
Microsoft Becomes Linux Foundation Platinum Member - jpalomaki
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/announcements/microsoft-fortifies-commitment-to-open-source-becomes-linux-foundation-platinum
======
bomdo
Apparently, being a platinum member entails donating $500k [1], so it's not
that big a deal for Microsoft ($85B revenue[2]). And as the article states,
there has been negativity in the linux community regarding the old arch-enemy
joining their ranks. Looking at the new Microsoft however, I think it's fair
to assume that the days of "embrace, extend and extinguish"[3] are over and
they are genuinely interested in cooperation.

It's an important political gesture that Nadella goes in this direction. Since
they also added a linux subsystem into the latest Windows release[4], I get
the impression that he wants to leave the cloud to linux and try to position
Windows as a user-facing client. This is a difficult decision to make, but it
makes sense. Microsoft without Ballmer is seeing its position in the Corporate
world as it is and I hope we will continue to see more openness as a result.

[1] [http://www.slashgear.com/hp-pays-500000-for-linux-
foundation...](http://www.slashgear.com/hp-pays-500000-for-linux-foundation-
platinum-membership-05255636/)

[2] [https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4/press-release-webcast)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12234735](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12234735)

~~~
nitrogen
Half the HN frontpage right now is MS articles. Seems oddly coincidental.

We can't forget about the bad MS is still doing: forced Win10 upgrades, Win10
spyware, Android patent extortion, FAT/VFAT/exFAT patent suits and licenses,
etc.

The developer arm seems to be working hard, which is commendable. But looking
at the rest of the org, this just seems like another Embrace round of the EEE
cycle.

~~~
Analemma_
It's not "oddly coincidental", it's Microsoft's developer conference today,
which is where the announcement was made. During WWDC and I/O the front page
is filled with Apple and Google news too.

~~~
tener
Comparing to Apple, Microsoft seems to be getting more attention to their
news, which is a praiseworthy change.

~~~
merb
well since steve jobs died there wasn't anything noteworthy. I mean seriously,
was there any new device or and WORTHY feature? I can't think of any. And old
devices like the mac series or others weren't overhauled with something that
made it more interesting. I mean everything since then was the touchbar from
mac, which many weren't seeing as _that_ feature, they basically removed more
than they added noteworthy stuff. That's why they probably will suffer soon.
They need a leader to bring them forward and not a businessman.

------
forgottenpass
The new game is to use as much open source as possible to build a closed
source ecosystem with vendor lock-in.

Microsoft was late to the game, but we gotta give them props for contributing
back something more useful than "open core", platform onboarding or "hire me"
piles of code.

------
blackaspen
I guess the other thread was the one that became the dupe:

I'm fairly certain all of 2016 is a mass-hallucination. Or something. In all
seriousness though, I don't think this is surprising. Visual Studio on macOS
is more surprising to me. Azure runs on Linux and that's a really, really big
business for Microsoft. And they've also built a Linux Subsystem into Windows.
Rock on Microsoft, rock on.

~~~
rufius
Azure runs on Linux? What? Small portions do, but it's misleading to say it
"runs on Linux".

Edit: clarifying

~~~
blackaspen
Sarcasm? I imagine that they're not emulating the Linux Kernel on Windows...
From what I've gathered from job postings and whatnot, their virtualization
system is in line with AWS's (Xen) on Linux.

~~~
rufius
The primary backbone of Azure is an OS known as "Red Dog OS". It's based off
of Windows, with much of the core kernel tailored by Dave Cutler.

When you're running Linux on Azure, it's via Hyper-V or rather the Azure
flavored form of it. Windows is very much the core of Azure.

Azure Cloud Switch does use Linux - on metal I believe so no virtualization.

Edit: a word

~~~
blackaspen
Ah! Ok, that actually makes a bit more sense... thanks for clarifying! That's
actually quite neat then.

~~~
Ant5do
TBC, parts of Azure are now starting to migrate to pure linux on linux.

~~~
colemickens
source?

------
mevile
This thread is full of people making the familiar mistake of treating an
organization with hundreds of thousands of employees as a single entity with a
single mind instead of a vast organization with multiple departments and
different teams.

