When you think Microsoft you probably don't think sense of humor. And yet, I'm convinced that Microsoft is going to do a very specific *very* funny thing within our lifetimes.
  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
    1·
    6 minutes ago

    I mean they did switch to their own flavor of their competitor with Edge already so it wouldn’t be a first.

    I just hope that is they do this they won’t gain leverage to control the development of Linux for their own purposes in some way.

  • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
    4·
    1 hour ago

    A little crazy, but not a lot crazy. ARM adoption may provide the spark necessary to ignite this fire.

  • brian@programming.dev
    3·
    2 hours ago

    I think if they were planning this at all, we’d see linux support for maui. currently their linux use has been very focused on only for devs and servers

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zipEnglish
    10·
    3 hours ago

    This time I want the credit, so I’m posting my prediction publicly while everyone still thinks it’s ridiculous: I predict that within 15 years Microsoft will discontinue Windows in favor of a Windows themed Linux distribution.

    People have been joking about a Windows DE atop the Linux kernel for a while now buddy, too late for you to call dibs

  • misk@piefed.socialEnglish
    15·
    3 hours ago

    Has been predicted for almost as long as the year of Linux on desktop.

    Windows NT kernel was never an issue, Microsoft would encounter exact same issues they’re facing now since the pressure to monetise remains.

  • 0x0@lemmy.zip
    11·
    5 hours ago

    It would be in line with their usual EEE, so totally not surprising.
    They don’t give two shits about brand loyalty as long as line go up.

      • brian@programming.dev
        2·
        2 hours ago

        they might ship a proprietary lib with their os, encourage developers to use it, then license it out of being distributed

        • misk@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          9 minutes ago

          I imagine it’d be more like Android/iOS. Lock down bootloader so you can’t tamper with the OS, enforce notarisation requirement so that apps have to go through them. But Microsoft can’t do that, they don’t have any users vendor-locked to their application store. Valve on the other hand is in a much better position to do this.

  • mmmm@sopuli.xyz
    11·
    5 hours ago

    “A Windows themed Linux distribution” can’t really be “Windows themed” without some closed-source blobs and maybe even some backdoors sparkled here and there

    • misk@piefed.socialEnglish
      132·
      3 hours ago

      Android is a Linux distribution like that and once notarisation requirement is implemented it’ll be indistinguishable from iOS. SteamOS will also likely become gradually more like iOS to appease creators of popular multiplayer games.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    91·
    6 hours ago

    Not what I want to happen though.

    I want them to release Windows as free and open source software. Windows is on a purely technical level not a bad OS. If it were FOSS, we would get dozens of excellent distributions of it.

    • just_another_person@lemmy.world
      91·
      5 hours ago

      Windows IS a horrible OS at the technical level. It seems okay-ish from a non-technical perspective. Everything just below the surface is absolute junk. There’s a reason it’s the most exploited piece of software in history.

      • onlinepersona@programming.dev
        6·
        4 hours ago

        I remember reading a post from an intern there about why they switched to using a browser for the start bar and windows settings UI: the code was just layers upon layers of friction requiring conversion from C++ to some intermediate format into another one and back. Making a simple change would take days if not weeks.

        Ad now that they want to rewrite millions of lines of C++ into Rust using AI to rewrite all of winblows in Rust, it’s going to get much worse.

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
      6·
      5 hours ago

      There are some good ideas in there (the main one IMO is structured objects as the main form of IPC, instead of text), but the execution is really bad after XP and maybe 7. They stuck to a lot of legacy garbage in the name of “compatibility”, but in the end it’s an inconsistent mess of dozens of frameworks, and yet many old programs run worse than they do in WINE on Linux. Now with the advent of vibecoding the core components, it’s pretty much over unless they literally start over from an old checkout.