In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

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Konata
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Konata »

Nobody pays for an OS, except OEMs, which are the largest buyers of Windows. They buy Windows and put it on a computer, not the customer. That's why Windows 10 is a free upgrade, they lose so little money it's nothing to them. And no matter what OS emerges, even ReactOS, OEMs will still pay for Windows, because people need Windows. The idea of another OS on OEM machines is so foreign one women got on the news for being bewildered by Ubuntu.

And, considering the success of Android, I don't see why Microsoft wouldn't open Windows. Android was kind of an example for the world. However, something Microsoft does - indeed, it's almost a duty - is to hold a tight shift on Windows and OEMs. OEMs will completely fuck you over if they're allowed. Microsoft is what brought the entire PC industry together, forcing OEMs to use standards and comply to a uniform user experience, or else they'll be left out of the market altogether and quickly die off. Opening Windows and letting OEMs do whatever they want again would be opening Pandora's box. Microsoft would probably have to do what the whole computer industry is heading towards: Online services, like PurpleGurl said. If they somehow made Windows dependent on, say, Azure or something, with no amount of modifications being made to Windows to change that, then they could still hold their (incredibly vital to all of us) power over the PC industry. Once Microsoft can retain their power without Windows, then Windows will be opened. Microsoft does love open source software, they're pretty much making it by the day now.
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by dizt3mp3r »

I've paid for Windows licences. Building desktops, upgrading desktops and laptops. Machines with the wrong version of Windows home requiring professional versions to run NFS, machines where the hard drive died and the Windows licence number was lost, OS/X desktops requiring virtual Windows environments to run Windows apps, setting up multiple Windows test environments as targets requiring multiple Windows licences (XP, Vista, Win7 & 8) for testing. Setting up sandboxed versions of Windows for testing a/v honeypots. Installing a new full licence when the OEM licence no longer applied due to too many hardware changes

Do I need to go on?
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
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Konata
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Konata »

That's still not even a fraction of what OEMs buy. Do you really not know how many licenses they buy in bulk? I couldn't even fathom how many hundreds of PCs each OEM produces a day, and there are a lot of OEMs. Do you really think Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar corporation because some people bought Windows to run in a VM on a mac? I don't think even more than 2% of the total population of America even knows how to assemble a computer.
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by dizt3mp3r »

I don't think what you said has much relevance, how many licences sold/distributed has nothing to do with Windows being open source. You simply said no-one buys windows - I answered you, you were wrong. Facts please. Too many words that mean too little. Say what you mean rather than generalisations and I won't need to reply.
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
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Konata
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Konata »

I mean in respect to relativity. Did you think I literally meant not a soul on earth buys Windows? Are you that naive? When someone says "nobody" it usually refers to relativity. I don't even know what your point is anymore, I feel like I'm being told trivia.
hbelusca
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by hbelusca »

Konata wrote:I mean in respect to relativity. Did you think I literally meant not a soul on earth buys Windows? Are you that naive? When someone says "nobody" it usually refers to relativity. I don't even know what your point is anymore, I feel like I'm being told trivia.
Referring to special or general relativity? :D :D </trolling>
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by dizt3mp3r »

This discussion is going nowhere - perhaps into his black hole?

I can't be bothered to continue... but thanks for the troll - a good way to put an end to this thread :)
Skillset: VMS,DOS,Windows Sysadmin from 1985, fault-tolerance, VaxCluster, Alpha,Sparc. DCL,QB,VBDOS- VB6,.NET, PHP,NODE.JS, Graphic Design, Project Manager, CMS, Quad Electronics. classic cars & m'bikes. Artist in water & oils. Historian.
wildschwein
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by wildschwein »

dizt3mp3r wrote: What if Nazi Germany had coded Windows in 1943? Would the licence have been more or less restrictive?
It would have called "Deutsches Reichs-Fenster-Betriebssystem 3.11" and all programming languages and all computer terms were all in german.

instead of PC, people would have spoken from "Rechen-Knecht"

in analogie to "Volksempfänger" there would have been "Volks-Rechen-Knecht"
console = "Befehls-Empfangs-Einheit"
joystick ="Freu-Dich-Stock"
CD="Datenscheibe"

:-)
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by dizt3mp3r »

...and the Western Allies would have had something analog that needed winding up?

