this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Operating Systems

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If Mircosoft were to fully collaborate with the Linux/open source community what would the resulting Linux distro chimera look like and how would it affect the Linux community in general? (leminal.space)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by CorrodedCranium@leminal.space to c/operating_systems@beehaw.org
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I am aware of the Linux subsystem and projects like Linspire and ReactOS that attempt to either better compatibility between the two OSs or replicate the other but I was wondering if Microsoft were to open source the entirety of Windows what the ramifications on the Linux community would be.

Would WINE and Proton's development rapidly accelerate? Would they be necessary?

Would Windows tools like their file explorer become dominant over others in the Linux space?

Would things like NTFS be installed by default in most distros? exFAT also seemed to be (or was) in a weird legal position.

Do you think a lot of people and businesses would jump on a chimera distro that was half and half?

Bit of a weird question I know but I wouldn't even know how to word it for a web search. I could also be missing a lot due to my knowledge level on licenses and compatibility projects.

It doesn't have to be Linux specific either. If you wanted to mention how it would affect BSD or other OSs I'd be interested to hear about that as well.

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[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 4 points 1 year ago

My guess, based on Proprietary Codebases I Have Seen and the apparent general philosophy of Windows development, is that people would react to the now-open-sourced Windows code with either hilarity or horror (or both at once). There would be critical articles in the tech press. Then a small select group would mine it for low-level interoperability, but none of the code itself would be retained. Emulation layers such as WINE would end up being able to reproduce Windows' quirks more thoroughly, but finding the important bits in a mess of Someone Else's Code would slow down development as much as having an exemplar would speed it up. This all assumes that the code was released with an acceptable license.

On the Linux side, mostly a wash beyond some small interoperability gains, in other words. What would happen on the Windows side, I wouldn't venture a guess on.