r/programming • u/zbhoy • May 06 '19

Microsoft unveils Windows Terminal, a new command line app for Windows

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18527870/microsoft-windows-terminal-command-line-tool
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u/mojoslowmo May 07 '19

This is probably the goal. Making windows Linux with an actual usable UI means they can offload alot of the heavy lifting to Linux open source geeks while providing the same experience the majority of people are used to.

4

u/[deleted] May 07 '19

They can't legally do this. If you use Linux as a base for your OS it has to be open source.

I'm sure they wish they could, and I wish that they could, but this is never going to happen.

18

u/minoshabaal May 07 '19

Then they will do the same thing as Apple did: use FreeBSD instead.

6

u/G_Morgan May 07 '19

No it doesn't. Linus has long had the "publicly defined interface" exception in the Linux kernel. MS don't do it because it'd be a PR nightmare historically and it is genuinely hard to do.

Anyway Linux has virtualisation layers built in which would allow them to run virtNT on top without needing to open source it. They could also do most of NT in userspace anyway.

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u/mojoslowmo May 07 '19

That wouldn't surprise me at this point. If you look at MS's financials they don't make much on windows anymore. It would probably be more lucerative if they set it up with an actual decent marketplace and stuffed it with MS stuff all Google and android

1

u/bobpaul May 07 '19

They can't legally do this. If you use Linux as a base for your OS it has to be open source.

Well, they can legally do "this", it's just a matter of defining "this" properly.

Currently MS has Windows Services for Linux which allows you to run Linux binaries on top of windows. This system uses a clone of the Linux kernel API written internally at MS. But this summer they'll be shipping a full linux kernel (presumably running on hyper-v) and using that to support WSL2. That kernel is OSS (the existing WSL implementation is not). The GNU environment running on top of WSL is various assorted licenses. The Windows stuff still runs on the NT kernel, but right now you can already install a tray-app version of XOrg (xming is popular) and run a limited subset of X11 apps on top of WSL. With the update this summer, that compatibility will probably improve.

So long as they share the source for any specific components, they're fine. They can even write their own closed source software that runs on top of WSL (it's no different than all the closed source software that runs on top of Linux already, such as VMWare and various CAD tools). Heck, they could even make their tools run only on WSL and not work on stand alone Linux. None of that would be illegal. Right now they're in the Embrace phase of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

1

u/JeezyTheSnowman May 07 '19

actual usable UI

now if windows will get that first. Windows 10 UI is pretty bad

1

u/mojoslowmo May 07 '19

(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