In 2001, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer described Linux as “… the cancer that spreads to everything it touches.” This weekteam, in 2016, Microsoft announced that it joined the 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 . 
In 2012 the company was one of the top 20 contributors to the Linux Kernel, accounting for 1% of all source code. In 2014, he opens the software the .NET Core Framework and the following year did the same with Visual Studio Code. He has also helped develop several high-profile open source projects such as Hadoop and Samba. And let's mention, of course, that earlier this year he worked with Canonical to port Bash to 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 Microsoft joining the Linux Foundation. The company as a platinum member should pays μια ετήσια συνδρομή που φτάνει τα 500.000 δολάρια. Είναι αρκετά χρήματα 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.
