be released far more often than every 5 years as was the case back then. Being full of Softies, the crowd on Mini-Microsoft dismissed my suggestion out of hand, it being sacrilege of course to even think of marrying the 'upstart' Linux with the 'sacred' Windows code. Naturally, today I am smiling to myself that MSFT could have taken my idea and run with it, but were too hidebound to do so and have lost 10 years in the process.

j1vms 8y ago
Never too late for them to make a go for it, even today. But, to avoid alienating their huge existing developer community, they would first do well to get behind Mono [0] and maybe even, make it official (edit: Mono is "Sponsored by Microsoft", so already quite official indeed). In fact, as of 2014, there have been very promising signs in that direction. [1] [0] https://www.mono-project.com/ https://www.mono-project.com/ [1] https://opensource.com/business/14/11/microsoft-dot-net-empower-open-source-communities https://opensource.com/business/14/11/microsoft-dot-net-empo...
- daeken 8y ago
  Mono isn't sponsored by Microsoft; they bought it. They also publish an insane number of things completely open source, developing them in the open. .NET Core being a huge one, but ASP.NET, VSCode, ChakraCore, TypeScript, and so many others. There are 2181 repositories in the MS Github account.
- geofft 8y ago
  Microsoft acquired Xamarin, the corporate sponsors of Mono, in 2016.
innagadadavida 8y ago

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

They could and they should. Linux is an amazing OS and to have a great UI on top of it that millions of people are comfortable with would be tremendous. Think about it. The year of Linux on the desktop brought to you by Microsoft.

Ari_Ugwu 8y ago
They should buy elementary OS. System_76 borrowed heavily from elementary OS to create Pop_Os which is a dream. Now that I'm saying it I hope they just swallow a little pride and become a major contributor to Pop_Os. Every devops and net admin I know would wiggle with joy to be issued a Dell XPS 15 + Pop_Os tuned with PowerShell and other MS tool chains fully supported.
- suby 8y ago
  Pop os is just Ubuntu (gnome 3) with a different theme.
  - Ari_Ugwu 8y ago
    People say this but I've tried many times to add themes, make tweaks etc. Can we give some 'distro' makers a little credit? I couldn't make Pop_Os if you gave me 10 years....I know cause I've been trying for 15.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

paxys 8y ago

The most realistic path to this would be them buying Canonical. I doubt they are going to roll their own distro from scratch.

devoply 8y ago
please god, no! ibm rhel. microsoft ubuntu.
h1d 8y ago
If 2 of the biggest Linux distributors get owned by giants with their intention of trying to save themselves than save the market is going to be a bad ride. What other commercially supported option do we have for those concerned?
- Vogtinator 8y ago
  SUSE?
setquk 8y ago
That’s what I thought. https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE

titanix2 8y ago

What interest would such a switch brings on the table? I can't see any, except reducing diversity in the computer landscape.

crispinb 8y ago

I'd like to use linux, and install it from time to time, but am always eventually worn down by problems, some trivial & some less so, that could mostly be solved, but at the cost of research & fiddling time I'm not interested in spending. The issues largely fall into two categories - missing software, and missing or undercooked hardware support. If Microsoft did signal to the market an increased long-term support for Linux with a concomitant warning about Windows' longevity, I suspect these issues would be mitigated. Bring it on.

sho 8y ago
I'm in the same boat and have the same thoughts. I'm essentially trapped on OSX, and have been for a decade - sure, with enough pain and effort I might be able to kinda-sorta get by on linux, but in practise the barrier is just too high. And windows has never really even been an option until fairly recently. I'd love to see real competition in the OS space for people who need both a decent app ecosystem and open source developer tools.
- crispinb 8y ago
  > I'm essentially trapped on OSX, and have been for a decade Me too until this May, when it was past time for my aging MB Pro to retire. I really couldn't justify a new one given I don't even like them any more (the Touchbar was the coup de grace). Hence a Dell XPS 15, running Windows 10. I won't pretend the latter is anywhere near as good as OSX (less stable, less consistent UI, generally lower quality apps), but it does manage all the hardware well & gets the job done. WSL makes it livable-with. I'd prefer linux though for its window manager choices, single-rooted filesystem, lack of nags & faster file io (among other things). > I'd love to see real competition in the OS space for people who need both a decent app ecosystem and open source developer tools. Quite.
  - zhte415 8y ago
    >I'd prefer linux though for its window manager choices, single-rooted filesystem, lack of nags & faster file io (among other things). Why not install Linux, and run Windows under a VM? Or if locked to the Windows install, run Linux under a VM?

