<story><title>Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?</title><url>https://www.zdnet.com/article/ms-linux-lindows-could-microsoft-release-a-desktop-linux/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>geofft</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;In addition, for several years now, Microsoft&amp;#x27;s WSL developers have been working on mapping Linux API calls to Windows and vice-versa. A lot of the work needed for Windows apps to run without modification on Linux has already been done.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This argument makes little sense: that &amp;quot;vice versa&amp;quot; is wholly unsubstantiated and without it the rest collapses. Making Linux binaries work on NT (which already &lt;i&gt;has&lt;/i&gt; a subsystem concept; Interix proved that this could be done) in a way where they interact little with the Windows desktop, and making not just NT binaries but &lt;i&gt;Win32&lt;/i&gt; binaries work smoothly on Linux, are almost entirely unrelated problems.&lt;p&gt;It is true that MS owns the code necessary to make this happen, that WINE is an existence proof that it can be done shockingly well even without that code, and that there is both code and expertise at MS for stuffing Linux concepts and NT concepts in the same kernel. But that&amp;#x27;s about it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Joeri</author><text>On the other hand, Microsoft has been trying for years to get developers off win32 and onto .NET. Windows S mode was an experiment where they didn&amp;#x27;t support win32 at all. Much of .NET is already open source. One could argue they are ready to make a .NET shell around a linux kernel and ship MS Linux.&lt;p&gt;But ... why would they? The only reasoning I can see is if they could stop maintaining the windows kernel, like how the move to chromium means they have one less thing to maintain. But they have to keep maintaining it for all those enterprise windows deployments which are tied hard to win32 apps. So I think there&amp;#x27;s nothing here but clickbait. And yes, I clicked.</text></comment>
<story><title>Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?</title><url>https://www.zdnet.com/article/ms-linux-lindows-could-microsoft-release-a-desktop-linux/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>geofft</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;In addition, for several years now, Microsoft&amp;#x27;s WSL developers have been working on mapping Linux API calls to Windows and vice-versa. A lot of the work needed for Windows apps to run without modification on Linux has already been done.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This argument makes little sense: that &amp;quot;vice versa&amp;quot; is wholly unsubstantiated and without it the rest collapses. Making Linux binaries work on NT (which already &lt;i&gt;has&lt;/i&gt; a subsystem concept; Interix proved that this could be done) in a way where they interact little with the Windows desktop, and making not just NT binaries but &lt;i&gt;Win32&lt;/i&gt; binaries work smoothly on Linux, are almost entirely unrelated problems.&lt;p&gt;It is true that MS owns the code necessary to make this happen, that WINE is an existence proof that it can be done shockingly well even without that code, and that there is both code and expertise at MS for stuffing Linux concepts and NT concepts in the same kernel. But that&amp;#x27;s about it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>halbritt</author><text>The existence of MSSQL-Linux is proof that Microsoft can get this done.  The story is pretty interesting:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cloudblogs.microsoft.com&amp;#x2F;sqlserver&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;sql-server-on-linux-how-introduction&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;cloudblogs.microsoft.com&amp;#x2F;sqlserver&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;16&amp;#x2F;sql-se...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>