> ..the fight for Windows server against Linux is one Windows absolutely can’t win..
Windows server already has been winning on-premise every year for a long time There are way more SMBs out there than big businesses and they all run Windows servers on-premise. Just take a look at the usage numbers of one popular piece of cross-platform software that IT departments might run - https://community.spiceworks.com/networking/articles/2462-se...
As the Apple crowd likes to point out - Microsoft is also a profit leader compared to companies that hock Linux.
> Creative work is going to mobile in a big way...
No it's not.
> ...gaming is already mostly mobile...
Not really, unless you contort your stats to include every single person playing Candy Crush on their phone. Have you ever watched Twitch? Nobody is playing mobile games there. Everybody there is running Windows.
> ...there’s been a huge move to natively support Linux with games (roughly half of new steam releases and 25% of all steam games are already on Linux)...
Oh really? Linux having 25% the support for games means Windows is going down, but somehow Windows having 30% of the web server market means that Windows is also going to lose there? Pffffft. OK!
> Also note that Microsoft will still be able to charge money for the open source code because there's no reason that you can’t other than piracy concerns, and due to the increased legal scrutiny corporations tend not to pirate products, unlike the general public.
Yes, Microsoft will still be able to charge money for the open source code, but if the code is open source, other people will be able to distribute it free of charge or for a fee, that is not at all illegal or piracy! Open source has always meant this. Let me quote from the Open Source Definition, by the Open Source Initiative, the only authority on what constitutes open source:
> 1. Free Redistribution
> The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
All of the open source licenses listed on osi.org allow users to redistribute the software free of charge.
Open source does not mean you are free to distribute the code, necessarily. It literally just means that the code is available for inspection. Paid-for open source software isn't a new thing.
You're thinking of _free_ open source software. While I'm not a huge FOSS-head, there is a distinct difference between "_free_ and open source" and just "open source". It's all in the licensing.
I could, in theory, write a license that says, basically, you can't distribute my source code, but you can look at it, compile it, and even alter it to fit your needs. In fact, a lot of licenses on older software projects allowed for exactly that.
I could also release a license that says that you can only redistribute my code if you haven't purchased it, but if you have purchased it, you're not allowed to redistribute it. Pointless? Yeah, probably. But that's still a valid license.
Anything goes, as long as you can come up with the proper legalese to put in the license.
EDIT: I get it, some people support OSI's definitions, some FSF's, and apparently sharing the opinion of one has angered the supporters of the other. A lot of this is subjective, and I know that. I'd appreciate it if you discussed and voted accordingly.
> I could, in theory, write a license that says, basically, you can't distribute my source code, but you can look at it, compile it, and even alter it to fit your needs.
You can, but this doesn't meet the Open Source Definition, so you might be infringing on their trademark if you were to call that an Open Source License.
> While I'm not a huge FOSS-head, there is a distinct difference between "_free_ and open source" and just "open source". It's all in the licensing
"Free Software" and "Open Source" mean pretty much the same as far as the practices, motions and licenses are concerned (but people insist there are huge differences in terms of philosophy). "Free and Open Source Software" is just a new-ish term that includes either team to stop the whining.
"Open Source" was a mostly unused term in the software licensing field before 1998 or the people at OSI who drafted the Open Source Definition likely would have gone for something else.
"Shared source" was introduced by Microsoft a couple years later and is a pretty descriptive term for those less liberal licenses (where sharing code happens outside the criteria of the OSD).
Why not just go with that instead of arguing why people should use a term to mean something different?
There was an effort to do just that, by Microsoft, to muddy the waters, before they settled on "shared source", which might be why you get those harsh responses.
If you can look at, but not redistribute, freely, it is called 'shared source'.
Open Source really is about free redistribution. And the difference to Free Software is mostly about the stance on community and lock-in.
So the author has some commentary on operating system code licensing with no understanding on open source licenses (that bit about charging money for the source code and "piracy", see other comments here) or proprietary development habits (randomly licensing bits and pieces from third parties when they're no differentiator and too onerous to develop in-house)
Unless those third party licenses allow for redistribution of the source code under open source licensing terms (haha. no.), the result will _at best_ be a CDDL-alike licensed code distribution of everything else. See how well that worked for OpenSolaris' reception in the wider open source ecosystem.
With OpenSolaris, there was some l10n code in libc that they weren't able to get clearance for some reason.
Windows has ~30 years of legacy. There are probably some bits of Adobe code in font rendering - although at least in this case, Adobe still exists so at least it's possible to call somebody to try to negotiate.
If there's some significant piece of code in some ancient video codec (to pick some silly example) that came from a third party in the late 90s who then went under, it'll be a mess to track down if there's even anybody who needs to be called.