I suppose the Soviets would have had Reaktos?
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erkinalp
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by erkinalp »

Bookmarked https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows. It 404s for now. It will 503 due to overcrowding when Windows source code is released.
dizt3mp3r wrote:I suppose the Soviets would have had Reaktos?
ReactOS is a Russian project already. Did you think ReactOS orginated in America?
-uses Ubuntu+GNOME 3 GNU/Linux
-likes Free (as in freedom) and Open Source Detergents
-favors open source of Windows 10 under GPL2
oldman
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by oldman »

erkinalp wrote: ReactOS is a Russian project already.
Please substantiate this?
erkinalp wrote: Did you think ReactOS orginated in America?
It is neither an American or a Russian project! It is an international project, and always as been in the 15 or 16 years that I have been following it's progress.
The first Russian that I was aware of, is Aleksey Bragin. And that was not for some years.
Please keep the Windows classic 9x/2000 look and feel.
The layman's guides - debugging - bug reporting - compiling - ISO remaster.
They may help you with a problem, so do have a look at them.
hbelusca
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by hbelusca »

erkinalp wrote:Bookmarked https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows. It 404s for now. It will 503 due to overcrowding when Windows source code is released.
dizt3mp3r wrote:I suppose the Soviets would have had Reaktos?
ReactOS is a Russian project already. Did you think ReactOS orginated in America?
Actually it originated from South Africa, since Jason Filby, the first head of ReactOS, was from there.
See also this webpage, archived on 23rd August 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/199908232127 ... ntact.html . Note that there's one English and one French people too, in the list.
Up to beginning 2006 the project was held by an American guy (Steven Edwards): http://web.archive.org/web/200601060913 ... of_ReactOS .
ReactOS turned "russian" :P when Aleksey Bragin went to be the project leader: http://web.archive.org/web/200607021251 ... of_ReactOS .
Janus
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Janus »

Hello all, I am new here.
This may be a little long winded, but I want to be clear.
I also gloss over a lot of detail, and present in a simplified manner, because it is not directly relevant.

First let me make my own opinion known.
Windows as an OS is dead.
Starting with Vista, it has gone from empowering the owner/user, to hiding everything.

I am not saying that windows will no longer exist, just that it is dead.
Its slow death was hinted at starting in vista, but fully pronounced in 8 when all pretense was abandoned.
After creating the best implementation to date of a gui, which culminated in XP(Eventually anyway, after some growing pains).
They have steadily removed the things that differentiate between a tablet like device, and a true computer.
That statement itself is an indication of their thinking.

Their telemetry gathering(Spying in my own opinion) is even worse.
How can you run a secure network when your OS reports on you?
How do you trust your browser to make a secure connection when your OS can't be trusted?

Starting with 8, MS is no longer making a desktop OS.
With the recent announcement/acknowledgement of the upcoming W10 cloud edition, their long term thinking has become clear.
MS no longer believes in people owning their own computers.
Their goal is reduce computers to devices or appliances.

The rise of MS came in no small part because of the way IBM used to do business.
Most of the machines that IBM made were either mainframes, or terminals.
In fact, the early PCs were little more than terminals.
Early OS's tended toward being for really high end terminals for display, with the real processing done in the mainframe.
That approach made sense at the time, and made IBM a lot of money
However, that business model itself was predicated on scarcity of mass processing, and the fact that processing was hence expensive.
Their business model predated moore's law, and ignored it even after it came about.

People have always tinkered, which resulted in the agricultural, industrial, and other revolutions.
Eventually someone realized that the standalone terminals had become fast enough to do some things for themselves.
That required an OS that could stand alone.
Several were developed, CPM was just one.
Hobbyists entered the picture, which IBM mostly ignored.
They owned the big iron, the real processing machines.
However, they failed to acknowledge that the terminals had become powerful enough to do things on their own.
Video games emerged, which if IBM had been paying attention, were an emergency siren.
With console games proving that information gathering, processing, and display, could all happen in the same box at the same time, it inspired the home hobbyist/tinkerer to bring that mainframe terminal home, and see what it could really do.

That movement spurred the home computer/videogame/console market.
Out of it were born crude bookkeeping and word processing programs.
Small business finally had its business applications fit for their scale.

Ask anyone who does double entry book keeping how much faster even a slow computer is than doing it by hand.
Ask anyone who statistics how much faster even a slow computer is than doing it by hand.
Ask anyone who works with changing data sets how much faster even a slow computer is than doing it by hand.
Spreadsheets were a revolution by themselves, and only created because of the home computer revolution.

Into this, IBM made some crude homer machines that were little more than toys.
However, unlike all those dozens of others, theirs all worked together.
The different models and series could share software, and hardware.
CPM was expensive, and limited.
Unix was EXPENSIVE!!!, and I need more punctuation to truly convey the point.

