That's one way of looking at it. Another would be that for most practical purposes, Win32 is their platform.

We've heard this mantra from Microsoft many times before, switching out things like database APIs, dev tools, interop protocols, the entire history of .Net, and so on. These things have come and, in many cases, gone, all while Win32 endures in the background supporting the software that makes the real money.

In almost any other topic on HN, if we were discussing moving to running things in secure containers, people would agree it makes sense to move that way and that the additional layer of security is worthwhile. But because it's Microsoft doing it, and Microsoft is changing their software from like... the same way they've been doing it for the last twenty years, people are upset about it? I'm confused.

When we talk about UWP, it shouldn't be "UWP is inherently evil", we should comment on and criticize issues Microsoft may have with the development of UWP. Initially, UWP was very hard to use outside of the Windows Store, and so it's fair to criticize there. And arguably, they've been working on improving this. They demonstrated Steamworks running on a UWP app at Build this year.

We should definitely criticize if Microsoft does something specifically to lock down UWP. But we should not inherently decide UWP is evil because it's new.

That doesn't nullify the concerns that started this whole discussion, though: Microsoft could be pushing people towards UWP for less benevolent reasons, and surely has the technical and commercial capabilities to try to make Sweeney's hypothetical scenario the new reality.

Maybe this is just a mistaken perception, but I suspect Microsoft may have burned a lot more bridges with their recent actions than they have realised so far, particularly among enthusiast and "professional geek" communities that have remained generally positive about MS and its products for longer than most. Viewing anything they do with suspicion is a natural consequence of the way they've been treating their customers lately, and I don't see anything they do that has any hint of lock-in getting an easy ride from here on out.

So it's weird this post is becoming a thing now, after he demonstrably knows they're not (currently, at least) trying to do that.

Reading the parent post: "The risk here is that, if Microsoft convinces everybody to use UWP, then they phase out Win32 apps. If they can succeed in doing that then it’s a small leap to forcing all apps and games to be distributed through the Windows Store."

That's not a small leap, it's a huge leap. And this is an inherently fallacious statement. It's equating a technical one, swapping an insecure app format for a secure app format, with a policy one, blocking third party apps. When, as a closed platform, they could block third party Win32 apps if they wanted to just as similarly. They could make Win32 apps ship through the Windows store, and I believe they discussed it at one point. It's silly that he's particularly equating UWP, a security feature, with a platform lockdown, when the platform lockdown could easily come with or without that security feature.

And even if this imaginary reality of Tim's became real, we currently have two viable OSes that Steam works great on that aren't Windows. So Microsoft would have to weigh their perceived gain of a lock-in against the potential loss of the gaming community. Ubuntu wouldn't have a hard time attracting gamers if Steam support was solid, and was kinda broken on Windows.

But I've mostly learned to take a wait and see attitude with new silver bullet APIs from Microsoft. Sometimes they take off and really do became the way forward, but far, far too often, after some initial hype, there is a lack of uptake, they wither on the vine, and then are abandoned for the new shiny, leaving behind the developers that did invest in them.

Meanwhile, Win32, like the Dude, abides.