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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Cyber Cynic

Could Microsoft switch to Linux?

136 comments

TAGS:business, desktop linux, Linhux, Microsoft, software development, Windows
IT TOPICS:Desktop Applications, Development, Enterprise Software & Services, Linux, Open Source, Operating Systems, Software, Windows & Microsoft

You'd expect, as my friend Preston Gralla did, that when someone says "proprietary software is eventually going to be doomed," and that Microsoft's future might best be served in releasing its own version of Linux, that he'd be a Linux fan. Wrong: this prophet of Windows doom and gloom was Keith Curtis, a former Microsoft Research staffer. Could he be right? I think the answer is yes and no.

Yes, proprietary software is on the decline. Forget about the free software ideology that holds that free access to code is morally right: businesses have figured out that not only does open source tend to produce better code, it's cheaper to produce it. Economic reality has made even Microsoft to, ever so reluctantly, embrace some open-source projects.

Sure, you have to share the fruits of your efforts in open-source development — but you end up creating better code faster. As many developers have discovered, it's a lot easier to build on top of other programmers' good work than waste time with proprietary software development's constant reinvention of the wheel.

And yes, Microsoft could release a Linux of its own with a Windows Aero-like interface on top of it. Why not? It's not that hard to make a Linux desktop distribution.

Many individuals have made their own Linux desktops. Heck, one of my favorite Linux distributions, MEPIS 8, is pretty much the product of one man, Warren Woodford. Thanks to online Linux distribution building systems like Novell's SUSE Studio, you can even do it yourself even if you don't know gcc, the primary Linux C complier, from make, the tool that takes various source code programs and turns them into an executable program. For that matter, there's already a Linux, the Brazilian BRLix GNU/Linux, whose claim to fame is its Vista Aero look-alike GUI (graphical user interface).

So, will Microsoft actually switch to Linux some day? No. No, they won't.

While it would be simple for Microsoft to make an operating system that looked like Windows but with Linux under the hood, the real problem is all those Microsoft programs, from Microsoft Office to Flight Simulator to Windows Media Player, that require Windows' API (application programming interface) underpinnings. There's the killer technical problem.

But that's not why Microsoft is never, ever going to switch to Linux as its core operating system. The real reason is that Microsoft's business model is all about maintaining and expanding control of the user experience. It's why they illegally killed off Netscape in the '90s (once Bill Gates realized that the Internet mattered) and they locked in hardware vendors to selling only Windows on the desktop. It's why today, to really get the most out of Windows 7 in a business network, you really must have Windows Server 2008 R2 as well.

In Microsoft's ideal world, all your electronics, not just your desktop, are running Windows, and you'll have no choice but to buy new updates every few years. You simply can't do that with Linux, due to its open nature. For example, if you start using Red Hat Linux but end up hating Red Hat, you can easily move over to CentOS or Oracle Unbreakable Linux. With just a little more effort, you can switch from Red Hat to Novell SUSE Linux or Ubuntu. Linux gives you freedom of choice; Windows is built on locking you in.

For that reason alone, Microsoft will never switch. Eventually, Microsoft's business model will fail them. You could argue that its decline has already started under Ballmer's mis-management and the company's slow decline from being the unquestioned ruler of technology to having to share the limelight with Google. But that day isn't here yet. Come the day it does, I don't what Microsoft will do — but by that time, becoming an also-ran in Linux won't be an option.

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Microsoft will fight FOSS, GPL as long as they can

Submitted by apexwm on November 11, 2009 - 9:40 A.M.

Microsoft will never willingly migrate to open source or use a Linux/Unix model. They would much rather do things their own way so that they can control everything, it's all about control. Internal reports have leaked out from Microsoft for years, and they have admitted to being scared of open source and Linux. It's inevitable. Just Google the Boycott Novell website for these reports, they are quite interesting. Microsoft continues to play all sorts of games behind the scenes, like registering as many software patents as they can, vendor lock-in, and much more that customers don't see up front. But the more you dig, the more you will find that Microsoft only cares about one thing, it's bottom line. Even if it means hurting their own customers, which they do time and time again by squeezing every last dime out of them.

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Fanboy Nonsense

Submitted by Anonymous on November 11, 2009 - 9:11 A.M.

Are you ZEALOTS for real? Linux claims less than 1% as far as numbers of systems installed upon.

Yeah...Microsoft is really worried.

With the money that MS has spent in R&D, as well as the lengths it goes to to keep itself CLOSED SOURCE, it won't happen ANYTIME soon.

So, carry on, losers. Enjoy your "almost as good" OS, and keep lying to yourselves that Linux will take over the world.

Hmmm...I think Star Trek is on...

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But Linux is way better!

Submitted by Anonymous on November 20, 2009 - 8:25 A.M.

Linux is way better than Windows! It can do EVERYTHING windows can do, and a lot more! It is so easy to customize to. And it is FREE! Yep, the best OS in the world is FREE!
Note: it also depends on your Linux distribution (I Think Fedora is the best)
The only thing I could not do on Linux that I could do on windows is, umm... well... I guess if I try to run a very complex windows-only program on it, it may not work. But with a program called wine you can run most of your windows programs on Linux. But why would you want to do that when you can get Linux native programs that do the exact same thing (AND MORE) for free?

