4 ms·

I would not want Microsoft to "rebase to Linux". Why? Ideas, and innovation. If Microsoft come up with something new in operating system design, they don't h

I would not want Microsoft to "rebase to Linux". Why? Ideas, and innovation. If Microsoft come up with something new in operating system design, they don't have to answer to the community when adding it into the kernel. And it gives Linux something to compare against.

cies 6y ago
> come up with something new in operating system design Like CRLF newlines and "\" instead of "/" as path separator? Jokes aside, MS is not the place I look for "something new" in OS design.
- DrBazza 6y ago
  Where would you look though? Who else writes operating systems? MS Research writes papers that are submitted to various journals (as does IBM, Intel, Google, all of whom have their own operating systems). An obvious example is the Midori project produced lots of novel research much of which has been used, even if the project itself was abandoned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system)
- withinboredom 6y ago
  > MS is not the place I look for "something new" in OS design. With Windows Phone, they did pioneer quite a bit. It was a phone first, and app running device second. Android and iOS feel like the phone part was a second-thought add-on in comparison. The Windows Phone did its best to make it so you could make a phone call or send a text, at the expense of email, running apps, etc. when the battery was low which took Android and iOS many years to implement. There were probably some other interesting things, but I don't remember them any more.
  - mlvljr 6y ago
    Upvoting from my Nokia Lumia
- thunderbong 6y ago
  Your age is showing!! Look up on the history of those characters before you comment. There's a lot more there than superficial inconveniences.
  - vips7L 6y ago
    Especially considering that none of that really matters on windows anymore. It doesn't care about line endings or path separators.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >MS is not the place I look for "something new" in OS design You'd be wrong, though...
pknopf 6y ago
I think Microsoft could create it's own Linux distribution, graphics drivers, etc, and there would still be a healthy balance of ideas/innovation. The Linux kernel is great, but there is plenty of room for diverse opinions in user space.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Isn't this a little like saying Firefox re-basing on Chromium would still be a healthy balance of ideas/innovation? Because that's what it sounds like.
  - tompazourek 6y ago
    But remember the Microsoft loves Linux vision, and look at Azure, .NET Core, WSL2. Although unlikely, I can see that happening... Firefox and Chromium is different.
cycloptic 6y ago
>they don't have to answer to the community when adding it into the kernel. Where did you get this idea? Companies shipping a Linux kernel never had to answer to the community, unless they want to. They can just ship a custom kernel only to their users and leave it at that.
- for_xyz 6y ago
  > They can just ship a custom kernel only to their users and leave it at that. Works really well for Google and Android where they offload handpicked versions of the Linux kernel to the phone vendors to maintain. In practice they don't bother with it so phones never get any updates after 1 year. Maintaining custom Linux kernel fork is not possible if you want to keep it up with the upstream changes.
  - cycloptic 6y ago
    >if you want to keep it up with the upstream changes. I don't understand what you mean here. It's my interpretation that keeping up with upstream is what was meant by answering to the community. It seems that the GP post was not concerned with this or with following the footsteps of Android. It certainly seems within Microsoft's means to deploy a custom kernel on Azure and then only periodically merge with upstream (I believe they are already doing this anyway).
    - for_xyz 6y ago
      Yes, I agree. What I meant was for mobile phone manufacturers who don't upstream their code portions and abandon it after a while due increased costs of maintaining the multiple versions. In other words... old hardware only works on older kernel release and new hardware only works on new kernel release. It'd be much better if they upstreamed the changes instead of fragmenting the entire ecosystem with custom forks.
- DrBazza 6y ago
  Correct, but if you want to add something to the mainline kernel, you do have to answer to the community, such as Wireguard or [1]. I wasn't talking about custom kernels. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-rejects-stupid-aws-made-linux-patch-for-intel-cpu-snoop-attack/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-rejects-stupid-...
xtracto 6y ago
I echo this sentiment. Competition is good, and Windows vs Linux is competition. We don´t want to remove variety even if the Free software is the one that "wins" This reminds me of DirectX vs OpenGL in the late 1990s and through the 2000s. DirectX under Microsoft rule did not have to answer to any committee, thus the progress and groundbreaking technology that it enabled was really good. Meanwhile, The OpenGL consortium had to argue to get just one feature into the standard. It was very slow. Another example was .NET vs Java. Even though Java was "driven" by Sun (and then Oracle) a lot of the new features were done via consortium and thus its development was slow. .NET instead got LINQ and other really nice improvements during that time. Now, I haven't programmed in .NET since around 2005 (I don´t do Windows), but I appreciate that they are pushing software technology.
- seabrookmx 6y ago
  You probably already know this but with .NET core and .NET 5 you don't need Windows.. it runs great on Linux and/or Docker. You even get nice IDE features in VSCode. C# is still a joy to develop with over Java, GoLang etc IMO.

cies 6y ago

> come up with something new in operating system design Like CRLF newlines and "\" instead of "/" as path separator? Jokes aside, MS is not the place I look for "something new" in OS design.

