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The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source.
(blogs.windows.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I think you’re probably right. Microsoft seems less invested in winning an operating system battle at this point. They’re positioning services and abstractions that care less about the end device’s operating system, more so that they’re at least on that device.
I wouldn’t be surprised we see Microsoft “embrace” Proton and Wine in the next 5 to 10 years as it’s far easier to let “the community” predominantly handle supporting legacy Windows versions that have to handle it themselves.
They can’t suddenly lose that entire OS revenue machine however and would need to transition. But I doubt that Redmond are naive to the disruption Wine and Proton are having and how technical users are starting to jump ship.
Xbox is transitioning to "release on everything", so their upcoming games will all work on proton (apart from COD etc that have anti-cheat, although wouldn't surprise me if they make that linux compatible eventually). Microsoft would rather you subscribe to game pass to play their games on Linux than not subscribe to game pass and not give them any money. It wouldn't surprise me if they eventually released a Linux Xbox app.