Even big research centers like CERN have to deal with cash problems.

Windows is just as easy to automate, don't pretend it is a UNIX.

Windows source code is available for a fee.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource/

As for Windows HPC in general, https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/solutions/high-performance...

So when one needs to open the pockets, other options are taken.

It is not different from picking UNIX source tapes instead of paying for VAX/VMS licenses.

I find your reply to be a little bit strange. As often you're throwing some claims in the air, and only back those up with seemingly irrelevant links. I've never used Azure which is behind that "HPC" link, but at least Azure != Window in my book.

I doubt that Windows licensing costs are that significant compared to HPC hardware. If there are good technical reasons to run on Windows, licensing shouldn't be an issue.

Windows source code only being available through a tedious process might be a big problem. The free beer part is only a small aspect, and being accessible might be more important (as I said).

You haven't reacted to Windows filesystems seeming slower (can only judge from my work PC), and slow filesystem are pretty sure a bad thing for many HPC workloads.

I don't know much about Windows administration, but from all I've witnessed it's a lot of manual clicking around and fixing configurations that get periodically overridden. Scripting tools, like Powershell, and package managers for sure exist, but Windows never had an equally pronounced administration culture like Unix had. Heck, look at cmd, it's a bad joke (and I still begrudgingly use it because Powershell never seemed inviting to me to learn, and doesn't seem nice for interactive use).

It might even have become better with Powershell and everything, but things don't change overnight.

For kicks I asked ChatGPT about it and it basically told me the same thing.

PS: not a fanboy, I'm writing this from my Windows dev machine.