geofft 8y ago

> In addition, for several years now, Microsoft's WSL developers have been working on mapping Linux API calls to Windows and vice-versa. A lot of the work needed for Windows apps to run without modification on Linux has already been done. This argument makes little sense: that "vice versa" is wholly unsubstantiated and without it the rest collapses. Making Linux binaries work on NT (which already has a subsystem concept; Interix proved that this could be done) in a way where they interact little with the Windows desktop, and making not just NT binaries but Win32 binaries work smoothly on Linux, are almost entirely unrelated problems. It is true that MS owns the code necessary to make this happen, that WINE is an existence proof that it can be done shockingly well even without that code, and that there is both code and expertise at MS for stuffing Linux concepts and NT concepts in the same kernel. But that's about it.

halbritt 8y ago
The existence of MSSQL-Linux is proof that Microsoft can get this done. The story is pretty interesting: https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/12/16/sql-server-on-linux-how-introduction/ https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2016/12/16/sql-se...
- oaiey 8y ago
  Just that a database server is a very specific thing. Own memory handling, own file system handling, own scheduling, ... . The core of these systems give a shit about the operating system.
  - kerng 8y ago
    It's even more so true. The complexity of kernel calls is much higher when custom memory and scheduler involved I'd say. Getting Office running is probably rather simple in comparison.
    - jcelerier 8y ago
      > The complexity of kernel calls is much higher when custom memory and scheduler involved I'd say I really don't think so. MS used to render scrollbars in the kernel (was still the case in early Win10 versions)

crimsonalucard 8y ago

Let us not forget that like GNU Linux, Windows is actually a really good operating system.

overgard 8y ago

I see a lot of “why not” but no actual “why”. Microsoft loses strategic platform control and gains: ... crickets

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
I honestly don't think Microsoft cares about the Windows Desktop platform anymore. Certainly their actions regarding Windows 10 don't suggest that they do. My bet is that if they release a Linux distro, it will be Microsoft's take on ChromeOS, tied to Azure and Office 365 and all that, with any other stuff shunted off somewhere in a container or VM. Oh, you can install your own software from other sources at will, you'll just have to compile it yourself or rely on a network of repos and maintainers. It'll be the death of everything I actually like about computing and I'm not looking forward to it.
DylanDmitri 8y ago
While desktop platform control is important and probably has a positive ROI, the article argues that desktop OSs are already "good enough", and that Microsoft can probably find more profitable alternatives for their engineering effort. This is the same motive behind the switch to Chromium, that browsers are "good enough" and that the marginal gains of platform independence aren't worth the heavy investment.
- overgard 8y ago
  I get a little uncomfortable when people talk about "engineering effort" like it's just some sort of power stream you can just repoint, because to me it belies a lack of understanding of what programmers do and the challenges they face. (I'm not accusing you personally of that, just that's what pops in mind when people talk about refocusing engineers. I always hear inexperienced project managers talk about having engineers "swarm" a problem, which is a dead giveaway that they're extremely naive). You can't just take a bunch of kernel devs and all the sudden have them work on sharepoint or web frontends or something. Not just from an experience standpoint but a lot of them wouldn't want to do it. Really "refocusing" tends to involve layoffs and rehiring.
8y ago

cwyers 8y ago

The Windows NT kernel has better hardware support and Microsoft is showing that they can run a full Linux userland on top of it. What do they gain from shipping Linux for the desktop?

viraptor 8y ago
> showing that they can run a full Linux userland on top of it There are still missing features. There's a lot of userland working, not nearly 100%.
Zardoz84 8y ago
WSL is a slow joke compared against native GNU/Linux. Also, you missed that WSL don't support GUI apps. However the inverse, Wine, works very well and sometimes it's faster that native Windows
- aasasd 8y ago
  Just a passing note, if WSL can run programs with GUI libs, those programs likely can draw to a Windows-native graphical server. (I've briefly used this technique with CoLinux the userspace-Linux-for-Windows).

