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 machines desktop with. In fact, in 2001, the former CEO of Microsoft, Mr. Steve Ballmer, υποστήριζε ότι το λειτουργικό "Linux είναι ένας καρκίνος".
Microsoft's current president, Mr. Bard Smith, believes that the company was wrong about open source source). "Η Microsoft βρισκόταν σε λάθος πλευρά της ιστορίας όταν ο η λογική του ανοικτού κώδικα έκανε εντυπωσιακή εμφάνιση στις αρχές του αιώνα", δήλωσε ο Σμιθ σε ένα 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 from the days when he thought of Linux as a cancer. He is now the single largest contributor to open source projects in the world, earning them Companies Facebook, Docker, Google, Apache and many others.
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 the Ubuntu in Windows 10, acquired Xamarin to help develop mobile applications 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 which will be released later this month. It also works with open source communities to create PowerToys for 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.