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Microsoft Counted As Key Linux Contributor
alphadogg writes "For the first time ever, Microsoft can be counted as a key contributor to Linux. The company, which once portrayed the open-source OS kernel as a form of cancer, has been ranked 17th on a tally of the largest code contributors to Linux. The Linux Foundation's Linux Development Report, released Tuesday, summarizes who has contributed to the Linux kernel, from versions 2.6.36 to 3.2. The 10 largest contributors listed in the report are familiar names: Red Hat, Intel, Novell, IBM, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Nokia, Samsung, Oracle and Google. But the appearance of Microsoft is a new one for the list, compiled annually."
I was wondering "why the hell?" TFA says:
"Much of the work Microsoft did centers around providing drivers for its own Hyper-V virtualization technology. Microsoft's Hyper-V, part of Windows Server, can run Linux as a guest OS."
Why that couldn't be included in the summary?
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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Last I heard, all of Microsoft's contributions to the Linux kernel have been strictly to improve Linux support for Microsoft products, e.g. to allow Windows Server to be a host for Linux clients. That's fine, but it hardly counts as "key" contributions in my book.
Breakfast served all day!
I do believe they've basically only added support for running Linux as a guest OS within their VM solution, Hyper-V. They haven't contributed to the betterment of Linux on the whole.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Remember - they were threatened with having their HyperV drivers removed due to lack of support.
And that could easily have spelled disaster for their cloud capability.
I hope this was meant to be funny.
Of course not. Microsoft has contributed more to the knowledge base of predatory marketing, monopoly abuse, and price manipulation than any other company in recent memory. You would have to go all the way back to Standard Oil to find a company that has given us more in these important fields. Many companies look up to Microsoft and use their history as an template for themselves, and like Microsoft, they are much richer for it.
My understanding is a lot of the stuff they contribute is to get things that should be interoperable there, eg. smb and of course interop helps sell a more hetrogenous environment to corps (so they don't all run and flee to linux, but also linux doesn't break when talking to a Win server).
The problem is that roughly three quarters of the things Microsoft brags about being their own "innovations" are actually things that all of the other Operating Systems (or software projects) have already had available for years. Then the things they actually do innovate that are worth using, they barely talk about. Further, your over-reaction makes you look like a paid shill - the GP post wasn't hating on Microsoft, it was asking why the specifics of the contributions were not included in the summary, when they're very much relevant. Specifically: Most of Microsoft's contribution to Linux was geared towards making it run more smoothly inside of their own operating system. It was pointing out that they weren't doing this to be altruistic, they were doing it to further their own products and services. (Which is of course, what they should be doing, as a publicly traded company with a responsibility to their shareholders. Acting against those interests by making charitable contributions to their own competition could land them in trouble.)
And yet, they haven't updated the linux version of Skype since they acquired the company. I have to wonder what their motivations are.
Apple is gaining on them though. Lately, MS has been one of the good guys (shame I'm not that found of their software solutions)
Lately, MS has been one of the good guys
So they claim. But it seems to me more that they're on the back foot and therefore incapable of acting too overtly malicious without causing excessively many customer defections. I mean they're still doing this, and patent trolling, and pushing automatic updates to Internet Explorer that default to making Bing your search engine even though nobody likes it, etc.
They've still got a ways to go before anyone ever trusts them again. Like years. That's what happens when you ruin your own reputation.
No they haven't. They're just as evil as ever, the only thing different about now versus 10 years ago is that they've become much more impotent, while Apple has become much more powerful and its evil is more easily felt. 10 years ago, a free software user likely didn't care much one way or the other about Apple, but now with their newfound power their evil is much more noticeable (as can be seen by all their patent lawsuits).
Seems to work fine in OSX. Not sure what you're talking about. IPP printers can be autoinstalled as well as SMB. Can even participate in a Windows Domain and be managed by the domain if you want including scripted mapping of printers and shares. Linux can enjoy most of the same goodies with a little effort.
Quit acting like Microsoft invented LDAP and autoconfiguration. Been around a long time. If it doesn't work in your environment, ditch the retard MCSE and hire a real network admin that knows what he's doing with a broad scope on more than one platform.
I heard a talk somewhere about SMB 2.2 features and how the standards were going to get published to help others adapt.
Yes, Microsoft published SMB standards out of the goodness of their hearts, and the threat of continuation of fines of US$2.39 million/day unless they complied.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case
Then they promptly changed their OS so it wouldn't interoperate with the standard...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
The trash-80 was doomed from the start. The Atari 8-bit and C64 languished until the mid-90's due to a devoted user base. The ST and later TT/Falcon had quite a few professional applications in DTP and MIDI work. They found niches for a while and persisted until they got axed. The Amiga was popular for 3D modeling and video editing work. In pure numbers the PC outnumbered them but they remained dominant in quite a few niches for years afterward because the PC well......sucked. Even with more raw clock speed the PC......sucked. Only very recently has the PC sucked a lot less due to absorbing a lot of the features that made machines like the DEC, SGI and Amiga machines cool.
I don't care about growth. Retards will buy anything you can convince them they need. I care about real, honest-to-god innovation and engineering. MS has brought very little new to the table. Without MS the PC still would have had a dominant business foothold thanks to Novell, IBM OS/2 and various UNIX versions and wait......*GASP*..... LINUX which predates WinNT even. MacOS has been network-capable since the Mac Plus IIRC. Berkeley and Sun on the UNIX side contributed a lot to small-scale IT as well. The IT boom was already in full swing and growing fast before MS even got on the boat. Even infant Linux was around for the party on a small scale.
MS was the axe-wielding disruptive psycho latecomer in server-side business IT that seemed really good at sweet-talking execs.
Ethernet's been with us since the 70's thanks to DEC (RIP), Xerox and Intel. Localtalk's been around since I was a little kid. Small offices have been hooking computers together for ages. Ever even SEEN coax ethernet? You really think that crap came from the post-Win95 era? I helped run a bit of it though twisted pair wasn't far around the corner. Believe me, people saw value in personal computers before Windows existed. Especially in cubicle farms. Get off my lawn. Ever even HEARD of Digital Research and CP/M, DR/DOS and GEM (also used on ST)? They could have easily carried MS's torch had Gates never been born.