gcbw2 8y ago

No. They just plan to use developer tools (chrome based browser + vstudio) to push their one-push-publish-to-cloud. embrace (chromium), extend (dev tool features that will only work with vsStudio but is awesome), extinguish (tool now only work with vsstudio when serving from azure because they are moving faster than open standards.)

jrs95 8y ago
I don't think this is happening, Visual Studio is basically a legacy product at this point. Still developed and maintained, but not a major focus for MS, and they want to push Azure adoption as much as possible so I don't think we'll see IDE lock in like you're talking about.
- gcbw2 8y ago
  What do you mean? VS is literally the only Microsoft product that shows up here on HN every other week!

h1d 8y ago

If it happens, it would be the most jaw dropping event of the decade. But MS has a room to keep their own ecosystem as losing it will have less diversity as we've seen when they dropped Edge not to mention the world will come to a halt without Windows that can run apps from the last 20 years. Having a UNIX kernel at the core would be really nice which would make developers easy to port apps between OS but how would the world deal with all the irreplaceable apps on Windows?

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Could Microsoft stop actively developing Windows, only provide security updates and whatever else is necessary?
- h1d 8y ago
  People might actually like it when things don't change.

revskill 8y ago

Hell no, please don't bring Windows Virus to Linux :(

mbrumlow 8y ago

No. They will buy Ubuntu.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

pls stop

ngcc_hk 8y ago

Microsoft is always a business not IT. In fact, underlying the whole IT revolution they are the key to transform it to business to the horror of the whole industry. Software as a business is not a model even for ibm. We have share/guide then and even now you can run Ibm os on pc. Hence the question what is the business model. It is nothing to do with technology. It is as godfather have taught it - nothing personal but business. The article mentioned about azure, here Xbox, guess pc side the old business they do os and oem do hw (vs iphone and mac mode of integrated business down to make apple cpu), rental model ... Hence the question is not about whether it can but how. It is all business to Microsoft and google. A bit different on apple side in the past ... That is why we should be worry. The old embrace, extend and extinct is logical path for all business and empire. Anyway, they are moving and get that here and there like github. But would they worry as a buisness about java and android model. Let us see.

alexkavon 8y ago

I think yes in 10-15 years business-wise that it would be a good plan and great switcheroo. The reality though is that there is so much Windows technical debt, Microsoft employees looking for a promotion, and let alone future unknown technological advances and trends that it will never happen. It may be possible...but who cares (see: above ^)?

karmasimida 8y ago

Can't see it happen. Desktop Linux has no meaningful user base, with or without MSFT.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Well, Steam [1] is probably a good measure of "desktop" as it's usually home users that install on their personal computers? So, by that measure Linux has ¼ of the users of MacOS. The significance of that for you is not my call though. Steam's top seller in 2017 was PUBG at $600 Million, so assuming equal spread of revenue that 0.8% represents $4.8M you're leaving on the table. With less competition on Linux then there's possibly a higher revenue to be gained there for AAA titles? It might be worth risking a bit of dicking around with Proton/WINE to get your game working for a few extra mega-dollars? NetMarketShare.com gives similar ratios for Linux : Mac on desktop, giving Linux 2% of desktop/laptop installs. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey [2] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-23-valves-generates-record-breaking-usd4-3bn-from-sales-revenue-in-2017 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-03-23-valves-gen... [3] https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share...
- karmasimida 8y ago
  > assuming equal spread of revenue. But I would assume the cost it is not. With your PUBG example, it was known for bad optimization and vulnerability for hacking from the beginning. The developer could optimize for Windows and benefit 96% or more of their customers, while it is hard to justify do the same for the 0.8% user base while the spending is probably the same. So no, I don't think $4.8M is easy money. And for smaller, even moderate successful titles, Linux version makes even less sense.

solatic 8y ago

Does this even make sense unless Office gets ported to Linux? Given that Office 365 is turning into Microsoft's main source of desktop revenue, porting Office to Linux is what will allow Microsoft to start to build an entire Linux desktop experience that still generate revenue for the company.