Bill gates bought Qdos and revamped it slightly.
It could read and use CPM data discs, but owed no royalties.
He then licensed it to IBM, rather than selling it.
Proving he understood what was coming, and that they had no clue.
This is the foundation of MS wealth.

With one corp IBM, not wanting a single source of CPUs, ensured that AMD also made early intel compatible CPUs, they started an avalanche.
Initially they had an effective monoploy, yet for stability they needed dual or better sources of CPUs.
With two sources of CPUs, other players entered the market since supply could meet this new demand.
That new surge opened a new market.
Copies of the terminal based systems popped up.
Soon, competitors started differentiating their offerings.
However, thanks to IBM's volumes of production, matching connectors were readily available, and the copies used the same data busses.
This meant that unlike the wider market, parts interchanged among these.

The shared backbone (the ISA bus) gave us the home computer market as we know it today, though not without some growing pains.
IBM tried to fight this with proprietary expansion slots, which the mass market basically ignored.
Though the smallest of IBM's mainframe customers were 10,000 or more times the size even the largest home or small business customer.
Those big customers were out numbered by millions to one.
Thus by holding to tightly to its old mainframe model of thinking, IBM birthed the monster that strangled it.

Legacy is what gave early MsDos legs.
It managed to be able to use the old, while opening itself to a wider future.
The dinosaur finally managed to recognize that things were changing, hence the development of Os2, in partnership with MS.
That effort was to little to late however, for even then they treated it as a way to bring back the good old days, while MS did not.
Though the joint effort floundered, MS kept and reused a lot of went into Os2, in WinNt.

Now the circle comes around once again.
After helping usher in the home desktop market, MS initially ignored the internet.
Just as IBM had developed tunnel vision, so had MS.
Their reaction to it was just as blind as IBM's had been decades before.
The biggest symptom being the integration of the web browser into the OS, an insanity no one else worth mentioning ever tried.

In the mainframe days, data was both stored and process remotely,and only displayed locally.
The internet however, put a twist on that.
Now, you could both store locally, and remotely.
This let people have a backup of data they could tinker or play with.
The free for all of the early internet gave way to controlled access for some parts, just as all complex systems must.

This eventually gave way online storage, which gave way to hosting to manipulate that data on a cluster since any single machine would be overloaded, or take a long time which not every minded.
That pairing was eventually combined to create what became the cloud we have now.
Think of it as graphics accelerator for your internet stored data.
Once more the mainframe was among us, the dinosaur was back, with a twist.

Not everyone had anything in a cloud, not everyone used a cloud.
Then MS had the idea to merge its user profiles in windows, with cloud storage, so it no longer mattered where you were.
As long as you were signed with your account, you had access to everything in your cloud.
The end of local storage and manipulation, which had given birth to MS to begin with.

Of course the idea that storing everything with MS makes all your files third party business contact information, and hence easy to subpoena was not lost on law enforcement, who could now serve an SNL on MS to get your files, and they would be legally barred from telling or letting you know, was not lost on them.

All of the above leads me to the below.
A successor or replacement to Windows, which has three probable sources.
To the best of my knowledge and ability to deduce, there are only three things that might induce MS to go open source.

MacOs: Unlikely for a number of reasons; though possible.

ReactOS: Distinctly possible to inevitable; once the usage of windows drivers is sorted out, and some other issues dealt with, most of which are background.
The basis of the ReactOS project is one based usability to those not already computer literate.
Unlike many OS's, it can offer basic simplicity for those that want it, while retaining its expose everything roots for those that prefer the latter.
The later windows broke the functionality ReactOS itself uses.
While it can add as much or little of the new as desired, the fact that Windows has steadily removed features removes it from long term survivability.

Linux: This is the hardest one to define. By itself, Linux has no Gui at all.
However, several can run on top of it.
All Linux desktops have shortcomings though, each for reasons of its own.
The single biggest problem however, is that unlike WinNt line windows, it cannot drop its command line legacy for a cleaner startup.
Linux is the command line, and any Gui is simply another program running on it.
Think of it something like the problem of Win9x, which was dos based.
They eventually managed to skip the command line being visible, but everything started there.

The biggest reason I do not see Linux ever taking over the desktop market is simple.
Ultimately, it is a tech oriented persons OS.
There is no single voice to provide direction, that everyone can get behind, whether to back or fight is beside the point.

Linux has no one to ask the questions techies do not understand are even questions.
The biggest one, the desktop.
People like their start menu, which MS distorted but left recognizable, then abandoned, then revived distorted beyond usability when forced to bring it back.
Some Linux desktops have one, others do not.

