Microsoft Could One Day Potentially Open-Source Windows

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Microsoft Could One Day Potentially Open-Source Windows

A Microsoft Technical Fellow has publicly stated that it's "definitely possible" that all or parts of Windows could be open-sourced to better compete with Linux and the like...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OSS-Windows-Definitely-Possible

[pvjlieuthier]

I'm not sure if I believe this

Sorry but I had to register and post this.

[macemoneta]

10 or 15 years ago, that would have been interesting and potentially useful. Today, it's like PalmOS going open source. There might be some interesting corner cases for WINE to further improve compatibility but on the whole it doesn't seem that valuable to me. Desktops are dying while Android, ChromeOS, and iOS are becoming the predominant end user computing devices. Linux has the back-end processing. Windows is the POTS of the computing world; the long tail of historical usage.

[Sonadow]

For what it's worth, Microsoft released the source code to huge portions of the XP kernel under educational licenses.

That said, I don't expect them to ever release Windows, or even parts of it, under any open source licenses. Too many outside developers will seize the chance to propose major API and ABI breakage with every release and I'm certain Microsoft will have none of that.

[rabcor]

Honestly, if they completely open sourced Windows, I'd go straight back to it right now, but when they would finally consider doing such a thing, it'll already be too late as Linux will probably have advanced way beyond windows at that point.

Really what I'm liking on linux is the customizability, if I could just edit the source code for windows to customize it to my needs (or even download custom desktop environments developed by other people on Windows) there'd be little reason left for me to stay on Linux.

But honestly, I just don't think this is gonna happen, it'd be a huuuuuuuuuuge surprise if it would though (if they'd do something like Epic Games did)

[Sonadow]

Honestly, if they completely open sourced Windows, I'd go straight back to it right now, but when they would finally consider doing such a thing, it'll already be too late as Linux will probably have advanced way beyond windows at that point.

Really what I'm liking on linux is the customizability, if I could just edit the source code for windows to customize it to my needs (or even download custom desktop environments developed by other people on Windows) there'd be little reason left for me to stay on Linux.

But honestly, I just don't think this is gonna happen, it'd be a huuuuuuuuuuge surprise if it would though (if they'd do something like Epic Games did)

Windows is still as closed as it can be as of today and I am already thinking very hard about going back to it for good.

[rabcor]

I just left, I was so grossed out by Windows 8 I couldn't stay. Windows 10 looks pretty ok but Windows 7 is STILL shinier than their stupid 10. Windows would need to be open source for me to ever consider going back to these fuckers after what they did with Windows 8, so many bad things.past them by then.

But I'm pretty sure Windows would only be open sourced after/if it loses it's edge over Linux (for example if SteamOS + Vulkan would majorly shift the market shares around) it's a pretty big and unlikely if, but it's there. But the thing is like I said earlier, if they switch to open source at that point, it'll already be too late, cus at that time I'll be too satisfied with Linux to bother switching back.

[birdie]

Honestly, if they completely open sourced Windows, I'd go straight back to it right now, but when they would finally consider doing such a thing, it'll already be too late as Linux will probably have advanced way beyond windows at that point.

Really what I'm liking on linux is the customizability, if I could just edit the source code for windows to customize it to my needs (or even download custom desktop environments developed by other people on Windows) there'd be little reason left for me to stay on Linux.

But honestly, I just don't think this is gonna happen, it'd be a huuuuuuuuuuge surprise if it would though (if they'd do something like Epic Games did)

You sound like Linux is already more advanced than Windows. Strangely this Open Source OS still occupies just 1% of PCs in the world, maybe because Linux is one big mess.

Nah, Microsoft won't release Windows source code any time soon, unless they create a new OS from scratch or they go bankrupt or die of other causes. They still haven't released the source code for absolutely irrelevant MS-DOS (ntvdm is the only remnant of it in 32bit Windows).

[Kemosabe]

Desktops are dying while Android, ChromeOS, and iOS are becoming the predominant end user computing devices.

That's a urban legend like dying gaming consoles...
Notebooks are still favored over tablets for surfing as an example. The big tablet hype is over.

[tuuker]

It would mean last day of my Linux desktop, my biggest reasons: no setup with all dependencies, no portable software, no standards because everyone thinks their desktop solution is best and so on. No Linux vs Win thread, this is just my own reason thats it.