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

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.

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.

"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

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.

Maybe. If they do it's going to represent a pretty dramatic shift away from backwards compatibility, which has always been the biggest defining characteristic of Windows. Probably not for Enterprise, but maybe for Personal?

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

If they dont use wine, they'll sell you a subscription to a cloud machine running legacy Windows to run your legacy apps in. They already have this product Windows cloud pc is a thing

Microsoft can't do funny things. Microsoft is a bloodsucking sociopath in a clown dress.

It's called Microslop. Won't you ever forget it

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

How are Nvidia GPUs holding up on Linux at this point? Since the author specifically praised AMD and Linux.

MS already has their own Linux distribution...

Watch them be the ones to make Loss32

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.

Heck, you can’t even use it to give a slideshow without risking Windows Update deciding to reinstall your whole OS mid presentation! Ask me how I know.

There are several ways to prevent that. There's a lot of valid criticism to be made about windows but it's hard to take someone seriously who apparently doesn't know how to use the OS.

It's a bit of a long shot, but I do see it as a very real possibility at least. Just look at what happened with Edge switching to Chromium.

We've known for some time now how little a share of their revenue the desktop space generates, but that ignores how valuable the control over that space is. They'll let Windows become a loss leader to maintain that control.

That said, as they continue to cut to the bone in order to drive profits, I can see them sacrificing the OS development even further. Branding familiarity is all that's required, Microsoft can just as easily implement their telemetry and DRM (through exposed TPM) in Linux as they could their own operating system. I've theorized this myself, I think a first step would be releasing some honest to god, official Linux binaries for Microsoft Office (excuse me, Copilot) in order to get that telemetry and TPM/DRM enabled on your system.

I'm not willing to conjecture on the exact probability of it coming to pass, but I think it would be foolish to not start taking up at least somewhat of a defensive position in allowing these corporations into the Linux space were they're just gonna do what they do again. Even if Linux adoption begins to plateau, capitalism assures us once they've run their markets dry they'll expand however they possibly can to make line go up and that needs to be considered as a serious threat to FOSS.

They will sell a laptop so secure that not even the owner is allowed to use it?

Their single sigh on will only work if you recite the entire alphabet backwards in the key of the password while making love to a nun who only speaks French and Puerto Rican Spanish during a full moon while holding a Chihuahua who is eating taco bell?

I have been saying this for years 😂

That's hardly original, I first heard that theory floated when WSL came out.

This is just the same "Year of the Linux Desktop" copium regurgitated.

I love using Linux, but there functionally is nothing wrong with Windows either. Much of the world is happily using W11. And Linux has some very rough edges that aren't going away either, we just learn to live with them.

I highly doubt they would ever move to Linux, but a custom BSD kernel doesn't seem that unlikely

That would be one way to transition to rust…

Embrace, extend, extinguish?

What a weird take. Kernel diversity is a good thing and, lets be honest, windows kernel is in many ways superior to linux (and worse in others). All the problems come from the stuff microslop puts on top of it. We dont want chromium situation repeated with OS's.