Microsoft Joins the Linux Foundation (techcrunch.com)

Microsoft today said it is joining the Linux Foundation as a high-paying Platinum member. Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin said, "This may come as a surprise to you, but they were not big fans," describing the two's previous relationship. From a report on TechCrunch: The new Microsoft under CEO Satya Nadella, however, is singing a very different tune. Today's Microsoft is one of the biggest open source contributors around. Over the course of just the last few years, it has essentially built Canonical's Ubuntu distribution into Windows 10, brought SQL Server to Linux, open-sourced core parts of its .NET platform and partnered with Red Hat, SUSE and others. As Zemlin noted, Microsoft has also contributed to a number of Linux Foundation-managed projects like Node.js, OpenDaylight, the Open Container Initiative, the R Consortium and the Open API Initiative.ArsTechnica has more details.

Comments

WINE

[Anonymous Coward]

Could they maybe see their way to helping out the WINE project?

Until that happens, I'm not really going to congratulate them.

AC

Re:WINE

[kenh]

Could they maybe see their way to helping out the WINE project?

Why would they do that? They now fully-support a standalone Ubuntu (Linux) installation under Windows as either an integrated part of Windows, or a fully-supported guest OS under their hypervisor, either running on current desktop or server installations or as a guest on their free Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V Server offering.

Until that happens, I'm not really going to congratulate them.

So until Microsoft assists a competitor to take market share from them you won't support them - is there ANY other company you can think of that gives up market share to help a competitor?

Re:WINE

[Tough Love]

Do you even think Microsoft is even able to help? By example, the current situation with SMB is, when Microsoft needs to know something particularly subtle about SMB, they go ask the Samba guys. See, Microsoft never cares much about clean and transparent design, or keeping accurate historical records. Whatever they happen to cobble together by RC date is the definition of the "standard". If undocumented or partially documented APIs shifted a little, so what? You can see how this design culture might create issues with trying to run random Windows binaries from any point in that 20 year reign of chaos. To sort all that out requires real dedication to the art of fecal archaeology. Not something you're going to find a lot of in Microsoft's backbiting engineering culture, and if it does exist, it will be managed out soon.

Re:WINE

[jon3k]

That would't make business sense. I think this move is a strategically great move of Microsoft.

The price of operating systems is steadily approaching zero. macOS updates are free and the OS comes with the hardware. ChromeOS is free. Microsoft already provides the license for free for smaller devices. PC sales are slowing and that's what moves OS licenses. People have fewer reasons to upgrade. What Microsoft realized is that hardware and services are the future, not operating system licenses. And to capitalize on that, they need their software to run everywhere. That means Visual Studio for Mac and SQL Server for Linux.

So no, I really don't believe helping the WINE project is a bad move for Microsoft at this point. Anything that increases adoption of Microsoft software and services is what matters now.

Caution, but optimism

[sg_oneill]

Theres good reason to be cautious, Microsoft doesnt exactly have a spotless record of playing nice with FOSS, but recent behavior , that is microsoft realising it can still make silly money selling Azure and various microsoft software packages to the linux world means that so far its been a pretty good citizen.

Now, I wonder if they'll eventually give us Office for linux. That'd make a LOT of suits happy.

Re:Welp

[alvinrod]

It's not that surprising. As Microsoft moves towards being a service company, they care less and less about keeping their own source closed or sabotaging open source projects. You can use Azure to run Linux just as easily as Windows. Why should Microsoft care, they get paid anyhow.

I doubt they'll ever open source their core product like Office, but if open sourcing their tools or contributing to open source projects makes it easier for people to use Microsoft services, that's money for Microsoft that isn't going to someone else.

They'll never be as open source friendly as some would like, but at least they're a lot less hostile. Since they got rid of Ballmer who was the obstinate type that kept trying pound square pegs into circle holes, they've been a lot more willing to accept that not every single part of a solution needs to be something from Microsoft.

Re: Step 1

[fph il quozientatore]

"If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won. " -- Linus Torvalds, in 1998.