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This will be a very controversial prediction, but mark my words: Windows will eventually use the Linux kernel.
by SteveNuts 3y ago
This will be a very controversial prediction, but mark my words: Windows will eventually use the Linux kernel.
- init2null 3y agoWhy not just keep the existing kernel running with a small team? Drivers and backwards compatibility are critical to many of Microsoft's enterprise customers. Now that isn't necessarily true for Windows running in the cloud. Drivers don't matter as much there.
- righthand 3y agoI don’t disagree. How I think it will happen: Backwards compatibility will start to stray at Microsoft (their last bastion), leading to WINE becoming the go to tool for backwards compat support. Microsoft will create a linux variant or maybe just a DE and the rest will be history (just as Libre Office has begun to supersede MS Office). It is a matter of will and time that C-Suite will want to eliminate labor around Windows to maximize profits as it becomes more and more hardened in it’s feature set. Why maintain when you can utilize FOSS?
- a_vanderbilt 3y agoIn what business segment is Libre Office superseding MS Office? Furthermore, NT supports "personalities". Why bother with a full Linux kernel when they could adopt the personality a la SUA?
- righthand 3y agoSuperseding in compatibility. I’m not talking about business segments. They don’t have to adopt it, they will probably fork it.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoI strongly doubt they would ever do something that drastic. It offers few benefits and many roadblocks. It would be a monstrous amount of work, would throw into question many existing security-related certifications, break Microsoft's love of backwards-compatibility, etc.
- tmarsden 3y agoI hope you’re right! They sort of did the same thing already with Edge given it’s just Chromium under the hood. Reminds me of a specific thought experiment with a boat.
- aodonnell2536 3y agoThe Ship of Theseus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus (For today’s 10000 (https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/))
- pjmlp 3y agoWindows NT linage has supported UNIX since day one. While the original support wasn't great, SUA was quite usable, until they decided to discontinue it on Windows Vista. Nowadays we have WSL, which makes more sense, given how many folks buy Apple hardware and then complain UNIX isn't GNU/Linux.
- blibble 3y ago> Windows NT linage has supported UNIX since day one. yes, that's why the attempt to provide a Linux subsystem on top of the NT kernel (WSL1) was so successful they abandoned the approach entirely WSL2 runs the full Linux kernel in a sidecar VM
- pjmlp 3y agoAlso known as, you don't know technically anything about Windows. There is a very big difference between supporting UNIX, and Linux kernel syscalls ABI on top of pico processes, the technology from Drawbridge kernel taken out from Microsoft Research, which incidentally is also used to port MS SQL Server into GNU/Linux.
- blibble 3y agowho cares? they still abandoned it because it didn't work
- pjmlp 3y agoYou don't that is for sure. As for the rest I could provide examples of how the BSDs and Solaris failed in similar attempts to clone Linux syscalls table, despite being UNIX, before Microsoft's attempt, but who cares?
- blibble 3y ago> You don't that is for sure. correct > As for the rest I could provide examples of how the BSDs and Solaris failed in similar attempts to clone Linux syscalls table, despite being UNIX, before Microsoft's attempt, but who cares? the BSD approach is still supported and part of FreeBSD, so presumably someone cares about that whereas WSL1 is dead
- marwis 3y agoIt already does - SQL Server for Linux runs largely unmodified Windows userland on top of Linux kernel. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/blog/2016/12/16/sql-server-on-linux-how-introduction/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/blog/2016/12/16/s...
- sph 3y agoJust before that: Microsoft will buy Canonical