Now, such a codec is well isolated: "Free Windows doesn't support the AncientCrapware4Windows codec. Does anybody care?", but what if some fundamental parts of the shell was licensed back then and dragged forward all those years?
It's the long tail that hurts and just checking _if_ there's anything to do is lots of legal work that scales by lines of code (and OpenSolaris was tiny compared to Windows).
For a product that (as the article claims) approaches a retail value of $0, that's a steep investment.
What does the author mean by 'creative work' here? Writing? Image edition? Video edition? Software development? None of those things are going mobile in any way shape or form as far as I know
> Losing PC gamers also isn’t a major concern for Microsoft, because again gaming is already mostly mobile
Casual gaming is already mostly mobile. Hardcore gaming is still very much a non-mobile thing, and will stay as such for the foreseeable future. Companies are developing their games (think Call of Duty, Overwatch, Battlefield, Dota) with consoles and desktops in mind. And regarding gaming on Linux, it's better than it was -- it was nil -- but it's still a joke. Go to the steam store page right now and see how many games on the front page run on Linux
I stopped reading at "has caused Microsoft to develop operating systems that people wanted".
- Telemetry.
- Candy Crush.
- Updates crammed down my throat.
- ReFS removed from W10 Pro.
- Still an OS that doesn't know if it's for touch or keyboard/mouse. The information density on Settings app for example is laughable on a 27 inch monitor.
- Every major update used to reset search/privacy settings.
Do you realise that 99% of consumers are not IT related?
This means that 95% of people who own windows do not care about all the issues you pointed out. I subtracted 4% because some people do not like the telemetry and maybe 0.001% dislike the fact that candy-crush is pre-installed.
It could perhaps go open source in the same way .NET has. A core part of it might be made open source, such as the IOT core windows bits. They need a good reason for it. Hobbyists adapting it for various SoCs could be one such reason.
The vast codebase that is the "full" x64 Windows desktop OS though? I'll eat my hat if that happens. Source made visible, sure. That's already true for a lot of it. But proper open source, don't hold your breath.
> Microsoft has publicly stated that Windows 10 will be the last product in the Windows line.
This may be because:
1. Cloud is where the money is.
2. Maintaining an OS is a lot of burden (Hardware drivers,
patents, tie ups with several hardware/software vendors,
developer cost, and so on)
So the simple thing they can consider is to ditch the OS, and develop platform independent solutions. Gradually this will (hopefully) happen.
Releasing the OS source will be too much costly (cleaning back doors, lots of code smell, and so on). This will cause too many people vulnerable to attacks. And that can't happen.
Readit News
Windows server already has been winning on-premise every year for a long time There are way more SMBs out there than big businesses and they all run Windows servers on-premise. Just take a look at the usage numbers of one popular piece of cross-platform software that IT departments might run - https://community.spiceworks.com/networking/articles/2462-se...
Oh, you were just talking about web-servers, right? Well Windows server also has greater than 30% of the public web server market share, more than any one Linux variant - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...
As the Apple crowd likes to point out - Microsoft is also a profit leader compared to companies that hock Linux.
> Creative work is going to mobile in a big way...
No it's not.
> ...gaming is already mostly mobile...
Not really, unless you contort your stats to include every single person playing Candy Crush on their phone. Have you ever watched Twitch? Nobody is playing mobile games there. Everybody there is running Windows.
> ...there’s been a huge move to natively support Linux with games (roughly half of new steam releases and 25% of all steam games are already on Linux)...
Oh really? Linux having 25% the support for games means Windows is going down, but somehow Windows having 30% of the web server market means that Windows is also going to lose there? Pffffft. OK!
This article is garbage.
Yes, Microsoft will still be able to charge money for the open source code, but if the code is open source, other people will be able to distribute it free of charge or for a fee, that is not at all illegal or piracy! Open source has always meant this. Let me quote from the Open Source Definition, by the Open Source Initiative, the only authority on what constitutes open source:
> 1. Free Redistribution
> The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
All of the open source licenses listed on osi.org allow users to redistribute the software free of charge.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
Last month, I joined the FSF. I find that great parts of my livelihood are thanks in part to his efforts in computing, law, and rights.
You're thinking of _free_ open source software. While I'm not a huge FOSS-head, there is a distinct difference between "_free_ and open source" and just "open source". It's all in the licensing.
I could, in theory, write a license that says, basically, you can't distribute my source code, but you can look at it, compile it, and even alter it to fit your needs. In fact, a lot of licenses on older software projects allowed for exactly that.