rmason 8y ago

Back when Windows 8 was causing all sorts of problems I did my annual top ten list of what's coming in the following year. One of my predictions was that Microsoft would move Windows to using Linux as the back end. Overall Windows would become much more stable, they might be able to get some Mac users to switch and they could put more people on getting the UI right. Like a lot of my bolder predictions on each years list I got it way wrong. In my defense I didn't know anyone at Microsoft at the time to run my idea by. Still think it makes some sense though in a way they ended up giving Windows at the *nix command line as a gift to Mac developers. I'm happy with Windows 10, for me it's just good enough.

simpsond 8y ago
I've thought the same thing for a long time (10+ years, I must be wrong). It makes sense from a business perspective as well. I still think it will happen, but not sure when. The addition of Ubuntu shell was a pretty interesting move.
danieldk 8y ago
Overall Windows would become much more stable, they might be able to get some Mac users to switch and they could put more people on getting the UI right. Like a lot of my bolder predictions on each years list I got it way wrong. Why would you think they would do this? NT is the architecturally more modern kernel. People should read up on the history of the NT kernel [1]. And if they should do this for non-technical reasons, I think it is more likely that they go for some permissively-licensed kernel (e.g. FreeBSD) to avoid the GPL. In the end, Microsoft did exactly the opposite: make it possible to run Linux binaries on Windows. Windows Subsystem for Linux is a testament to the strengths of the NT kernel. NT supports multiple 'personalities' and Win32 is just one personality, the Linux ABI is another personality. One could say that the Linux ABI is almost as native to the core NT kernel as the Win32 ABI is. At any rate, I think that the Windows desktop is getting less and less important to them. So rather than going through the massive work of porting Window on top of the Linux kernel, I think it is more likely that they put Windows in maintenance mode and make/fork something along the lines of ChromeOS or Android for client systems. (Disclaimer: I haven't seriously used Windows since Windows 3.1. It just bothers me when people misrepresent Windows or the NT kernel.) [1] https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vms-rest-story https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/windows-nt-and-vm...

techsin101 8y ago

If I was Microsoft I'd rewrite windows on top of Linux but keep API for apps the same before it's too late Mac is used by most tech companies because of terminal and tools it can run. But Linux can run all of them so windows built on Linux will have best of both worlds.

kgc 8y ago

They could. However, if they did, they would need to open source everything they ship with it, if I remember the GPL correctly. But also, I think it would be a daring and interesting business move. I'd probably start using Windows more if they did, and usage is the ultimate prize these days.

fourthark 8y ago
No, by the most common interpretation, apps don't need to be GPL'd, because they are not linked to the OS. This is what makes Android possible.

jchw 8y ago

I agree with the skepticism here regarding the ease of getting Windows software working on Linux. The Wine and CrossOver folks are doing the Lord's work but even they have their limits. Linux software tends to not rely on much. Linux makes it really hard to rely on much. The internals change often and the kernel is not nice to people who try to rely on implementation details, of what you can from usermode. You can hardly rely on libc when you are on Linux, and many try not to, to be more portable. Windows software on the other hand is wild. Just look at the myriad of techniques used by anti-debugging and anti-reverse-engineering tools. A Linux binary wouldn't dream of reimplementing the runtime linker itself, but that's exactly what many packers do on Windows, to obscure the import address table and make patching/debugging harder. Did you know you can write into another processes address space with WriteProcessMemory? Why do we even have that lever!? That's only considering usermode. But apps are just as eager to rely on kernel mode implementation details too, in the past it was even common to patch the SSDT to modify syscall behavior. Anti-cheat in video games can still do evil things even on Windows 10; nProtect GameGuard's kernel module seems to hide its usermode processes somehow. I'm pretty sure Linux kernel modules can't easily do that. I'd love better Windows compatibility on Linux. Heck, I'm excited by what Valve is doing with Proton too. But in the end, I think much of the Windows software library is just too deeply ingrained in the Windows legacy.

pritambaral 8y ago
> I'm pretty sure Linux kernel modules can't easily do that. They can, and rootkits in the past (unsurprisingly) have. But that's just technical ability; users willing to run things like that is a whole different matter, especially when we can just namespace and/or sandbox apps.
- jchw 8y ago
  I'm not so surprised that rootkits can exist on Linux, but I was under the impression the Linux kernel made it much harder to break out of the framework provided and patch over whatever you wanted. Sure, it's all Ring 0, but there's kASLR and you have limited visibility, maybe not even a map of symbols. Is it still possible to do this kind of attack today?

