# "Definitely Possible" : Microsoft Considers Open Source Windows.



## MannDude (Apr 4, 2015)

I think this is great, even though I'm not a personal user of Windows myself but any push towards open source is good in my opinion. Interestingly enough, Microsoft's own Azure cloud service now allows for Linux OSes that now account for 20% all the instances deployed, which is still probably shockingly low compared to other similar services such as Amazon's cloud.

What do you think? Think we'll ever see an Open Source Windows distro?

You can read the full article here: https://archive.today/yPcoD


----------



## tonyg (Apr 4, 2015)

That shows one thing: Microsoft is feeling the Linux/BSD/OSX/Android pinch.

IBM anyone?


----------



## joepie91 (Apr 4, 2015)

It is extremely likely that we will be seeing an open-source Windows at some point - it's going to be a necessity for it to survive in the long run, and Microsoft seems to realize that. They have recently been moving more and more towards selling services and support, rather than software, as competition in software tightens.

Windows currently has two main reasons for still being widely used:


Games
Media production software (audio software, video editing software, ...)
Games are now rapidly becoming available on Linux - by now, Linux compatibility for a game is a feature list bulletpoint, rather than a separate press release. As time goes on, it is not unreasonable to expect that we will see the same thing happening for media production software.

Right now, I believe Linux has a 1% market share on the desktop/laptop or something along those lines - imagine how many new people (and tinkerers!) even an increase to only 10% would bring in (which is a very reasonable expectation in the longer term, as games and media production software become available on Linux). This will in turn lead to more source code contributions - at a rate that Microsoft really won't be able to match, because they actually have to _pay_ every single of their developers.

In short: you can't outrun an open-source project (that is _actually_ open to contributions) that has a sizeable userbase. Operating systems are very quickly going in that direction, and Microsoft realizes that. They are just making a business decision.


----------



## drmike (Apr 4, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> Right now, I believe Linux has a 1% market share on the desktop/laptop or something along those lines - imagine how many new people (and tinkerers!) even an increase to only 10% would bring in (which is a very reasonable expectation in the longer term, as games and media production software become available on Linux). This will in turn lead to more source code contributions - at a rate that Microsoft really won't be able to match, because they actually have to _pay_ every single of their developers.


The folks counting market share are full of shit.  Linux is way bigger than 1%.

To start I lump Apple in since their OS is Unix and Linux and Unix are more related than cousins.

Second I look at folks like myself and there are no Windows OS installs here.  My desktops and workstations all run Linux or Unix.   I have a bunch of them, in fact more than probably everyone combined in the rest of my block combined.  Plus I've migrated a number of regular folks to Linux and they aren't out buying anything, their computing just works year after year.

When we look at the changing use of computing, soooooooooooooooooooo many people are basically phone + tablet these days.  The desktop (if they even have one) is an afterthought.   Why?  Cause most people produce nothing significant and use their desktop and other devices for short communications - emails, texts, IM, etc.  You don't need a desktop for those.

When I look at tablet and phone world,  where is Windows?  Lagging waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy behind.  I have many phones and tablets here, not a single one runs Windows.

Will going open source save Microsoft?  Maybe.  Until then they'll spend their billions trying to compete on mobile side (phones and tablets) and diversifying into usage based billing models (big illusion idea that people don't want to own but rather want to rent things).

When you look more broadly, all the integrated computers in things (TVs, appliances, cars, etc.)  you will see lots of Linux and have for many years.

But, all this open and idealism still sucks.  I was anti-Microsoft for a long time for their bad behavior and manipulation of the market.  Now we see same idiotic behavior out of Google to a much larger extent.   We likely see more of that from Samsung, certainly more of that from Apple.  It's a corporate problem and mass greed.

The veneer has come off of open source.  The idealism of free contributions remains fringe folks and extensions of corporate employed churning at work based on Linux to cut product development and costs.  

Open source matters and there are good projects, but many come and go and have limited durability or grow up and become corporate.  Enough fail to grow corporate and just die on the vine.

Until we build more intentional and contributor based living communities, there is a huge disconnect between those of us idealistic about open source and the way we live big picture.  The two life segments barely ever connect and spill out to tangible world.  If more tangible results, open source would become a more noble and more larger matter thing.  

I am a huge fan of open source, but it's still awkward, broken, poverty sector, etc.  Very similar to musicians and various form artists.  Open source does matter.

Microsoft, meh, I find little good to say about them.  The world doesn't need them for sure.  Die.


----------



## joepie91 (Apr 4, 2015)

drmike said:


> To start I lump Apple in since their OS is Unix and Linux and Unix are more related than cousins.