I could also release a license that says that you can only redistribute my code if you haven't purchased it, but if you have purchased it, you're not allowed to redistribute it. Pointless? Yeah, probably. But that's still a valid license.
Anything goes, as long as you can come up with the proper legalese to put in the license.
EDIT: I get it, some people support OSI's definitions, some FSF's, and apparently sharing the opinion of one has angered the supporters of the other. A lot of this is subjective, and I know that. I'd appreciate it if you discussed and voted accordingly.
The Open Source Definition[1] has defined the term "open source" since the late 1990s to mean exactly this.
The term "Open" refers to open-membership (for contributions), and not transparency.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition
> I could, in theory, write a license that says, basically, you can't distribute my source code, but you can look at it, compile it, and even alter it to fit your needs.
You can, but this doesn't meet the Open Source Definition, so you might be infringing on their trademark if you were to call that an Open Source License.
"Free Software" and "Open Source" mean pretty much the same as far as the practices, motions and licenses are concerned (but people insist there are huge differences in terms of philosophy). "Free and Open Source Software" is just a new-ish term that includes either team to stop the whining.
"Open Source" was a mostly unused term in the software licensing field before 1998 or the people at OSI who drafted the Open Source Definition likely would have gone for something else.
"Shared source" was introduced by Microsoft a couple years later and is a pretty descriptive term for those less liberal licenses (where sharing code happens outside the criteria of the OSD).
Why not just go with that instead of arguing why people should use a term to mean something different? There was an effort to do just that, by Microsoft, to muddy the waters, before they settled on "shared source", which might be why you get those harsh responses.
You can indeed do what you like in the license (within the bounds of the law) but if it doesn't meet the OSI definition it is not Open Source.
Unless those third party licenses allow for redistribution of the source code under open source licensing terms (haha. no.), the result will _at best_ be a CDDL-alike licensed code distribution of everything else. See how well that worked for OpenSolaris' reception in the wider open source ecosystem.
Windows has ~30 years of legacy. There are probably some bits of Adobe code in font rendering - although at least in this case, Adobe still exists so at least it's possible to call somebody to try to negotiate.
If there's some significant piece of code in some ancient video codec (to pick some silly example) that came from a third party in the late 90s who then went under, it'll be a mess to track down if there's even anybody who needs to be called.
Now, such a codec is well isolated: "Free Windows doesn't support the AncientCrapware4Windows codec. Does anybody care?", but what if some fundamental parts of the shell was licensed back then and dragged forward all those years?
It's the long tail that hurts and just checking _if_ there's anything to do is lots of legal work that scales by lines of code (and OpenSolaris was tiny compared to Windows). For a product that (as the article claims) approaches a retail value of $0, that's a steep investment.
What does the author mean by 'creative work' here? Writing? Image edition? Video edition? Software development? None of those things are going mobile in any way shape or form as far as I know
> Losing PC gamers also isn’t a major concern for Microsoft, because again gaming is already mostly mobile
Casual gaming is already mostly mobile. Hardcore gaming is still very much a non-mobile thing, and will stay as such for the foreseeable future. Companies are developing their games (think Call of Duty, Overwatch, Battlefield, Dota) with consoles and desktops in mind. And regarding gaming on Linux, it's better than it was -- it was nil -- but it's still a joke. Go to the steam store page right now and see how many games on the front page run on Linux
- Telemetry.
- Candy Crush.
- Updates crammed down my throat.
- ReFS removed from W10 Pro.
- Still an OS that doesn't know if it's for touch or keyboard/mouse. The information density on Settings app for example is laughable on a 27 inch monitor.
- Every major update used to reset search/privacy settings.
But yeah, it's what people wanted.
But still your comment doesn't even answer the comment you commented on.
I use windows and arch linux and ubuntu. Like them all.
And yes my arch linux i need to update anyway otherwise my chrome and kernel is out of date and insecure.
Windows 10 alone has roughly 10 times more users than the Macintosh OS or Linux.
This means that 95% of people who own windows do not care about all the issues you pointed out. I subtracted 4% because some people do not like the telemetry and maybe 0.001% dislike the fact that candy-crush is pre-installed.
The vast codebase that is the "full" x64 Windows desktop OS though? I'll eat my hat if that happens. Source made visible, sure. That's already true for a lot of it. But proper open source, don't hold your breath.
This may be because:
So the simple thing they can consider is to ditch the OS, and develop platform independent solutions. Gradually this will (hopefully) happen.Releasing the OS source will be too much costly (cleaning back doors, lots of code smell, and so on). This will cause too many people vulnerable to attacks. And that can't happen.
So no, Windows won't go open source.