There was a post here a while back saying that Microsoft will eventually switch to Linux instead of maintaining Windows. Given all the negativity around Windows this seems more and more likely (I haven’t used Windows myself for over 20 years so I have no idea what its like now. Last time I used it, it was XP)
This is the discussion I was referring to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673264
Except the problem is their UX more than the kernel itself. I don't see them keeping Gnome or KDE as a desktop UI even if they did fully adopt Linux for desktop usage.
MS should really just buckle down, finish simplifying the UI and make it consistent again... the last time it was mostly consistent was Windows 7, and even then.
I'm willing to bet that System76 gets COSMIC to the level that Win7 reached faster than MS can turn anything around in terms of Windows at this point.
Unlikely but growing as profit dwindles. Previously it was unfathomable that Apple would offer RISC/Unix Workstations, or MS would jettison IE.