------
devereaux
So much has changed in 10 years! The old me would never believe how the future
me moved more "Micro$oft sucks" to "wow another great product!"

I am happy to use Office in wine, as it gives me a very stable experience,
full unicode supports even with my Xorg keymaps.

I use Visual Studio in wine - not as good as Office, but still very good.

I have a Windows phone, a priced relic since Microsoft abandoned them. Rock
stable, last for a week in airplane mode.

I have a Windows 10 LTSB in a separate partition. Initially I just wanted to
test it out. Now I consider running it in KVM for Visual Studio, in case I
want more than what wine can now offer.

Hell, I am considering replacing my Thinkpad by one of Microsoft surfaces. As
soon as it runs Linux as well as a Thinkpad, can get 32G of RAM, a user
replacable SSD, wifi and lte module, I buy one. Seriously, even if the
keyboard is not as good. And given Microsoft new focus on developpers, I
wouldn't entirely dismiss the idea of a Surface Developper, bulkier but
sturdier and user upgradable.

People say "hell froze over". I don't care. I look forward for more change
from Microsoft. Because their tools are innovative again.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>I am happy to use Office in wine, //

It'd be great if companies would support this sort of use if they're not going
to bother creating native versions.

I used to play games using PlayOnLinux but the company, Origin (IIRC), updated
their game manager software _seemingly_ in order to break the Linux
compatibility. The games were paid for and worked perfectly well.

Annoying as hell when companies appear to be actively hostile to you buying
their product.

------
organsnyder
Another example of how far Microsoft's focus has changed. Rather than focusing
on products, they're focused on selling solutions.

~~~
cmdrfred
Aren't all products essentially solutions?

~~~
rbanffy
Not Microsoft products.

/me ducks.

------
jepler
first they mock you, then they fight you, then they coopt you, then they win.

~~~
1281281918
Don't forget that we have the _New Microsoft[tm]_! Source: Hacker News.

~~~
An9238
Hacker News is really the site with the least amount of self criticism on the
entire Internet.

'dang, go ahead and do you thing.

------
ascendantlogic
Me from 2001 is pretty blown away.

~~~
tracker1
Yeah... the me from that era would _never_ have thought that MS would be where
it is today.

~~~
floopidydoopidy
Me from 2001 is astounded that people keep falling for same lie, year after
year.

------
jordigh
The Linux Foundation troubles me a little. They have vested interest in making
sure Linux's copyleft is not enforced. For example, VMWare is part of it, and
has used its clout to refuse funding to Software Conservancy, due to the
ongoing GPL lawsuit.

I guess the money from the LF is helping pay Linus' paycheque, but it has also
become a bit of a lobbying group to steer Linux into more proprietary
software.

------
thejj
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extingui...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish)

Let's see how they'll try the next step.

~~~
airesQ
I really don't see how that strategy would work with open source projects.
Wouldn't most contributions for the "extend" phase be open source?

Once open source, it's much harder to extinguish.

~~~
akerro
Open source means nothing and is same easy to extinguish, it's only more
visible when someone is trying to. Microsoft, Google, Apple do open source
work for publicity, if you as a single developer want a change in a projects,
you submit PR... and wait weeks. First you need to write RFC, at some point
RFC will be discussed behind closed doors by corporatisation members, you can
have your vote in it on GitHub, but nothing else as we saw once already with
MS. All you can do is fix documentation and tests for them, means they get
free labour to improve their products, you can have an important repo forked
on GitHub.

~~~
edgyswingset
So have you ever contributed to OSS projects by these companies? I ask because
what you've described is definitely not the case from what I can see.

------
LyalinDotCom
Hell has frozen over, but that's just my opinion :)

~~~
ekianjo
Except that Microsoft is still hostile towards Linux with patents at the same
time but no one talks about it.

~~~
SSLy
Microsoft loves Linux (the kernel), but they hate with passion anything
userland that could ever have the dreaded "GNU" or "GPL" letters anywhere
mentioned.

~~~
NetStrikeForce
Isn't WSL Linux userland running on NT Kernel? Just the opposite of what you
said?