craftinator 8y ago

What to do when the OS you sell is junk.... Sell somebody else's OS!

andmarios 8y ago

I think that such a product, even if developed internally, it would be stopped by the business team. The reason being it would be better than Windows in many aspects. I'm a long time Linux user, but got an ultraportable lately and kept windows on a small partition (mostly for BIOS updates). Linux was installed without any issues, everything except the fingerprint reader works. The interesting thing is that it does not just work, it works better. The most pronounced difference is the touchpad. On windows it is frequently stuck —and it's not palm rejection because I never had an issue in Linux. The 3 finger click that is paste or _open in new tab_ in Linux, in Windows opens Cortana. With Linux battery lasts longer. With Windows, the fan starts turning without any reason while the process manager says _no process is running_. Very annoying. Windows constantly nug me because I used my skype account which, according to them, does not have an associated email. Applications go into full screen without any indication on how to close them. I have to search for software on the internet, via my browser. The other day I wanted to start Windows for a Lync meeting and it decided it has to install updates and restarted a couple times before allowing me to continue with my life. Perhaps the most infuriating thing was the candy crash tiles that greeted me when I first booted the computer. I'm not saying you should use Linux, but you should ask for better Windows.

thomasdd 8y ago

If Microsoft has an OS based on Linux and with good UI and MS support this rocks! Today it's not about OS, but about cloud services and Software used by users.... Email, Calendar, something more valuable... Anyway, Linux is about free configuration, make API for anything you wish, that is important for a user or (heavy-user). iOS and Apple already done this I think. (in some way, You can't change Apple Binary code, but You have API-s to change the behavior of MAC-OS in real world). It's complicated story anyway.

dmos62 8y ago

This [0] is a link to a portion of 2018 Bryan Lunduke's presentation where he gives a refresher on Microsoft + Linux, and goes on to discuss Microsoft's "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" tactics and how they're relevant here. [0] https://youtu.be/TVHcdgrqbHE?t=425 https://youtu.be/TVHcdgrqbHE?t=425

vickihectora 8y ago

Illegal Hacking and social engineering is my business I was 16 years old, never had a real job so i had the time to get really good at hacking and I made a good amount of money last +20 years. I'm not doing this to make few bucks here and there. I'm a professional computer expert who could earn 50-100 dollars an hour with a legal job. Stop reading if you don't have a serious hacking problem worth spending some cash on. Hit me up if you are risk taker. Send in your requests at lucidionysus/at/ hotmail/com and let my work do the talking.

hardlianotion 8y ago

Cool. Linux++

new_guy 8y ago

Embrace. Extend. Extinguish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

marsrover 8y ago

When one of these companies realizes they can create a polished Linux distribution, using the absurd amount of funds they have, the future of desktop computing is theirs. And the funny thing is it is probably less work than maintaining their current solution. Also I don’t think it has to be an either or situation. There is nothing stopping MS from supporting NT systems and putting future development into Linux systems. Similar to how they’re doing .NET and .NET Core. Over time they can port their office suite and other programs and drivers to the Linux system and the users will come with them. And at this point they’ve already started to drive developers away from NT because of their Linux offerings. Let’s be honest, most developers would pick Unix in a heartbeat over NT (to develop in and deploy to) and now they have that option. Also if anyone with power at Microsoft is reading this and this is a path the company ever takes: don’t make a ChromeOS, make an Ubuntu.

jaclaz 8y ago

Only for the record, "Lindows" actually existed, it was the name (retired/changed because MS didn't like it [0]) of Linspire [1]: https://www.linspirelinux.com/ https://www.linspirelinux.com/ [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Lindows.com.... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire

fetbaffe 8y ago

Microsoft will then have two OS flavors to maintain. How is that saving any money? This article is nonsense.

purplezooey 8y ago

They should bring back Xenix and make a desktop version, BSD-like (even though it's a sysV base) and open source. That would be cool.

icantrank 8y ago

Lindows

FatDrunknStupid 8y ago

If they open source, which is the current trend in the company, I'm in. I think Satya might make Bill rich.