@mmmm @codeinabox Sure it can.
Microsoft can distribute their Windows Desktop Environment for Linux in a repository they control. And that repo can even contain just the binaries, with their own proprietary licence. These packages can further have dependencies to other open source packages.
If Microsoft ends up with their own Linux distribution or just mirrors an existing distro (like what Alma/Rocky does with RHEL, or Ubuntu with Debian) … That depends on how much control they want over the Linux distro base OS.
But they certainly have the possibility to add a Windows experience as an alternative to GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc, etc, building on top of a shared base OS layer. As well as providing WINE like layers to make existing Windows programs run in that environment.
@0x0 @codeinabox it wouldn’t be EEE in this case. Because a Linux distribution is built up around thousands of packages from hundreds of various open source projects.
For EEE to work, the entire base OS stack would need to be extended with features not becoming useful outside Microsoft’s use. Such changes would first of all have a really hard time being accepted in upstream projects. And if they did, these projects would be forked if the last E phase in EEE is triggered. And then Microsoft would be alone with their Frankenstein distribution monster while the majority of the Linux users moves on to something better.
With Linux, there is no single instance of control or power. If a project takes a path people don’t like, it get forked. EEE requires Microsoft to cease full control of all the related pieces and components and kill the open source aspects of it.
That’s the advantage of open source licences. Once the source is out in the public, you can’t retract the source code afterwards, then it just forks.