Sorry if I said something silly :)

~~~
mhall119
WSL is an implementation of (some of) the Linux kernel APIs on top of the
Windows kernel. The userland that you run in WSL is technically independent of
WSL itself, but Microsoft provides direct support for installing Ubuntu there.

------
Roritharr
Everytime I see a big corporation donate money to a software project, I like
to imagine what the software project would do with 10 or 1000 times that
amount. What would a Billion Dollar funded Linux Foundation do?

~~~
winter_blue
As the Mythical Man-Mnth says, you can't build software faster by adding more
programmers.

So not much, unless the work they have to do is highly parallelizable (i.e.
can be broken up), and would truly benefit from more developers.

I can imagine KDE benefiting from this, because KDE is an umbrella
organization with hundreds (if not thousands) of projects underneath it.

~~~
vidarh
The vast majority of the kernel code is a massive number of drivers and
subsystems that can be worked on independendly.

A better funded Linux Foundation could also invest in better tooling (better
compilers, better test rigs), and in research on speculative improvements to
pretty much every subsystem.

~~~
winter_blue
Yea, good point.

But on that note, I never understood why they track the drivers in the same
git repo as the kernel.

They should just develop a _stable kernel API_ for drivers, and have extract
the drivers out and track them separately from kernel development.

~~~
SXX
> But on that note, I never understood why they track the drivers in the same
> git repo as the kernel.

Because the advantage of Linux drivers is code sharing, cooperation between
different companies include competeting one, hierarchy of maintainers and
developers. No driver code can be merged into upstream driver until subsystem
maintainer, Linus and planty other developers see it.

So companies that maintain drivers in same subsystem improve and fix each
others code. They also can't just merge some mess into upstream and have to
follow certain rules that benefit kernel as whole. E.g for instance at least
in GPU drivers it's not allowed to add any code upstream if it's only used by
proprietary components in userspace.

> They should just develop a stable kernel API for drivers, and have extract
> the drivers out and track them separately from kernel development.

[https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/stable_api_nonsense...](https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt)

------
pksadiq
I don't think they are going to support GPLv3, ever.

~~~
SEJeff
FWIW, the same could be said for the Linux foundation. They're not really pro
GPLv3 either. Linux is GPLv2 and will stay that way.

Open Source != Free Software

~~~
cyphar
And note that many of the new Linux Foundation projects (kubernetes, runc,
etc) are under Apache licenses.

~~~
SEJeff
Precisely! The Linux Foundation is fundamentally convinced open source creates
the best software in the long run and doesn't much care about philosophy or
"freedom".

------
shmerl
Does it mean they'll stop patent aggression against Android now?

------
sterex
So a person buying a Windows license is indirectly paying for my Linux usage?
Interesting!

~~~
chipperyman573
Microsoft has $85B of revenue[0] and joining as a platinum member costs $500k.
Even if Windows licences are the only ways Microsoft makes money (they're not,
by a longshot), every copy would only account for 0.000008% of the donation.

[0]: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/Investor/earnings/FY-2016-Q4/press-release-webcast)

~~~
sterex
Right. But you know, it's a nice feeling. Even if it brings 0.000008% of joy.
:)

------
0xmohit

      The company has become an enthusiastic supporter of Linux
    

Curious to know from any users out there: How well does Mono work, especially
on Linux?

~~~
pionar
Mono works really well. But, Mono's not the future. The future is Roslyn,
CoreCLR, and CoreFX, basically the compiler, runtime and standard library for
.NET applications.

They all work really well on Linux. They're part of the .NET foundation
([https://github.com/dotnet](https://github.com/dotnet)).

------
acd
Microsoft are doing good by supporting Linux and shipping Ubuntu as an option
in Windows 10 which is good for developers. In the past Microsoft has released
a UNIX based operating system called Xenix and there has also been a subsystem
for Unix in previous Windows NT versions.

Windows subsystem for Linux
[https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2016/07/22/fun-
with-t...](https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2016/07/22/fun-with-the-
windows-subsystem-for-linux/tem)

Xenix
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix)

Microsoft Interix, Windows services for Unix historic link
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interix)

~~~
thebspatrol
I think most of us are feeling extremely cautious about the recent Embrace-
Extend-Extinguish overdrive.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
MS is going all Oracle-y on us, they'll probably release a full fledged MS
Linux distro soon.

