Will Linux Innovation Be Driven By Microsoft? (infoworld.com)

Adobe's VP of Mobile (and a former intellectual property lawyer) sees "a very possible future where Microsoft doesn't merely accept a peaceful coexistence with Linux, but instead enthusiastically embraces it as a key to its future," noting Microsoft's many Linux kernel developers and arguing it's already innovating around Linux -- especially in the cloud. An anonymous reader quotes InfoWorld: Even seemingly pedestrian work -- like making Docker containers work for Windows, not merely Linux -- is a big deal for enterprises that don't want open source politics infesting their IT. Or how about Hyper-V containers, which marry the high density of containers to the isolation of traditional VMs? That's a really big deal...

Microsoft has started hiring Linux kernel developers like Matthew Wilcox, Paul Shilovsky, and (in mid-2016) Stephen Hemminger... Microsoft now employs 12 Linux kernel contributors. As for what these engineers are doing, Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman says, "Microsoft now has developers contributing to various core areas of the kernel (memory management, core data structures, networking infrastructure), the CIFS filesystem, and of course many contributions to make Linux work better on its Hyper-V systems." In sum, the Linux Foundation's Jim Zemlin declares, "It is accurate to say they are a core contributor," with the likelihood that Hemminger's and others' contributions will move Microsoft out of the kernel contribution basement into the upper echelons.
The article concludes that "Pigs, in other words, do fly. Microsoft, while maintaining its commitment to Windows, has made the necessary steps to not merely run on Linux but to help shape the future of Linux."

Comments

Embrace, extend, extinguish

[Anonymous Coward]

You know the drill.

Re: Embrace, extend, extinguish

[llamalad]

All I see is a relative noob who's either shilling for Microsoft or is arguing without having done any basic research.

Some examples, courtesy of Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish ):

Browser incompatibilities:
The plaintiffs in the antitrust case claimed that Microsoft had added support for ActiveX controls in the Internet Explorer web browser to break compatibility with Netscape Navigator, which used components based on Java and Netscape's own plugin system.
On CSS, data:, etc.: A decade after the original Netscape-related antitrust suit, the web browser company Opera Software has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft with the European Union saying it "calls on Microsoft to adhere to its own public pronouncements to support these standards, instead of stifling them with its notorious 'Embrace, Extend and Extinguish' strategy".[13]
On Office documents: In a memo to the Office product group in 1998, Bill Gates stated: "One thing we have got to change in our strategyâ"allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples [sic] browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company. We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends [sic] on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities. Anything else is suicide for our platform. This is a case where Office has to avoid doing something to destory [sic] Windows." [emphasis in original][14]
Breaking Java's portability: The antitrust case's plaintiffs also accused Microsoft of using an "embrace and extend" strategy with regard to the Java platform, which was designed explicitly with the goal of developing programs that could run on any operating system, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux. They claimed that, by omitting the Java Native Interface (JNI) from its implementation and providing J/Direct for a similar purpose, Microsoft deliberately tied Windows Java programs to its platform, making them unusable on Linux and Mac systems. According to an internal communication, Microsoft sought to downplay Java's cross-platform capability and make it "just the latest, best way to write Windows applications".[15] Microsoft paid Sun US$20 million in January 2001 (equivalent to $27.05 million in 2016) to settle the resulting legal implications of their breach of contract.[16]
More Java issues: Sun sued Microsoft over Java again in 2002 and Microsoft agreed to settle out of court for US$2 billion[17][18] (equivalent to US$2.66 billion in 2016).
Networking: In 2000, an extension to the Kerberos networking protocol (an Internet standard) was included in Windows 2000, effectively denying all products except those made by Microsoft access to a Windows 2000 Server using Kerberos.[19] The extension was published through an executable, whose running required agreeing to an NDA, disallowing third party implementation (especially open source). To allow developers to implement the new features, without having to agree to the license, users on Slashdot posted the document (disregarding the NDA), effectively allowing third party developers to access the documentation without having agreed to the NDA. Microsoft responded by asking Slashdot to remove the content.[20] The Microsoft extensions to Kerberos, as introduced in binary form in Windows 2000, have since been described in RFC 3244 and RFC 4757, and these extensions have since been listed in Microsoft Open Specification Promise. This document relates to "Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement" the technologies listed. Microsoft's legal statement concerning unrestricted use of Microsoft intellectual property also includes the Kerberos Network Authentication Service v5 (RFC 1510 and RFC

Re:Go on then.

[Gadget_Guy]

Well for one, Ie all but killed Netscape. There was a big lawsuit over it ..

Competition is not the same as Embrace, Extend and Extinguish. Sure, Microsoft added their own HTML elements, but so did Netscape (like layers). They certainly didn't extend any Netscape code, and the lawsuit was not about EEE.

Netscape pretty much killed itself by becoming monstrously big and slow, then taking way too long to create a new version because they started again from scratch. People bleat on about IE having the advantage because it came with the operating system, but that doesn't stop any browsers from being loaded these days. That excuse is now proven to be false.