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Welcome to the M1 Windows project

amarioguy.github.io

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Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#221

Post by donkeybeer »

Thorrez wrote: post #214
colordrops wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not with the GPL. The GPL is just as enforceable as any other proprietary license. The difference is that these amateur projects often don't have the resources to fight infringement.

If the problem is that there are no resources to fight infringement, then how would changing the license help at all?

You have a legal leg to stand on that some lawyer might potentially fight for you, that's still better than just giving up and surrendering your weapons.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#222

Post by oofbey »

GeekyBear wrote: post #147
oofbey wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft and Apple are traditional enemies. Microsoft has no reason to make Apple's hardware more attractive to customers. The thing I don't get is why a consumer would want this. You want an _extremely expensive_ windows laptop. I guess the hope would be that the battery life is worlds better than anything you'd get in standard windows-land. But in reality battery life optimization requires paying careful to the de…

> Microsoft has no reason to make Apple's hardware more attractive to customers. Microsoft released a touch version of Office for iOS before they had a touch version of Office for their own Surface hardware. This isn't the Ballmer/Gates era anymore.

Fair counter-point, but that's a pretty different situation. I should have said "MS has no reason to make Apple's laptop hardware more attractive." In 2014 when Office was released for iPad, the Surface had negligible market share. Microsoft was losing badly in the tablet space, so they were trying to catch up any way they could. At the time it would have been reasonable to plan for a future where Microsoft completely lost to Apple in the tablet hardware space, so they needed to protect Office (critical line of business) from becoming irrelevant in what was clearly emerging as an important hardware category. Yes even then they weren't so arrogant as to try to protect the fledgling Surface business by withholding Office from iPad - a move they certainly had used in the past.

But today's laptop market is very different. Apple and Microsoft are still very much competing for dominance in laptops, which is an important source of revenue for both companies. It's a familiar pattern where Apple sells fewer units than many others, but at much higher profit margins. MS gets their tax from all these PC sales at high margin, but it's a small amount compared to Apple's huge hardware margins - and that's the key point why it's a bad idea. A consumer who buys a mac to run windows gives WAY more money to Apple than Microsoft.

The secondary point is that every Mac sold erodes the waning dominance of Windows, bleeding out Microsoft's cash cow. Nadella wants (NEEDS!) you to believe Microsoft is kinder & gentler because he knows the days of Windows' hegemony are behind us and there's no stopping its slow fade to irrelevance. That doesn't mean they want to it to happen. Directing consumer's money into Apple's coffers unquestionably accelerates Microsoft's problems.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#225

Post by conradev »

roblabla wrote: post #39
dboreham wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows (really: NT) has always been hardware independent. So it's a matter of a) having binaries and a HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) for aarm64 (this exists -- Microsoft already sells arm-based devices such as the Surface Pro X), and b) having the necessary set of device drivers. These may exit already from MS, or may need to be compiled from source already used for x86, or may need to be written from scratch if…

That's only true up to a certain point. ARM is a very weird target, because a lot of standardized stuff we take for granted in x86/PC land aren't standardized on ARM. In particular, take the Interrupt Controller: x86 has a standard for it (well, technically has two, the PIC and APIC). The "standard" in ARM-land is the GICv3 or GICv4, but many different CPU vendors have their own. Apple has the "Apple Interrupt Contro…

The author plans on using this feature to help bridge the interrupt controller:

“There’s an somewhat obscure feature on M1 (and M1 Pro/Max/Ultra, henceforth referred to as M1 v2) chips where part of the GICv3 can be virtualized to guest OSes to enable faster interrupt handling.”

Seemingly implementing it in a hypervisor?

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#226

Post by ngcc_hk »

pabs3 wrote: post #209
colordrops wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is that? There are plenty of licenses that don't allow commercial usage.