OS X is a BSD, actually. Other than being POSIX-y, OS X and Linux don't have terribly much in common.


----------



## drmike (Apr 4, 2015)

... and I realize the bean counters were just talking about desktop, but I still don't buy it...  market share at this point is higher there too... All those Chromebooks.

[SIZE=13.63636302948px] December 2013: [/SIZE]Google Chromebooks Are Now 21% Of Notebooks Sold

Gartner Says Chromebook Sales Will Reach 5.2 Million Units in 2014

Chromebook Sales Expected to Nearly Triple by 2017

In 2014, Sales to Consumers Will Account for Over Half of All Chromebook Sales

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]Plus there are those pesky Chromebox devices as desktops too....[/SIZE]

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]Like the  [/SIZE]ASUS CHROMEBOX-M004U Desktop...

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]Over at Amazon currently: [/SIZE]#1 Best Sellerin Desktop Computers

In desktop rankings by purchase at Amazon, of the Top 5, 1 is a Chrome based unit and another is an Android based.   So 2/5 are Linux.

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]Back to notebook / portables ... over at Amazon currently... [/SIZE]

Samsung Chromebook 2 XE500C12-K01US 11.6-Inch (Silver)

#1 Best Sellerin Netbook Computers

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]Of the Top 5 notebooks per Amazon, 3 of them are Chromebooks.[/SIZE]


----------



## host4go (Apr 4, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> Windows currently has two main reasons for still being widely used:
> 
> 
> Games
> Media production software (audio software, video editing software, ...)


You are forgettng businesses, which for sure account for a large % of the *paid *licences



drmike said:


> ...


Can sense the hate, but meh.

Most of my day is behind emails, talking with people over skype and so on... I had a few android phones, also had a couple Apple (last one being iphone4s, never again), and the reality is, windows phone makes it easier for me.

I have a desktop running windows and a laptop running windows.. dont have a windows tablet just because it´s not mobile enought for me... I do have an asus running on android that I bought on a day I was convinced "this is the one!". But it wasn't. Smartphones are mobile, tablets not so much.

Apple vs Windows vs Linux as become like being a fan of a specific soccer team. Everyone says their choice is the better. Personally, Windows is the one that works best for me I am not right, you are not right, diferent things work for diferent people, that´s all there is to it.

And before you accuse me of not "experimenting", I can honestely tell you that I did experiment with other OS's, But for me, Windoes is the one.

That said, I would love to see Windows go Open Source. I dot expect Windows to be anymore secure than any other OS around so, to me, as a customer I have nothing to loose and only to gain.


----------



## host4go (Apr 4, 2015)

drmike said:


> ... and I realize the bean counters were just talking about desktop, but I still don't buy it...  market share at this point is higher there too... All those Chromebooks.
> 
> [SIZE=13.63636302948px] December 2013: [/SIZE]Google Chromebooks Are Now 21% Of Notebooks Sold
> 
> ...


Maybe you shoudl have quotd a bit more 

"By NPD’s tallies, Chromebooks accounted for 21% of all *U.S. commercial notebook *sales in 2013 through November, and 10% of all computers and tablets."

Ohh, and Windows still have over 50% of the market share. So, yeah. They are not yet doomed.


----------



## drmike (Apr 4, 2015)

host4go said:


> Most of my day is behind emails, talking with people over skype and so on... I had a few android phones, also had a couple Apple (last one being iphone4s, never again), and the reality is, windows phone makes it easier for me.
> 
> I have a desktop running windows and a laptop running windows.. dont have a windows tablet just because it´s not mobile enought for me... I do have an asus running on android that I bought on a day I was convinced "this is the one!". But it wasn't. Smartphones are mobile, tablets not so much.
> 
> And before you accuse me of not "experimenting", I can honestely tell you that I did experiment with other OS's, But for me, Windoes is the one.


Plenty of good email clients out there, some are even web based so can run it on an embedded tuna fish can in the future.

Skype runs on all major platforms, so no big issue there either.

I expect some better integration with Skype and Windows.  It's sort of an island in Linux or seems to be.

Most of what you described I can and do accomplish lately on a lowly tablet or a Samsung phone.  All made even better by tethering a proper bluetooth keyboard and mouse.  You can most certainly do the same on Windows phone or Surface tablet.

The competition at market isn't Windows (closed source product line) vs. Apple (closed source derived from open source in theory software) vs. Linux (rebadged and remixed as Android, Chrome, Ubuntu, Debian, 500 other distros, etc.).