DrBazza 6y ago
Where would you look though? Who else writes operating systems? MS Research writes papers that are submitted to various journals (as does IBM, Intel, Google, all of whom have their own operating systems). An obvious example is the Midori project produced lots of novel research much of which has been used, even if the project itself was abandoned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_(operating_system)
withinboredom 6y ago
> MS is not the place I look for "something new" in OS design. With Windows Phone, they did pioneer quite a bit. It was a phone first, and app running device second. Android and iOS feel like the phone part was a second-thought add-on in comparison. The Windows Phone did its best to make it so you could make a phone call or send a text, at the expense of email, running apps, etc. when the battery was low which took Android and iOS many years to implement. There were probably some other interesting things, but I don't remember them any more.
- mlvljr 6y ago
  Upvoting from my Nokia Lumia
thunderbong 6y ago
Your age is showing!! Look up on the history of those characters before you comment. There's a lot more there than superficial inconveniences.
- vips7L 6y ago
  Especially considering that none of that really matters on windows anymore. It doesn't care about line endings or path separators.
coldtea 6y ago
>MS is not the place I look for "something new" in OS design You'd be wrong, though...

pknopf 6y ago

I think Microsoft could create it's own Linux distribution, graphics drivers, etc, and there would still be a healthy balance of ideas/innovation. The Linux kernel is great, but there is plenty of room for diverse opinions in user space.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
Isn't this a little like saying Firefox re-basing on Chromium would still be a healthy balance of ideas/innovation? Because that's what it sounds like.
- tompazourek 6y ago
  But remember the Microsoft loves Linux vision, and look at Azure, .NET Core, WSL2. Although unlikely, I can see that happening... Firefox and Chromium is different.

cycloptic 6y ago

>they don't have to answer to the community when adding it into the kernel. Where did you get this idea? Companies shipping a Linux kernel never had to answer to the community, unless they want to. They can just ship a custom kernel only to their users and leave it at that.

for_xyz 6y ago
> They can just ship a custom kernel only to their users and leave it at that. Works really well for Google and Android where they offload handpicked versions of the Linux kernel to the phone vendors to maintain. In practice they don't bother with it so phones never get any updates after 1 year. Maintaining custom Linux kernel fork is not possible if you want to keep it up with the upstream changes.
- cycloptic 6y ago
  >if you want to keep it up with the upstream changes. I don't understand what you mean here. It's my interpretation that keeping up with upstream is what was meant by answering to the community. It seems that the GP post was not concerned with this or with following the footsteps of Android. It certainly seems within Microsoft's means to deploy a custom kernel on Azure and then only periodically merge with upstream (I believe they are already doing this anyway).
  - for_xyz 6y ago
    Yes, I agree. What I meant was for mobile phone manufacturers who don't upstream their code portions and abandon it after a while due increased costs of maintaining the multiple versions. In other words... old hardware only works on older kernel release and new hardware only works on new kernel release. It'd be much better if they upstreamed the changes instead of fragmenting the entire ecosystem with custom forks.
DrBazza 6y ago
Correct, but if you want to add something to the mainline kernel, you do have to answer to the community, such as Wireguard or [1]. I wasn't talking about custom kernels. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-rejects-stupid-aws-made-linux-patch-for-intel-cpu-snoop-attack/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-rejects-stupid-...

xtracto 6y ago

I echo this sentiment. Competition is good, and Windows vs Linux is competition. We don´t want to remove variety even if the Free software is the one that "wins" This reminds me of DirectX vs OpenGL in the late 1990s and through the 2000s. DirectX under Microsoft rule did not have to answer to any committee, thus the progress and groundbreaking technology that it enabled was really good. Meanwhile, The OpenGL consortium had to argue to get just one feature into the standard. It was very slow. Another example was .NET vs Java. Even though Java was "driven" by Sun (and then Oracle) a lot of the new features were done via consortium and thus its development was slow. .NET instead got LINQ and other really nice improvements during that time. Now, I haven't programmed in .NET since around 2005 (I don´t do Windows), but I appreciate that they are pushing software technology.

seabrookmx 6y ago
You probably already know this but with .NET core and .NET 5 you don't need Windows.. it runs great on Linux and/or Docker. You even get nice IDE features in VSCode. C# is still a joy to develop with over Java, GoLang etc IMO.