Hell freezes over as Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation

This is actually awesome. What are the implications for this?

Nothing good is coming from this. Microsoft's got some plot here and it's not for the betterment of anyone but themselves.

>>86335
>subversion initiated

"joins"

What exactly does that mean though..

>>86335
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

inb4 scowling ascii render of stallman

>>86350
Strangely enough, one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel has been Microsoft. I've never seen an official reason (Though you can look it up and see many people speculating as to why), but they seem to have some plan at work with it.

Perhaps they're looking to better integrate Windows' kernel and Linux's together in some form or fashion, but they aren't really talking as to why, only that it's been happening for years.

Embrace
Extend
Extinguish.

Good old Kikesoft.

>>86368
>Perhaps they're looking to better integrate Windows' kernel and Linux's together in some form or fashion, but they aren't really talking as to why, only that it's been happening for years.
Basic non-/g/ ignoramus here. What parts of linux are they contributing to? database modules? Surely not the core OS parts. Can you explain further what you/they are talking about?

microsoft bought skype... it has turned into shit
microsoft bought nokia... its over
microsoft joins Linux Foundation...

>>86368
>Strangely enough, one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel has been Microsoft.
Complete bullshit, unless you give proof. The only larger piece of MS contributed code is the thing that allows Linux to run on their MS hypervisor.

>>86378
They're mainly contributing to the kernel, which >>86361 copypasta somewhat explains in layman's terms. They haven't done so in a while, but this source (https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Microsoft-contributing-to-the-Linux-kernel) sort of hazards a guess as to why:

>To my knowledge, most if not all of Microsoft's contributions to the Linux kernel are about supporting running Microsoft Windows in a virtualization context under Linux. This is pure business; they make their OS work better when virtualized under Linux. This is why Linux is GPL: so people can contribute, to fix their own issues. Microsoft is no different.

>So yes, it's normal to have Microsoft contributing to the Linux kernel. Microsoft has a long history of being developer friendly; after all, they are doing stuff like including support for git in Visual Studio, they do support their own style of Open Source, http://www.codeplex.com/ is quite full of Open Source project. Remember not to confuse Microsoft developers with Microsoft marketing and legal dept.

I suppose it makes sense, considering that a lot of businesses use Windows as day to day machines for their users but use a version of Linux for their behind the scenes server activities. Especially if an organization uses Windows virtualization through Linux, it would make sense for Microsoft to work out some bugs to encourage users to do so vs attempting to make people switch to a proprietary solution as their only option.

>>86416
>virtualization
good links, thanks /g//friend. so what they are doing is kind of like what VMware or WINE was doing 10 or 15 years ago if I'm understanding it right.

>>86419
No no, they're not making the upper software that runs virtualization for you, they're instead making sure the underlying parts of the OS that actually preform the basic tasks that get your computer to work properly have parts that prevent virtual machines from having trouble when running. It's like when you're running a virtual environment in VMware and suddenly you have an error and shit goes down because the native way Linux works can't handle something, that's what they're fixing.

MS does have its own virtualization environment, which I believe is either vSphere or vWorkspace, but that runs natively on Windows.

>>86424
I suppose that means more stuff like DirectX being supported in Linux. Maybe I'm reading ttoo much into it but it seems like the implications for things like Steam/gaming (and VR in the future?) seem tremendous.

>>86429
>I suppose that means more stuff like DirectX being supported in Linux
No, not at all.

This isn't anything you care about. It's more about making sure that Microsoft's Azure can work well with Linux images.

Extend, embrace, extinguish.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

>>86429
why would you want that? directx is bullshit especially now that vulkan is ready. It's not for directx that there aren't many games on linux (takes ps3/4 for example, the OS is based on bsd and definitely doesn't use directx)

>>86408
...2017 becomes year of the BSD desktop

>>86368
It's most likely the same reason that Microsoft helped apple, so they didn't appear to control the entire market.

But Microsoft might want to also sell software to all operating systems too, so that my be their incentive.