It's Windows vs. Linux/Unix, that's the competition.  But, the pimps gaming it all are about big $$$$$ corporate control, and in lieu of that, it's all about the world's largest data company profiling everything you do.  Odds are Crapple and Winblows are also engaging in the same rubbish though.

Consolidation of computing and fewer options are bad for all of our well being.  Hopefully more options come to market and not just respun Android/Chrome.


----------



## DomainBop (Apr 4, 2015)

drmike said:


> In desktop rankings by purchase at Amazon, of the Top 5, 1 is a Chrome based unit and another is an Android based.   So 2/5 are Linux.


That seems like a conflict of interest.  People who shop at the CIA's favorite technology company (_who can forget_ _that little $600 million contract AWS has with the CIA_) are buying a product made by the NSA's favorite technology company.  



> I dot expect Windows to be anymore secure than any other OS around


Based on its track record, I don't think anyone expects Windows to be more secure than any other operating system,


----------



## drmike (Apr 4, 2015)

host4go said:


> Maybe you shoudl have quotd a bit more
> 
> "By NPD’s tallies, Chromebooks accounted for 21% of all *U.S. commercial notebook *sales in 2013 through November, and 10% of all computers and tablets."
> 
> Ohh, and Windows still have over 50% of the market share. So, yeah. They are not yet doomed.


Believe me, I am not glad Chrome-whatevers are selling like hotcakes.   It's not a choice of better company big picture.

I'd rather see true Linux distro units selling.  Emphasis on other more freeware spirit and less commercially inclined to do mass stupid.


----------



## host4go (Apr 4, 2015)

drmike said:


> Plenty of good email clients out there, some are even web based so can run it on an embedded tuna fish can in the future.
> 
> Skype runs on all major platforms, so no big issue there either.
> 
> ...





drmike said:


> Believe me, I am not glad Chrome-whatevers are selling like hotcakes.   It's not a choice of better company big picture.
> 
> I'd rather see true Linux distro units selling.  Emphasis on other more freeware spirit and less commercially inclined to do mass stupid.




That was kinda my point, you can accomplish the same thing on every other OS, but not every OS works for you.

In my case the OS that works for me is Windows, the mail client Outlook.. but dont you think for a second that I follow Microsoft like a fanatic *cought*applefans*cought*, browser I use firefox (eager to use firefox dev, but still unstable for me), Project Manager a web based software.. and there are for sure other examples.

I don't like to use a web based mail client, I just don't like to. As for skype, I feel that the integration is good all around. After all Skype is competing on it´s own market.

Skype is a great piece of software, keep in mind that it wasn't originally developed by Microsoft so it doesn't cound for my Microsoft Fan points 

Just like you, I feel that the more the merrier. Competition is good and one Company having a too large of a market share never works well for the customer.



DomainBop said:


> Based on its track record, I don't think anyone expects Windows to be more secure than any other operating system,


True, then again the others aren't safe as well.

Out of the blue i remembered a news article I read last year about a company that was shutting  down due to NSA threats.

The thing was, this company services was about encrypting communications, NSA had requested for the company to include a door for them to snoop the communications, the company refused and after some wrestling the company onwer was informed that if he was going to insist in not complying he would be arrested for terrorism.

The owner of this company decide to shut it down and send a letter to all his customers explaining what was happenign. Thus the news article.

Have you guys heard about this on your corner of the world?


----------



## joepie91 (Apr 5, 2015)

host4go said:


> You are forgettng businesses, which for sure account for a large % of the *paid *licences


I am certainly not forgetting businesses, but perhaps I should've been more clear that I meant *long-term* reasons for Windows usage. Business software is not specific to Windows - it is often tailor-made, for whatever platform the business happens to be running on. In other words: in the long-term, "business software" is not going to keep any real-world percentage of users on Windows, in and of itself.



drmike said:


> ... and I realize the bean counters were just talking about desktop, but I still don't buy it...  market share at this point is higher there too... All those Chromebooks.
> 
> [SIZE=13.63636302948px] December 2013: [/SIZE]Google Chromebooks Are Now 21% Of Notebooks Sold
> 
> ...


I honestly don't really consider Chromebooks to be Linux systems. It would be misleading to count them along with 'real' Linuxes - hell, you typically _can't even install a real Linux distro_ on a Chromebook, without running into driver problems.


----------



## danielm (Apr 5, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> Media production software (audio software, video editing software, ...)


I think this is a questionable reason for people to stick with Windows. Adobe Creative Suite/Cloud (Premiere, Photoshop, etc) is basically the industry standard right now, and they fully support Windows & Mac OS. Before Adobe it was apple, but they killed Final Cut 'Pro'.

