The sole maintainer of Linux distribution AnduinOS turns out to be a Microsoft employee

Last week, Neowin reported that AnduinOS 1.3, which aims to look similar to Windows 11, had been released. It’s a relatively unknown distribution, but after it received attention from Neowin and DistroWatch, Anduin Xue, the sole maintainer of the project, decided to explain a bit about himself, including that he works for Microsoft.

The Microsoft engineer said that the project was mainly a personal project, resulting in his desire to create a comfortable, Ubuntu-based Linux distribution, with minimal modifications outside the changed user interface. As a Software Engineer 2 at Microsoft (he doesn’t work on Windows), Anduin Xue says he’s financially stable and sees no need to commercialize AnduinOS.

Explaining the financial aspects of the project, he said:

“Many have asked why I don’t accept donations, how I profit, and if I plan to commercialize AnduinOS. Truthfully, I haven't thoroughly considered these issues. It's not my main job, and I don’t plan to rely on it for a living. Each month, I dedicate only a few hours to maintaining it. Perhaps in the future, I might consider providing enterprise solutions based on AnduinOS, but I won’t compromise its original simplicity. It has always been about providing myself with a comfortably themed Ubuntu.”

In our coverage of the AnduinOS 1.3 release last week, one commenter pointed out that the distro is from China. For some, this will raise issues, but Anduin Xue addressed this in his blog post, too, saying that the source code is available to the public. For this reason, he told lacing the operating system with backdoors for the Chinese government would be “irrational and easily exposed.”

For those worried that the distribution may be abandoned, Anduin Xue said that he intends to continue supporting it and may even maintain it full-time if sponsorship or corporate cooperation emerges.

In October, Microsoft plans to end mainstream support of Windows 10, and many computers will be left unable to upgrade to Windows 11. Given this fact, Linux stands as a good option to keep computers running, and if you want something that looks similar to Windows, then AnduinOS is worth checking out.

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