A well known open source advocate, Eric S. Raymond, has ventured to say on his personal blog that the convergence between Linux and Windows will be unstoppable and that Microsoft will eventually turn Windows into an emulation layer within Linux. The entry has generated a lot of noise in the media, not without an apparent excess of optimism.
The reasons given by Raymond are not unknown, and derive from the changes applied by Microsoft both in the policies around Linux and Open Source and in its business model. Since the arrival of Satya Nadella to the position of CEO, Microsoft has turned to services and has greatly enhanced the compatibility and interoperability of its technologies with Linux.
Regarding turning Windows into an emulation layer that would work on Linux, Raymond points to the possible existence of a compatibility layer similar to Proton, Valve’s precooked Wine developed with the purpose of making it easier to run Windows games on Linux. However, this compatibility layer could be a third-party addition and exclusive to what was done by Valve and the Wine developers, which would continue to give Microsoft strong power.
Another point that Raymond points out is the next release of Microsoft Edge for Linux which in fact is already available and we will see in another article but the first thing is that this Microsoft web browser that offers official support for the Open Source system. This movement is more symbolic than technological milestone, since Microsoft Edge is now based on Chromium, a technology that has been supported for Linux for many years, although it advances because Red Hat is pulling the bandwagon with Firefox.
This union, adaptation or whatever you want to call it is something that has created a lot to talk about which we will see how it develops over time which we hope this project goes well since there may be a lot of potential in this.
