Personally I've been hoping for new movement in the operating systems world for a while now, but the immovable object is much less windows in the desktop market, but the major player [linux included] in the server market. If microsoft disapepared tomorrow, you'll see some interesting stuff happen in desktops, but it'll likely be a decade or more [barring some massive security vulnerability that gets discovered] before people targetting desktops stop targetting windows emulation platforms and actually transition fully to a actual new OS for desktops. After that though, I'd really hope something new has come along. Mac has such a rancid reputation with developers, and linux is linux.

Perhaps a more interesting question would be what would happen if unix/linux bit the dust in the server market. Lots of people use their desktop as just means of opening a web browser, and after it's open the OS is irrelevant. In the server market though? Losing linux would be a really transformative change, and I'd argue this change would be for the better, as it would give the server market an 'opportunity' [it would force them out of their comfort zone] to adopt a lot of the more distruptive, but frankly necessary, changes that need made in the server & HPC world.

If Linux would disappear as Server not much would change as most servers are AIX, HP-UX, Sun etc. anyway. Linux is small but more widely used than Windows for servers. In typical server rooms you might have one Windows frontend, Linux for web, email etc. And most high performance on expensive Unix machines.

I don't know anyone who actually wants a windows 8 machine. Plenty of people know they'll get one, but I have yet to meet anyone that actually desires a Surface (or any other windows 8 based tech).

On the other hand, almost everyone I know either has or wants an iPad/iPhone or even an S3/Galaxy tab.
I think MS have a bigger marketing problem then they realise.

I want a Surface ! Unless they are broken in some way or just don't deliver, but I would guess that those issues would be due to wider limitations of the tablet hardware, rather than Surface specifically. And I want Windows 8 because it gives me direct x 11.1 which gives me easier development. I have an iPhone but I don't want an iPad. What the hell would i do with an iPad that I couldn't do with a Surface ? And with the Surface I can use my software, and I can develop for it, I can more easily network it to my desktop and laptop. For a Windows user / developer, the iPad seem to me to be a closed box in that if I bought one it would only be for it's own sake, and not for the ways that it might extend my existing network.

tomorrow, microsoft is no more, and that windows 8 is the last operating system that they'd develop.

People are very flexible. I believe that linux will be the next big thing in this case.

Most people are not really aware of how many home devices already use linux as base. I'm not a linux fan, I'm personally not using linux, but linux is really mature and once an easier,prettier option is gone, linux will be the next thing to go for. If it weren't for visual studio I would have gave linux a chance already. Windows is a business OS for me, making it a colorful, casual, and from a business view, clumpsy OS will not help me at work at all and I would bet, that many PCs are business PCs.

Windows 8 is a step back in the wrong direction, it is a clumpsy attempt to put two different sets of requirements into a single OS, eventually satisfying neither desktop users nor tablet users, but we will see.

Most people are not really aware of how many home devices already use linux as base. I'm not a linux fan, I'm personally not using linux, but linux is really mature and once an easier,prettier option is gone, linux will be the next thing to go for. If it weren't for visual studio I would have gave linux a chance already. Windows is a business OS for me, making it a colorful, casual, and from a business view, clumpsy OS will not help me at work at all and I would bet, that many PCs are business PCs.

One thing that would be cool about linux becoming the primary OS is that you'd probably have the most popular one being the most user friendly/UI centric, but it would still benefit from the development of other distros.

Would be an interesting environment once there's enough popular demand to really push it forward as it would probably accelerate much faster than other OS's could keep up as every version benefits from the work of other versions. The demand isn't quite there to reach the point where it outpaces other OS's atm, but probably before too long.

One thing that would be cool about linux becoming the primary OS is that you'd probably have the most popular one being the most user friendly/UI centric, but it would still benefit from the development of other distros.

Sure, if you could put up with all the bullshit which goes with it - my favourite just recently was the GPLing of a fucking API interface which means you can't (legally) use them from closed binary blobs such as the nVidia driver.

If it was a minor API then it wouldn't be as bad (still bullshit but...) but it was an API for a common kernel layer interface to allow things such as the Optimus stuff to work (Intel and NV GPU in a laptop).

Honestly, if Linux becomes the mainstream then I think it'll be time for me to hang up my coding boots and find some new hobbies because I'm not sure I could program in a world where the GPL, a license for which the term "dislike" is not strong enough to cover how I feel about it, is the mainstream way of doing things.

Honestly, if Linux becomes the mainstream then I think it'll be time for me to hang up my coding boots and find some new hobbies because I'm not sure I could program in a world where the GPL, a license for which the term "dislike" is not strong enough to cover how I feel about it, is the mainstream way of doing things.

I don't see how a kernel interface being GPL licensed is a big problem for application/game developers though (we don't write kernel drivers and the license of the kernel is pretty irrelevant for us). It is true that this was a stupid decision though, nvidia won't open their drivers for this since their important Linux customers are using the GPUs for HPCs or on workstations and couldn't care less about this feature, This basically only makes Linux a worse choice for consumers with dual GPU laptops. ( So 2013 will not be the year of the linux desktop )

I don't see how a kernel interface being GPL licensed is a big problem for application/game developers though (we don't write kernel drivers and the license of the kernel is pretty irrelevant for us).

Because it could be the start of a slippery slope to more 'GPL only' interfaces, not just in the kernel but to applications/libs in userland which need to communicate with subsystems and if they are forced to become GPL then anything which needs to consume them becomes GPL and so on until you can't release anything closed source without reventing a whole software stack below you.

You might dismiss this as 'never going to happen' but this is no more 'out there' than the idea that MS are going to completely lock down all versions of windows in the future so *shrugs*

I don't see how a kernel interface being GPL licensed is a big problem for application/game developers though... nvidia won't open their drivers

You answered your own question, right there.

You can't ship games to a platform that doesn't have working GPU drivers. Anytime NVidia/ATI tangle with the GPL, it means more consumers without proper GPU support, and thus unable to play your games.

[quote name='SimonForsman' timestamp='1352230156' post='4998166']
I don't see how a kernel interface being GPL licensed is a big problem for application/game developers though... nvidia won't open their drivers

You answered your own question, right there.

You can't ship games to a platform that doesn't have working GPU drivers. Anytime NVidia/ATI tangle with the GPL, it means more consumers without proper GPU support, and thus unable to play your games.
[/quote]

Allthough their GPUs do work, you just have to pick one of them to go with.