Unless Microsoft has an Activision-sized amount of cash burning a hole in its pocket, that feels unlikely. Seems far easier/likelier to make a Microsoft branded Debian than to go all-in-on Ubuntu. Maybe I could take the aqui-hire angle, but how many Ubuntu devs would want to stay with Microsoft?
>Maybe I could take the aqui-hire angle, but how many Ubuntu devs would want to stay with Microsoft?
Probably far more devs than they'd get trying to make their own MS-branded Debian from scratch. Even if a bunch of them left after a while, they'd have competent, experienced people working for them for that time, instead of trying to staff up from zero and having a lot time where there aren't enough people to really get much done, and during that time they can hire new people who aren't going to quit just because it's MS.
I'm not hip to all the big names in open source development, but I know Lennart Pottering and Guido van Rossum both ended up at Microsoft, so they might be able keep a few other engineers around.
Add a couple from Java side as well, after all the drama, Microsoft is now an OpenJDK contributor and has their own distribution, after acquiring jClarity.
And a couple from Rust side, after the Mozilla layoffs.
And a couple of ISO C++ members.
And their own Azure Linux distribution went out of preview at BUILD 2023.
It feels like once M&A has decided to buy a company, that money is going to be spent. If Microsoft is prevented from purchasing Activision, I expect a foolishly profligate spending spree to follow.
