Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation

Jim431

In its ever growing ambition for world domination Microsoft has joined The Linux Foundation as a Platinum member. It is presently unclear what Microsoft's intentions are.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-can-t-kill-linux-right-now-the-linux-foundation-director-says-510327.shtml

https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/en/Members

Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation has reassured worried users and said that "Microsoft is a completely different company now and it’s not at all interested in destroying Linux."

My guess is that the CIA - correction: Microsoft - have noticed that Linux is very weak as far as telemetry is concerned and wants to give it a much needed boost.

In any event the really good news is that when Linux misbehaves we can continue to blame Microsoft.:)

forgotmyname

Take a free already developed Linux, add tracking and data collection and release it as an MS product?

Make money from selling all your data.

onomatopoeia99

forgotmyname wrote: »

Take a free already developed Linux, add tracking and data collection and release it as an MS product?

Make money from selling all your data.

Why would anyone use that when there are mature linux distributions already?

fwor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend_and_extinguish

But I don't think they will find a very sympathetic audience in the Linux community, whatever their intentions. And the Linux user base has proven itself more than capable of ignoring the wishes of powerful "influencers" (witness the rejection of what Canonical wanted to do to the desktop).

S0litaire

Probably to help get "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" to run a bit better, hopefully with a running Xserver and GUI's version.

(it's technically possible but terribly convoluted to get a Unity/Gnome desktop & GUIs running in "BoUoW")...

securityguy

Microsoft's future is as a services business. Like IBM and HP and Oracle.

They would prefer you to use their proprietary operating system. Like IBM and HP and Oracle,

But if you won't, they want you to use Linux on their cloud/tin/etc rather than on someone else's.

And if you think Microsoft might be prone to playing games with customers' data (and, for what it's worth, there isn't the slightest evidence they are, and the paranoid claims about the telemetry in W10 are just that), then you might like to note that a company essentially owned by the Chinese Army is also a Platinum Member. Do you actually trust Huawei more than Microsoft? Do you want to buy a bridge?

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/members/corporate

esuhl

I think Microsoft have realised that Linux isn't the big threat to the home-user market they thought it might have been, so they don't need to be so afraid of it there.

But they also recognise that they've lost the battle in getting large organisations to use Window servers, and that Linux isn't going away.

I guess they want to understand Linux and make sure Microsoft OSes behave well with it. And maybe get into the Linux server support market -- "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"!

Who knows...

paddyrg

Microsoft has been developing off-platform for years, they saw the way the market was going on the servers a long time ago, and since Ballmer, it's taken a far more pragmatic direction. Windows is free (well it was for anyone who wanted it), they are developing. SQL Server for Linux now, as it's one of their best products and if they stay windows only, they create an opportunity for Oracle (and Postgres) that they may head off otherwise. MS really do employ some first class developers, so I'd hope team penguin can accept that for what it is. Team penguin won in the server, and changed the landscape of the desktop.