It seems that Microsoft's intentions are clear. Free Software has come to Bill Gates's company and it doesn't seem like he's going to leave it quickly. As we have learned recently, Microsoft developers are changing their tools, some of these tools have been replaced by Free Software programs. And best of all, these tools will be used to build the next version of Windows.
It was already in March when the company directed by Satya Nadella decided to use the Git tool for its developments. And not only that: the latest versions of Visual Studio added native support for Git.
But it is not the only contribution that Microsoft has made to Free Software. During these last few months, tools like Git have benefited from input and developments from Microsoft engineers, developments that will now also be used for the next version of Windows, but which are public and free to use by anyone.
And after months of training, Microsoft will use this Free Software tool to build the next version of Windows. A great project that could go wrong. Unlike other projects, Microsoft needs millions of lines of code. Lines of code that will be uploaded to a Git repository where more than 4000 Microsoft developers will use to develop the new version of Microsoft. Of course, Windows code will not be public and although some Microsoft programs are already in the Github repository, Windows will unfortunately not be open to the public. And it is with so much line of code where an error could delay the development of Windows, an error that could cause the proprietary Software. In any case, if we know some statistics of the current development on Git, statistics that can be scary but that confirm the good progress of the project:
- There are already more than 250.000 commits with just four months of development.
- 8.421 pushes per day.
- 2.500 pull requests with 6.600 reviewers working per day.
- 1.760 official builds per day.
- 4.352 active topic branches.
Of course, with these figures it is clear that Windows is not a lightweight operating system. Now, it seems that it is becoming freer or at least it seems that way. In any case, the refusals of creating a free Windows remain firm and it will take some time to have that utopian software. Now, once again it is shown that Free Software tools are better than some proprietary tools Do not you think?