# Eric S. Raymond: Is Microsoft Switching To a Linux Kernel That Emulates Windows? 

**URL:** <https://onehack.st/t/eric-s-raymond-is-microsoft-switching-to-a-linux-kernel-that-emulates-windows/119837>\
**Category:** News & Articles\
**Tags:** operating-system, windows\
**Created:** [September 28, 2020, 11:31am UTC](https://onehack.st/t/eric-s-raymond-is-microsoft-switching-to-a-linux-kernel-that-emulates-windows/119837 "2020-09-28T11:31:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Prometheus](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/prometheus/32/34950_2.png) [@Prometheus](https://onehack.st/u/Prometheus)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2020, 11:31am UTC](https://onehack.st/t/eric-s-raymond-is-microsoft-switching-to-a-linux-kernel-that-emulates-windows/119837/1 "2020-09-28T11:31:21Z")

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![image](https://onehack.st/uploads/default/original/3X/6/6/667a5ae7ea300f639ba21c51110fe08498a117a0.png)

Most of Microsoft’s money now comes from its cloud service Azure, points out open-source advocate Eric S. Raymond. Now he posits a future where Windows development will “inevitably” become a drag on Microsoft’s business:

_So, you’re a Microsoft corporate strategist. What’s the profit-maximizing path forward given all these factors? It’s this: [Microsoft Windows becomes a Proton-like emulation layer over a Linux kernel](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764), with the layer getting thinner over time as more of the support lands in the mainline kernel sources. The economic motive is that Microsoft sheds an ever-larger fraction of its development costs as less and less has to be done in-house. If you think this is fantasy, think again. The best evidence that it’s already the plan is that Microsoft has already [ported Edge to run under Linux](https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/09/22/1924237/microsoft-is-bringing-edge-to-linux). There is only one way that makes any sense, and that is as a trial run for freeing the rest of the Windows utility suite from depending on any emulation layer._

 

So, the end state this all points at is: New Windows is mostly a Linux kernel, there’s an old-Windows emulation over it, but Edge and the rest of the Windows user-land utilities don’t use the emulation. The emulation layer is there for games and other legacy third-party software. Economic pressure will be on Microsoft to deprecate the emulation layer… Every increment of Windows/Linux convergence helps with that — reduces administration and the expected volume of support traffic.

Eventually, Microsoft announces upcoming end-of-life on the Windows emulation. The OS itself , and its userland tools, has for some time already been Linux underneath a carefully preserved old-Windows UI. Third-party software providers stop shipping Windows binaries in favor of ELF binaries with a pure Linux API…

_…and Linux finally wins the desktop wars, not by displacing Windows but by co-opting it. Perhaps this is always how it had to be._

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**Author:** ![imanseptian](https://onehack.st/user_avatar/onehack.st/imanseptian/32/79904_2.png) [@imanseptian](https://onehack.st/u/imanseptian)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2020, 7:39pm UTC](https://onehack.st/t/eric-s-raymond-is-microsoft-switching-to-a-linux-kernel-that-emulates-windows/119837/2 "2020-09-29T19:39:23Z")

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Microsoft: “Why build something that already free to use. Let’s change to Linux kernel.”

😀