What if Windows was open-source?

[MFG38]

So here's a question I randomly thought up: what if Windows was open-source like Linux?

What sorts of possibilities would an open-source Windows open up? I imagine one benefit, especially thinking about gaming, would be the OS's free modifiability, which would allow users to make the OS so that it can run modern and retro games alike without the hassle of tinkering with compatibility settings.

Other theories and ideas are most welcome.

[SavageCorona]

We would probably run into the problem that programs won't run right on one version of the same operating system while it runs fine on another version.

ie. you have Windows 7 obligatory cool subtitle 1 which runs Vanilla Doom out of the box completely fine but then there's Windows 7 obligatory cool subtitle 2 which doesn't run anything but GZDoom

It's probably better to have one single base for code.

[dio]

I'm a fan of less platforms. Even having 4 browsers gets to be a pain to develop for when it comes to complex things. I was much happier when it was Internet Explorer or nothing.

The real benefit to open source is free labor. Kudos Internet.

If Windows was open-source, Microsoft wouldn't make money... unless they put money into entertainment. Everyone complains about having to buy software or pay bills yet when it comes to games and entertainment, people have no problem. Game that used to be free? Here's $10.

[Remilia Scarlet]

I'd be willing to use it more often.

[Astral-Doomer]

It'd be quite awesome. Windows would be much more efficient then it is now. I use windows 7, but some use older versions, just because they're more flexible. As time goes on, maybe Microsoft will make windows more free to use or open-source? :-)

[dio]

Astral-Doomer said:

It'd be quite awesome. Windows would be much more efficient then it is now. I use windows 7, but some use older versions, just because they're more flexible. As time goes on, maybe Microsoft will make windows more free to use or open-source? :-)

All they need to do is make 30% on software and game sales.

With office its now a service rather than software. You pay per month or per year. If you're like me you just use office 2002.

[Mechazawa]

Google does everything Microsoft Office does, for free, and its compatible with all MS formats.

docs.google.com

[Aliotroph?]

Does Google Docs screw up formatting in inexplicable ways? Because that's pretty important to me. I can't look so much like a computer wizard to middle-aged office workers if there isn't some horribly broken thing to fix about their documents.

Maybe if Windows was open sourced it would lose a few of those persistent bugs MS never seems to care about patching. The one where turning off the event logger causes dial-up networking to complain about incorrect phone numbers is interesting.

[dew]

Mechazawa said:

Google does everything Microsoft Office does, for free, and its compatible with all MS formats.

How does the Google Apps Script measure up to VBA? I know it's javascript-based, which seems a little unwieldy (slow?) compared to the hacky (wacky?) and obsolete sheet-rape glory of Visual Basic. I'm about 100% sure that GAS and VBA can't even be compatible at all.

[Mechazawa]

dew said:

How does the Google Apps Script measure up to VBA? I know it's javascript-based, which seems a little unwieldy (slow?) compared to the hacky (wacky?) and obsolete sheet-rape glory of Visual Basic. I'm about 100% sure that GAS and VBA can't even be compatible at all.

Okay, that was way deeper than my knowledge. Lol. I have used google docs for excel, power points, documents, and so on. I have never had any compatibility issues.

Aliotroph? said:

Does Google Docs screw up formatting in inexplicable ways? Because that's pretty important to me. I can't look so much like a computer wizard to middle-aged office workers if there isn't some horribly broken thing to fix about their documents.

I have never had any issues, I have used it at university for 3 years now. OpenOffice does. LibreOffice, I am not sure of. You could always try them, all 3 options are free.

The thing about google docs also is that everything can be stored on google drive, so you can access it anywhere.

[RestlessRodent]

Windows is not open source because of money and market control.

Ironic though that MS is going all open source now and in the past have talked about the infectious nature of the GPL, yet a bunch of their new stuff is MIT licensed (which means a grab bag full of code).

However, I highly doubt Windows will be open sourced anytime soon. You have the multimedia corporations that use its closed source nature for DRM.

When you say open source, which license do you refer to? You can still have an "open"-ish system such as Mac OS X and Android while still effectively locking it down.

Mechazawa said:

so you can access it anywhere.

Can I access it if I happen to be on Titan right now?

[Aliotroph?]

dew said:

How does the Google Apps Script measure up to VBA? I know it's javascript-based, which seems a little unwieldy (slow?) compared to the hacky (wacky?) and obsolete sheet-rape glory of Visual Basic. I'm about 100% sure that GAS and VBA can't even be compatible at all.

The thing to remember with Google Docs is those documents live on Google's servers. If you don't structure your code to send batches of operations as one request it'll be painfully slow while it waits on dozens or hundreds of AJAX requests. Running all the code on the server also means the performance the browser doesn't factor so much into the language performance.

I've done a lot of VBA this year. I think it's a mess. Leaves lots of crappiness of VB6 in while removing most of the fun, hackish bits.

[MFG38]

GhostlyDeath said:

When you say open source, which license do you refer to?

Frankly I know jackshit about licenses (aside from Creative Commons and Attribution), but I dare claim that since the Doom source code is licensed under a GPL license and more or less freely usable for all sorts of purposes, Windows would also probably be licensed under GPL if it did go open-source.

[ducon]

If MS was open-sourced, the register base would have disappeared.

[MrFlibble]

It is my understanding that Red Hat/Fedora Linux distribution is a good example of how a commercial open source operating system may exist in the software market.