Discriminating against commercial usage is not allowed under the Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/osd

In fact this is whole point of open source VS free source.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#227

Post by yazaddaruvala »

loudmax wrote: post #130
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be moving towards: Windows as "just another Linux distribution" with a backwards compatibility layer. Previous Step: Linux compatibility layer on Windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install Current Step: Get DirectX to be first-class on Linux. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsof... Next Steps: Get the Windows GUI + Win32 APIs + backwards compa…

After embracing Linux, that would definitely extend it. Wonder what would come next.

I know where you’re coming from, but the reality is MSFT no longer has that ability.

1. Desktop/laptop OS based revenue is in decline. There is no reason for it to go up again. Between Chromebooks on the cheap end, MacBooks on the expensive end, and iOS and Android supporting an increasing number of productivity and content creation apps “with a free OS”, there is not much room for new and soon old companies to pay for OS licenses (other than legacy custom code - being “actively” migrated to Azure).

2. Because of Azure competing with AWS and GCP with a Linux distribution, MSFT already has teams with Linux expertise and working on improvements. This can’t get “extinguished” people just migrate Linux workloads elsewhere.

This leaves us with:

> Wonder what would come next

Likely more improvements to the Linux kernel from MSFT. Maybe even a big push of Linux to Rust (with Amazon and Google as partners). A bigger push from MSFT to get hardware manufacturers to build open source drivers into the kernel directly (so MSFT doesn’t need to fund the work for each of them). Maybe even “Windows” over Wayland. Basically windows/linux rather than gnu/linux.

Likely more applications built on DirectX + Linux native (ie without Win32). Maybe even Office without Win32. A Windows compat layer for gtk or qt or Flutter or whatever is good at the time. Even if only for new application creation.

Likely, given the direction of gaming at MSFT, DirectX (or whatever they call it) competes with Unreal for cross platform game stuff. For the next big revenue stream for MSFT from game devs (including their internal studios).

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#228

Post by yazaddaruvala »

layer8 wrote: post #115
stevewatson301 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the parent commenter but this isn’t as far fetched as it seems. Since much is abstracted by the Win32 and other APIs, they could write something to do exactly this.

This seems unlikely to me. For example, the threading model (non-forking) and file system semantics (locking, permissions, etc.) are wildly different. You’d need a complex compatibility layer and effectively two classes of applications (legacy and linux-y).

If they can build WSL2, and WINE can be built without MSFTs help, I’m not sure what is left to doubt.

At that point the only question is “Is the one time cost of building the compat layer less than the ongoing cost of improving NT? Building windows specific drivers? Etc”. “One time cost” is always going to win the negotiation in the long run.

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#229

Post by yazaddaruvala »

noveltyaccount wrote: post #100
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be moving towards: Windows as "just another Linux distribution" with a backwards compatibility layer. Previous Step: Linux compatibility layer on Windows. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install Current Step: Get DirectX to be first-class on Linux. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsof... Next Steps: Get the Windows GUI + Win32 APIs + backwards compa…

Are those final two steps (next, final) pure speculation on your part? I'd be surprised if Windows threw out NT and moved to Linux kernel, and yet at the same time, it sounds like a great idea IMO (WSL2 + Docker is already a great experience for software development).

Pure speculation!

but the more I write about it, the more it’s likely to get read by a Microsoft VP, and the more it’s likely to happen :)

That said, truly it’s a no brainer. For the future of Microsoft, all paths lead to windows/linux (maybe windows/bsd but way way less likely).

Re: Welcome to the M1 Windows project

#230

Post by [deleted] »

rtpg wrote: post #190
GeekyBear wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a while after the first M1 Mac came out one of Apple’s VPs had said something on the record about Apple having tried to get Microsoft to sell retail licenses of a Windows 10 for ARM build Not quite. The Craig Federighi quote is: >As for Windows running natively on the machine, “that’s really up to Microsoft,” he said. “We have the core technologies for them to do that, to run their ARM version of Windows, which in t…

Pretty surprising that MSFT would end up with a deal like that, I'd feel like they would be in a position of strength. Unless all the ARM vendors were pretty supicious of whether Microsoft would succeed/invest properly in the ecosystem?

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