With only a few exceptions I know of, almost all the major broadcast and film producers use Mac centered workflows, and I dont see Windows winning them back.


----------



## mitgib (Apr 5, 2015)

danielm said:


> With only a few exceptions I know of, almost all the major broadcast and film producers use Mac centered workflows, and I dont see Windows winning them back.


Doesn't the film industry use mostly SGI's? Of am I just showing my age again?


----------



## raindog308 (Apr 5, 2015)

mitgib said:


> Doesn't the film industry use mostly SGI's? Of am I just showing my age again?


You are showing your age.  SGI went bankrupt and its name is now used to market Xeon-based kit.

The film industry uses Mac or Linux on desktop and Linux for big render farms.  However, there are Windows-on-desktop shops as well.


----------



## raindog308 (Apr 5, 2015)

drmike said:


> Microsoft, meh, I find little good to say about them.  The world doesn't need them for sure.  Die.


In the enterprise, there's no one else who does what they do - integrated Active Directory, file share, Sharepoint, email, office, desktop, database, development tools, etc.  

Microsoft in the enterprise is less about any one specific product and more about its diverse ecosystem.

>95% of the Fortune 500 uses Active Directory...that stat alone tells you how deeply Microsoft is embedded into big business.


----------



## joepie91 (Apr 5, 2015)

danielm said:


> I think this is a questionable reason for people to stick with Windows. Adobe Creative Suite/Cloud (Premiere, Photoshop, etc) is basically the industry standard right now, and they fully support Windows & Mac OS. Before Adobe it was apple, but they killed Final Cut 'Pro'.
> 
> With only a few exceptions I know of, almost all the major broadcast and film producers use Mac centered workflows, and I dont see Windows winning them back.


 Professional users, sure. But that massive amount of people who dick around with media production in their spare time as a hobby? They do it on Windows, by and large.


----------



## host4go (Apr 6, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> Professional users, sure. But that massive amount of people who dick around with media production in their spare time as a hobby? They do it on Windows, by and large.





danielm said:


> I think this is a questionable reason for people to stick with Windows. Adobe Creative Suite/Cloud (Premiere, Photoshop, etc) is basically the industry standard right now, and they fully support Windows & Mac OS. Before Adobe it was apple, but they killed Final Cut 'Pro'.
> 
> With only a few exceptions I know of, almost all the major broadcast and film producers use Mac centered workflows, and I dont see Windows winning them back.


I dont agree with neither of you.

I know allot of people that work with Graphics, namely photographers, print houses, publishers and other print related industry.

Windows won they back a while ago.

Adobe is awesome yes, but dont bush off coredraw and QuaXpress. The later specially.

I think you are l showing you age


----------



## drmike (Apr 6, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> I honestly don't really consider Chromebooks to be Linux systems. It would be misleading to count them along with 'real' Linuxes - hell, you typically _can't even install a real Linux distro_ on a Chromebook, without running into driver problems.


Chrome is based on Linux.  I get the purist approach here that it *isn't Linux* in the open and hack at it sort of spirit.

As far as real distros on Chromebook, I know it's being done successfully.  I am not doing it as I won't buy anything that  is a straight up to that point Google product.  Once Chromebooks plummet used waste stream to $50 I will probably pick a few up for tinkering, with a real Linux distro of course.


----------



## joepie91 (Apr 6, 2015)

drmike said:


> Chrome is based on Linux.  I get the purist approach here that it *isn't Linux* in the open and hack at it sort of spirit.


It's even worse than that. Due to kernel modifications, it is apparently not even possible to use ChromeOS driver builds on a regular Linux distro, which would be the source of aforementioned switching-to-a-real-distro issues. Whether you can install a 'real' distro depends on whether the Chromebook in question uses off-the-shelf components (so to say), or custom components that are only used in Chromebooks (assuming no open-source driver is available for them).


----------



## drmike (Apr 7, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> It's even worse than that. Due to kernel modifications, it is apparently not even possible to use ChromeOS driver builds on a regular Linux distro, which would be the source of aforementioned switching-to-a-real-distro issues. Whether you can install a 'real' distro depends on whether the Chromebook in question uses off-the-shelf components (so to say), or custom components that are only used in Chromebooks (assuming no open-source driver is available for them).


I agree with all of that.  True indeed.   Same hardware nightmare still remains part of the Linux experience.

I know folks are buying the Chromebooks and wiping things and running to more open Linux.  Justifies some small 1-7% of total Chromebook sales I'd guesstimate.

Time for me to run off and see what OS Stallman is pushing these days.  Been meaning to again try going in that very open direction.


----------

