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Eric Raymond thinks Microsoft is ready to swap out the Windows kernel for Linux

• FandangoRanger 6y ago
  It seems they're trying the opposite but they could go either way. If they deprecated Win32 or even used WINE they could handle legacy stuff and port whatever "Windows" is to any platform. Sure it's not quite Java because it won't be platform agnostic but hey.
  • 72deluxe 6y ago
    It's amazing to hear people thinking that Win32 will just go away. It's the core of the API, and has been added to in every Windows version. I am pretty sure the .NET framework on Windows is just wrappers around the Win32 functions, which is why half of the stuff you can't do in .NET you can get by with pinvoke against the native Win32 functions. It's not going to go away for a very very very long time. All the reimplementation of native applications into slower metro versions (even "simple" applications like Paint, Snipping tool, Calculator) is probably where they're intending to go with a lot of utilities etc. but there is still so much native stuff, eg. MMC + the myriad snap-ins, COM configuration, event manager, Windows explorer itself...
    • FandangoRanger 6y ago
      Why does it need to go away? I never said this. MS will use Wine.
• h2odragon 6y ago
  "Linux wins the desktop wars.." That phrase would've meant entirely different things 20 or 10 years ago. In many ways m$ held the land in crushing subjugation, raping the cattle and eating the serfs until there's little left but scorched earth and crunchy remnants. Ceding those leftovers to the few remaining holdouts and weird people who like their beef that way is perhaps not the crushing defeat we hoped to see m$ suffer. However, this will do.
  • FandangoRanger 6y ago
    I think Windows as a for-pay layer on Linux is going to be the end goal. WSL is going to be LSW.