(Social game: what will they call it? I'd say something like Unsinkable Linux
;-)

They should also have their own filesystem - ow, right, NTFS. I was thinking
they could take another go at the database FS that stalled Vista a decade ago
...

------
eevilspock
Open source is "Un-American", Linux "a cancer", and should be made illegal.
Microsoft in 2001.

[http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042247/open-source-
tools/b...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042247/open-source-tools/bill-
gates-gets-real-about-free-software.html)

[http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5015](http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/5015)

[https://slashdot.org/story/04/07/11/1714235/gates-open-
sourc...](https://slashdot.org/story/04/07/11/1714235/gates-open-source-kills-
jobs)

------
native
Pride gets in the way of many things, especially progress and innovation, in
Microsoft's case, it's holding on to the Window's O.S. If I were the new man
at Microsoft, I would immediately set course to release two versions of
Windows, and let people make the decision: One with the standard Window's
filesystem and one built on the Unix/Linux kernel, like Apple has done. And
above all lead with design. The possibilities of what they can do at that
point would be endless. But you gotta let go of that pride first!!!

------
pasbesoin
This. All the Visual Studio stuff (shame, as their tools have long had a good
reputation). .NET . Etc.

It's a trap.

Been around long enough to have formed that singular impression of such
Microsoft initiatives and to have it confirmed, repeatedly.

They failed in mobile. They are losing mindshare elsewhere.

It's a trap.

I'm not going to try to back up my statement, here and now. Just keep it in
mind. The more wary you remain, the quicker you can move away when the noose
tightens.

Cheers

~~~
atomic77
Yes, it's a trap, but not much different than the traps other companies are
attempting to lay for you.

Remember that the majority of people working at Microsoft today probably have
little to no memory of the tech world of the early 2000s. They don't seem too
much better or worse than others in attempting to shape open-source projects
to their benefit - that's something you should always be wary about.

------
jaxondu
Is there a possibility that MS buy Canonical/Ubuntu?

------
unixmask
but they still getting money for the patents over linux ...

------
joelbondurant
embrace && extend && extinguish

------
vvdcect
Embrace(check), extend(check), and extinguish(?)

~~~
oedenfield
MS employee here - the new Microsoft is: _Enable_ (make sure open source runs
well on MS platforms) _Integrate_ (make sure MS platforms work well with open
source) _Release_ (release key MS technology into open source) _Participate_
(commit MS engineers to participate in communities)

~~~
BentFranklin
Nice of you to say but what about this:

[https://eugene.kaspersky.com/2016/11/10/thats-it-ive-had-
eno...](https://eugene.kaspersky.com/2016/11/10/thats-it-ive-had-enough/)

Obviously Kaspersky isn't open source, but the tiger's stripes certainly
haven't changed.

Also, Microsoft bundling Windows 10 upgrade malware into its security update
channel has turned me off Microsoft, probably forever. Still don't understand
why installing 10 after being told not to isn't a CFAA violation.

~~~
blahi
Kaspersky and all of the AV vendors deserve to get wiped out.

~~~
BentFranklin
I'd like to know why you think that, and also if you think that W10's
unstoppable updates is the right way.

~~~
intern4tional
Not the grandparent, but I think the issue is that people want clients to have
an uptime that is comparable to a server.

Windows Server has controllable updates and reboots. Win 10 - is a client OS
and wasn't designed with the same level of hardening and shouldn't have the
same uptime requirements.

The challenge is convincing the general public of this; people want a Ford
Fiesta with the speed and features of a Audi R8, meaning they want the best of
all worlds at reasonable cost and no penalties.

By forcing updates on clients, MS has eliminated a generation of machines
being owned by various botnets. They've also made it relatively cheap to get a
server in Azure should you have a temporary need for uptime (like a research
project for a week).

That aside, some portions of those updates are bad (like removing
functionality, pushing telemetry, etc), but the overall strategy of auto
updating isn't a bad idea if they can convince people to adjust to it and use
Server when they need stability.

------
rbanffy
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you
win.

Still, it'll be a while before they are worth our trust. They fought dirty and
hard.