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Maybe you have not seen the

Submitted by Anonymous on November 11, 2009 - 9:43 A.M.

Maybe you have not seen the recent trends in market share for Microsoft products, they are declining in just about every software sector. People are realizing that there are better products out there, that do everything and more that Microsoft can do.

Go ahead and use Microsoft products, but keep your wallet near so that you can open it up and pay your dues to Microsoft. Or.... close it permanently and migrate to Linux.

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If there was any software

Submitted by Anonymous on November 11, 2009 - 11:08 A.M.

If there was any software that was GOOD, maybe. Sure, there are literally thousands of add-ons that can be installed in Linux, but they are half-assed crap. At least with software made for Windows, you place the CD/DVD into the drive, Auto Play starts it up, you install, and it's done. I don't have to resort to Synaptic to find programs with stupid names that do 75% of what I would like them to do. Maybe.

Add to that the PC user that has been raised on DOS. We KNOW that the hard drive is C:/. Now in Linux/Unix you are referring to HDD0. Or worse, when you are searching around with a File Manager. In Windows, it has always been relatively easy to manually hunt down what you're looking for. In Ubuntu, for example, I need to START at Home, then...if I can't find a particular file, I need to CTRL-H to hopefully see what I'm looking for.

And let's not forget UAC in Vista and in Win7. The pundits really love climbing all over Microsoft for that feature (which is quite easily disabled by MSCONFIG). But, in both Debian and Ubuntu (yes, they're related...I get it) you NEED to enter a ROOT or ADMIN password to do the same things. At least, with an unmodded UAC, it just asks you if you're SURE you want to do something.

Anyway, whatever. Life is too short to devote to the OS Flame War that has been going on for far too long. As I write this on my Acer TravelMate with Windows 7 Ultimate, I KNOW everything will work, and work quickly.

I hope you find the computer Nirvana you're so evangelizing over.

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Loserboy nonsense.

Submitted by Anonymous on November 11, 2009 - 9:28 A.M.

Linux claims less than 1% ...

No, only you claim less than 1%. Even Microsoft doesn't use such an obvious lie and admits Linux is their most significant threat in all markets.

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Change is coming to M$

Submitted by Anonymous on November 10, 2009 - 1:50 A.M.

Using the stolen DR-DOS will get soooo far. Doom is certain.

No one, not even Ballmers, can afford a release of Vista's stunning quality and innovation every two years! Windows 7 anyone?

Windows 8
Windows 9
Windows hand-over-your-cash

Now a verb; Google -or- Bing! "Dancing Monkey Boy"

Go recommend *that* to your boss.

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MS just wont work for what I do

Submitted by Anonymous on November 10, 2009 - 1:47 A.M.

I can't imagine me using A proprietary OS like Windows in one of my embedded system designs. I see no benefit to using windows over linux from a functionality perspective and many disadvantages besides the licensing costs would take all the profit away. I'm not working to make MS money, I'm working to make me and the company I work for money.

I can grab a linux kernal and modify it to run the way I want it to on the hardware I want to use. I have full access to the source code. Unless MS wants to release the source (never happen) I simply CANNOT use it.

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Linux / open source is VERY powerful

Submitted by apexwm on November 11, 2009 - 10:15 A.M.

I too use Linux for my personal business and at home. Why? Because I cannot afford to waste my time applying patches and rebooting servers all of the time with Windows, AND pay for upgrades every few years and keep track and buy licenses all of the time. Instead, I can use Linux and stay up and running for months, and there . Linux hardly ever needs to be rebooted for any patches, they can be applied on the fly. This is huge, and also the patching is very efficient. Just about every Microsoft patch needs a reboot, which is very time consuming. Linux also has a huge suite of software, that can do everything that the proprietary alternatives can do and more. It's now enterprise grade.

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A few years ago, if somebody

Submitted by Anonymous on November 9, 2009 - 12:28 A.M.

A few years ago, if somebody asked me if Microsoft would switch to Linux ever, I would have told them "Of course not, don't be silly!" They had Windows XP service pack 2, and the market liked it. The old people liked it, the young liked it, and hey, even I liked it. For the past few years though, Microsoft has really been botching up their OS's in my humble opinion. I gave vista a very serious chance, and came out of it disgusted by its bloated, naggy, and overall glitchy performance. That is when I seriously started using Linux. Now a days, I would say that even with the messy soup of applications for Linux, it is still cleaner than Vista was, and I don't expect that Linux will regress in the ways that Windows is prone to do. Open source is constantly evolving at a ridiculous speed. While Microsoft will probably never switch to Linux (despite all that could be gained from the open-source community), in my opinion, Linux distro's will soon out do proprietary desktop OSs like OSX and Windows. As for people who still want to play their games and use Windows only applications, don't underestimate Wine. As with the rest of the Open source community, it is evolving with ridiculous speed, and it already plays a large number of very popular games (Most notably World of Warcraft).

So, IMO, if things keep going the way they've going for the past six or seven years, Linux will become very competitive with Microsoft and Mac in at most ten years. Who can argue with a free product that works well?

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