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Microsoft Has Created Its Own FreeBSD (microsoft.com)

Posted by msmash on from the affinity-for-open-source dept.

Simon Sharwood, writing for The Register: Microsoft has published its own distribution of FreeBSD 10.3 in order to make the OS available and supported in Azure. Jason Anderson, principal PM manager at Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center says Redmond "took on the work of building, testing, releasing and maintaining the image" so it could "ensure our customers have an enterprise SLA for their FreeBSD VMs running in Azure". Microsoft did so "to remove that burden" from the FreeBSD Foundation, which relies on community contributions. Redmond is not keeping its work on FreeBSD to itself: Anderson says "the majority of the investments we make at the kernel level to enable network and storage performance were up-streamed into the FreeBSD 10.3 release, so anyone who downloads a FreeBSD 10.3 image from the FreeBSD Foundation will get those investments from Microsoft built in to the OS."

6 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. GBSD by phrostie · · Score: 5, Funny

    does this mean they will replace GWX with a Get FreeBSD button?
    I might give that a try.

    I have run a bsd in a while.

  2. Investments from Microsoft built in to the OS by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...so anyone who downloads a FreeBSD 10.3 image from the FreeBSD Foundation will get those investments from Microsoft built in to the OS.

    Clippy: I see you're running FreeBSD. Would you like to upgrade to Windows 10 now or reschedule for later?

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  3. Smart by ErichTheRed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The interesting thing is that you would never see this happen under previous leadership. Forget the Windows 10 mess, even forget Microsoft selling one-off software at all. They are absolutely committed to using Azure to become the next IBM. The reason why IBM is still alive is because they draw massive monthly revenue from the mainframe business. You don't just buy a mainframe and a z/OS license as a one-time thing. You buy the hardware, the licenses, plus a huge monthly maintenance charge, _plus_ a pay-by-the-MIPS charge to use the hardware. IBM maintains the system for you, sends minions to replace parts, gives you access to upgrades, etc. for this fee. In an environment like this, it makes perfect sense to allow customers to run whatever they want as long as they run it on Azure. Microsoft will be the toll collector for anything their customers choose to migrate there. I'm working on a big Azure migration/rebuild project, and it's so obvious that Microsoft is done pushing their own software...as long as you rent their infrastructure.

  4. Re:Mickeysoft had used BSD before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's been similar code from Microsoft in the Linux kernel for years now.

    Welcome to 2009. Enjoy your stay!

  5. Hyperbole by Ster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hi folks,

    Disclaimer: I'm a FreeBSD committer.

    MS has been committing various Hyper-V drivers for months. Just like VMWare does for its hypervisor.

    This is less

    OMG a new fork! Embrace, Extend, Extinguish!!!

    and more

    Here's a pre-built VM image with 10.3 + a few Hyper-V drivers that weren't backported in time for the 10.3 freeze + a few scripts to automate configuration in the Azure environment

    You know, like every other cloud vendor's VM images. Nothing to see here, move along.

    So, stop Hyper-Ventilating! ;-)

  6. Re:Mickeysoft had used BSD before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The reason the hosts file is there is for POSIX compatibility which was a requirement for some US gov contracts, IIRC.