Releasing Windows as open source is the only viable way forward for Microsoft, and it’s going happen

Last week, Julio Merino published an article I wish someone had written ages ago: a fair, unbiased look at the differences between Windows NT in its original form and UNIX roughly at the time of the initial releases of Windows NT. Merino, who has a long career in tech and has made contributions to several operating systems, does a great job cutting through the fanboyism and decades’ worth of conventional wisdom, arriving at the following conclusion that I think many of us here will share even without diving into the great depth of his article.

NT was groundbreaking technology when it launched. As I presented above, many of the features we take for granted today in systems design were present in NT since its inception, whereas almost all other Unix systems had to gain those features slowly over time. As a result, such features don’t always integrate seamlessly with Unix philosophies.

Today, however, it’s not clear to me that NT is truly “more advanced” than, say, Linux or FreeBSD. It is true that NT had more solid design principles at the onset and more features that its contemporary operating systems, but nowadays… the differences are blurry. Yes, NT is advanced, but not significantly more so than modern Unixes.

What I find disappointing is that, even though NT has all these solid design principles in place… bloat in the UI doesn’t let the design shine through. The sluggishness of the OS even on super-powerful machines is painful to witness and might even lead to the demise of this OS.
↫ Julio Merino

You should definitely read the whole thing, and not just the conclusion, as it will give you some great insight into some of the differences between the two approaches, and how the UNIX and Windows NT worlds learned from each other and grew together. It’s well-written, easy to read, and contains a ton of information and details about especially Windows NT most people are probably not aware of.

Reading through the article helped my crystallise a set of thoughts I’ve been having about the future of Windows, and in particular, the future of Windows NT as a short-hand for the kernel, lower-level frameworks, and everything else below the graphical layer. I think there’s a major change coming to Windows NT, something so big and unheard of it’s going to be the most defining moment in Windows NT history since its very first release. There’s a few facts that lie at the root of my conclusion.

First, ever since the very beginning, Windows NT has been developed in roughly the same way: behind closed doors by a group of specialists inside Microsoft, and every now and then we got a massive dump of new code in the form of a major Windows release. It’s only recently that Microsoft has started taking a more rolling release approach to Windows development, with smaller updates peppered throughout the year, with different release branches users can subscribe to.

Second, despite many of us almost equating Microsoft with Windows – or perhaps with Windows and Office – the reality of it is that Windows hasn’t been the primary driver for revenue for Microsoft for a while now. In Microsoft’s fiscal year of 2023, Windows made up just 10% of the company’s total revenue that year, which amounts to $22 billion out of a total revenue of $211 billion. Azure alone is almost four times as large at $80 billion, and even LinkedIn – yes, LinkedIn – is good for $15 billion in revenue, making Windows only about a third more profitable than the most soulless social network in human history.

Third, despite Windows’ decreasing revenue share, the operating system is becoming ever larger in scope. Not only does it need to cover the literally infinite possible combinations of x86 hardware in both the desktop/laptop and server space, it now also needs to cover what is surely going to be a growing market for ARM hardware, starting with laptops, but surely expanding to desktops and servers, too. Microsoft needs to foot the bill for all of this development, and for how much longer can the company justify spending an inordinate amount of money on a massive army of Windows developers, when the revenue they bring in is such a small part of the company, and a part that’s decreasing every year, to boot?

Fourth, the competition Windows faces is surprisingly strong. Not only are macOS, Chrome OS, and even the Linux desktop doing better than ever, mobile computing is also competing with Windows, and that’s a space Microsoft is simply not present in at all. This is especially pressing in the developing world, where often people’s first and only computing experience is mobile – through Android, mostly – and Microsoft and Windows simply don’t play any role.

Given these facts, there’s only one reasonable course of action for Microsoft.

I think the company is going to address all of these issues by releasing large parts of Windows NT as open source. I base this on a gut feeling bourne out of the above facts, and not on any form of insider information, and there is a 99.9% chance that I am wholly, completely, and utterly wrong. Still, deep down, I feel like releasing Windows as open source makes the most sense considering the challenges the operating system and its parent company are facing.

You and I are going to witness Windows NT’s source code being published as open source on GitHub by Microsoft within 5-7 years, accompanied by an open governance model wherein contributions are welcomed and encouraged. Even if such a step will not be taken by Microsoft, I am convinced that, in the future, when today’s employees and executives write and publish their memoirs, it will contain a lot of discourse on the very serious consideration that took place within the company in the past to do so.

You can quote me on this. And then laugh at me when it inevitable turns out I’m wrong.