Microsoft has admitted that it was wrong to wage years of open source warfare and now welcomes and supports it.
Microsoft has been fighting Linux for years, from the beginning of its commercial existence even at the height of its dominance in desktop machines. In fact, in 2001, the former CEO of Microsoft, Mr. Steve Ballmer, claimed that the operating system "Linux is a cancer".
The current president of Microsoft, Mr. Bard Smith, believes that the company made a mistake about open source. "Microsoft was on the wrong side of the story when open source logic made an impressive appearance at the turn of the century," Smith said in a statement. recent conference at MIT . Smith is not yesterday. He has been with Microsoft for more than 25 years and was one of the company's top lawyers during his battles with open source software.
Microsoft, always according to Smith, has changed since he considered Linux a cancer. It is now the only and largest contributor to open source projects in the world, winning over Facebook, Docker, Google, Apache and many more.
The truth is that Microsoft has been gradually adopting open source in recent years, with examples of PowerShell , Visual Studio Code and JavaScript Engine. Microsoft also partnered with Canonical to bring it Ubuntu in Windows 10, acquired Xamarin to help develop applications for cell phones and GitHub to maintain the popular code bank for developers.
And not only that. Microsoft will bring a full Linux kernel in an update Windows 10 που θα κυκλοφορήσει αργότερα αυτόν τον μήνα. Συνεργάζεται επίσης με κοινότητες ανοιχτού κώδικα για τη δημιουργία PowerToys για Windows 10.
The company's new open design philosophy could mean that we will see much more open source efforts in Windows in the coming years.