In 2001, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer περιέγραφε το Linux σαν “… ο καρκίνος που μεταδίδεται σε ό, τι αγγίζει.” Αυτή την εβδομάδα, εν έτη 2016, η Microsoft ανακοίνωσε ότι εντάχθηκε στο Linux Foundation as a platinum member.
The news should not be surprising as we have seen recent moves from Microsoft showing that the company has begun to see Linux as a platform that can work with Windows and that it has plans to open the code for several of its software .
2012 was one of 20's leading Linux Kernel contributors, representing 1% of all source code. 2014 opens the .NET Core Framework software and did the same with Visual Studio Code next year. It has also helped develop several high profile open source projects such as Hadoop and Samba. And of course, earlier this year, he worked with Canonical to make the Bash port on Windows.
According to Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, joining Microsoft as a member of the Linux Foundation means "working better with the open source community to deliver transformative mobile and cloud experiences to more people."
But there is another key detail in the news of M's accessionicrosoft at the Linux Foundation. The company as a platinum member must pay an annual subscription of up to 500.000 dollars. It's enough money για τη χρηματοδότηση της ανάπτυξης, της διαχείρισης και της προβολής του Linux Foundation. Άλλα platinum members είναι οι εταιρείες: Cisco, Fujitsu, HPE, Huawei, IBM, Intel NEC, Oracle, Qualcomm, and Samsung.
Let's mention that the above news is not such an altruistic act on the part of Microsoft, which seems to have realized that Linux development is in the company's interest, especially if you think of Microsoft Azure.