Then there is the other part of the desktop, the actual display.
If I put the mouse in the middle of the desktop and right click, in Win9x through XP, everything to do with the desktop is right there.
How many of you have started troubleshooting a display, or one of many other, problem(s) by putting the mouse in the middle of the screen and right clicking?
While the presentation could have used some clean up; monitor, resolution, color depth, fonts, colors, graphics hardware, and even more was all just there.
In Vista and later, and every Linux desktop I have seen, and I acknowledge I have not seen them all, you get some, or part, but never all of it.
There is no recognizable hardware manager.

Control panel items are placed at what to someone who doesn't think like a linux engineer, at random.
There is no standard for putting like things, or things that work together, actually together.
Why is the monitor definition no where near screen resolution, display colors, theme, or graphics hardware definition?
I am not saying they need to use the same one XP does, I am saying they need to make it predictable and navigable if they want market share.

On top of that is the need for automatically using Wine or an equivalent so users can use their windows programs until someone makes a Linux version of it.

I am also ignoring the file permission h3!! that is linux in general.
I also dislike the way it does storage.
I do not want everything in my user profile.
I freely admit to just ot getting along with Linux's default file systems.
I like drive letters, and hate ownership issues.
I spend more time fighting file ownership problems in Linux than anything else.
It is also the number one complaint I here from people when they ask me for help despite me not being a Linux person.

Given the above, I do not see MacOS as a threat that could force MS's hand.
Just as unlikely, though for different reasons as outlines, is Linux.

That leaves ReactOS as the biggest reason MS might someday opensource windows.
Once ReactOS is stable and usable for everyday tasks that is.

How long do you think corporations, government agencies, privacy advocates, or anyone who cares about security, going to keep using windows.
At that point MS, which has become the dinosaur in our tale, may think that releasing the source can keep customers, just IBM once thought that they could control the home market by doing just enough.

It won't work because they would hold back their cloud API and telemetry tracking code.
Just as IBM attempted to use its existing market girth to force it way, and failed, so to will MS, and for many of the same reasons.
IBM wanted in the middle of everything, and MS profited in the taking away of that.
The only difference now is that open source will be profiting taking that way, not a corporation.

I still doubt that MS will go opensource.
If they do however, it will be a move of desperation.
An attempt to put their finger in the dike just a little longer.

As google is letting people discover for themselves with the forks of Android, making an OS is hard.
The kernel, The fielsystems, the utilities, those are easy.
Making a UI, especially a GUI, that is exponentially harder.
It takes a lot of work, and dedication.
You need a voice with vision to center on, and it must also be willing to listen others.
It must also be able to tell them they are wrong, while also admitting if it is wrong.

This is all my own opinion, and you may or may not disagree.
You probably know about your own part of the puzzle than I do.
This was intended to as an overview to explain my opinion, history websites that have real depth abound on the internet.

I hope to someday be good enough at system level programming to contribute to this project.
For now however, back to my studies, my nose back to the digital grindstone, or flattened between the pages of yet another reference book.

Janus.
theuserbl
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by theuserbl »

erkinalp wrote:Bookmarked https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows. It 404s for now. It will 503 due to overcrowding when Windows source code is released.
Where do you have heard, that Microsoft will open it?
They have thought about it on 2015.
https://www.wired.com/2015/04/microsoft ... -possible/
But nothing happens.

And then there existing sides like
https://github.com/rnicrosoft/windows
which are created for april fools.

And sadly there existing people (stephanosio, MasonLeeBack, ... etc.) on github, who publish the illegal leaked WinNT4 and Win2k sources and the own modifications of it.

The interesting point is, that Windiows is one of the few systems, which are basically closed source.

- Linux: The kernel is OpenSource as GPL2. The compiler (GCC) is OpenSource, too.
- *BSD (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD,...): licensed under BSD-license.
- Android: same like with Linux.
- macOS & iOS: Kernel under the Apple Public Source License https://github.com/opensource-apple/xnu and the compiler under an BSD-license https://clang.llvm.org/
- OpenSolaris: kernel is under the CDDL. Newer versions, Oracle sadly don't publish as OpenSource. But since Oracle acquired Sun, the market share of (Open)Solaris sank.

- Windows: All is closed source.
There existing code, which Microsoft opens, but that is code running on Windows (or other OS like Linux or macOS).

Greatings
theuserbl
hbelusca
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by hbelusca »

If someone wants to "test" "Windows" 10 for free: http://www.windoof.org/ :D :D
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