Microsoft Joins the Linux Foundation

[btarunr]

On Wednesday, during its annual Connect(); developer event, Microsoft Corp. unveiled a series of products and partnerships that strengthen the company's Azure cloud platform for building intelligent, cross-platform apps and services. Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Executive Vice President Scott Guthrie detailed significant steps Microsoft is taking to empower the ecosystem by giving developers greater choice in the tools they use - including joining the Linux Foundation as a Platinum Member to better collaborate with the open source community, welcoming Google to the independent .NET Foundation, and working with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to enable .NET developers to build apps for more than 50 million Samsung devices worldwide.

Guthrie also demonstrated a preview of Visual Studio for Mac, which enables developers to write cloud, mobile and macOS apps on Apple's Mac operating system using the popular development environment; a preview of the next version of the company's flagship SQL Server database with support for Linux, Linux-based Docker containers and Windows-based environments; and a preview of Azure App Service on Linux with support for containers.



"We want to help developers achieve more and capitalize on the industry's shift toward cloud-first and mobile-first experiences using the tools and platforms of their choice," Guthrie said. "By collaborating with the community to provide open, flexible and intelligent tools and cloud services, we're helping every developer deliver unprecedented levels of innovation."

Collaborating with the community
As part of its effort to work more closely with the open source community, Microsoft on Wednesday announced it has joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum Member. Microsoft's membership in the Linux Foundation will benefit customers through increased collaboration and innovation among a diverse ecosystem.

"By becoming a Linux Foundation Platinum member, Microsoft is better able to collaborate with the open source community to deliver transformative mobile and cloud experiences to more people," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation. "Microsoft has been a key contributor to many projects, and we see the company intensifying its involvement and commitment to open development."

Microsoft has become an active member of the open source community in part through the popularity of its open source and cross-platform application framework .NET Core. Wednesday's addition of Google to the .NET Foundation's Technical Steering Group further reinforces the vibrancy of the .NET developer community as well as Google's commitment to fostering an open platform that supports businesses and developers who have standardized on .NET.

Other industry leaders are also betting on .NET Core for their own commercial products. On Wednesday Samsung is releasing a preview of its Visual Studio Tools for Tizen. Developers can use the tools to build .NET apps for the Tizen operating system that runs on millions of Samsung TVs, wearables, mobile devices and many IoT devices around the world.

Tools for any developer on any platform
Microsoft highlighted several announcements Wednesday aimed at helping developers use the tools of their choice to create Android, iOS and Windows apps powered by Linux or Windows Server, including the following:

• The SQL Server on Linux public preview released Wednesday is the first preview of the next version of SQL Server and brings the power of SQL Server to Linux and Linux-based Docker containers, in addition to Windows.
• A new Visual Studio for Mac preview provides a macOS-based integrated development environment designed for building mobile, cloud and macOS apps.
• The availability of Azure App Service on Linux with support for Containers in preview provides native Linux support for Node.js and PHP stacks on Azure App Service and now enables developers to bring their own Docker-formatted container image.

Enabling better apps through the intelligent cloud
Today's most impactful apps are using data to delight users and drive business outcomes. Microsoft today unveiled unique capabilities and services that make it easier for more developers to turn massive amounts of data into deeply personal, intelligent and predictive applications.

• SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 availability makes database innovations accessible to more applications across product editions.
• The availability of Azure Data Lake services, Azure Data Lake Analytics and Data Lake Store means developers and data scientists now have the capabilities required to easily store and process data at petabyte size files, with massively parallel analytics and enterprise-grade security for insights on data of any size, shape and speed.

Improving the end-to-end developer experience
Microsoft's solutions evolve with changing developer needs. Through the Visual Studio family, SQL Server, Windows, Office and Azure, Microsoft is working to provide the most complete platform for application innovation, spanning mobile and cloud.

• The Visual Studio Mobile Center preview announced Wednesday brings together the cloud and life-cycle services that help developers build, test, distribute and monitor apps built in Objective-C, Swift, Java, Xamarin and React Native for Android-, iOS- and Windows-based devices.
• The Visual Studio 2017 release candidate released Wednesday includes new capabilities to help any developer be more productive than ever for any application and any platform.
• Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2017 and Azure Application Insights are now available, providing an enhanced collaboration and DevOps platform for cloud- first, mobile-first scenarios.

"Microsoft is transforming the nature of its appeal to developers by broadening its supported platforms," said Al Hilwa, research director for Software Development research at IDC. "The new partnerships and commitments allow Microsoft to meet developers where they are and multiply its reach and impact with mobile and cloud developers as well as become established in emerging areas such as IoT, data science and cognitive computing."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[alucasa]

The end is nigh.

 

[AsRock]

On Wednesday,

OOh that picture gave me stitches from laughing to much, like shi they cannot support PC gaming or even get windows 10 right without pisses most people of never mind Linux.

Only thing MS would do if they could with Linux and that be buy all the rights to it. Now Linux going be more unstable if MS get there so AWESOME code in the OS.

 

[TheLostSwede]

OOh that picture gave me stitches from laughing to much, like shi they cannot support PC gaming or even get windows 10 right without pisses most people of never mind Linux.

Only thing MS would do if they could with Linux and that be buy all the rights to it. Now Linux going be more unstable if MS get there so AWESOME code in the OS.

Please don't commend on things you know nothing about. Microsoft is a major contributor to Linux and have been for at least a couple of years. They're heavily involved in a lot of projects and although they have an agenda behind it, it's not all bad. They're also investing a lot of money into Linux, which can only be a good thing.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Examples? -^

 

[remixedcat]

wow salty nutella has no clue what he is doing

 

[Katanai]

Microsoft loves Linux the most in this world like it also loves Apple. Such weak competitors are to be cherished and encouraged not fought. This weak competition has made Microsoft gazillions of dollars and has made Bill Gates to be the richest man in the world for a long time. Anyone who thinks this move by Microsoft has some bad intentions behind it, is wrong. They will only help, they have 0 interest to make Linux fall and risk something better taking its place...

 

[TheLostSwede]

Examples? -^

https://lwn.net/Articles/451243/

They've provided more than Oracle and Google combined.

This is a tad old, but hey... http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2166123/microsoft-contributed-code-canonical-linux-2632

These might not all be Linux specific, but hey, it's only 40 pages so I'm sure you can go through them all in no time... https://github.com/Microsoft

 

[SIGSEGV]

Microsoft loves Linux the most in this world like it also loves Apple. Such weak competitors are to be cherished and encouraged not fought. This weak competition has made Microsoft gazillions of dollars and has made Bill Gates to be the richest man in the world for a long time. Anyone who thinks this move by Microsoft has some bad intentions behind it, is wrong. They will only help, they have 0 interest to make Linux fall and risk something better taking its place...

its like intel feeding amd to keep alive and make them profits and avoid monopoly. lol
but well, i still love linux whatever M$'s done

 

[R-T-B]

Microsoft loves Linux the most in this world like it also loves Apple. Such weak competitors are to be cherished and encouraged not fought. This weak competition has made Microsoft gazillions of dollars and has made Bill Gates to be the richest man in the world for a long time. Anyone who thinks this move by Microsoft has some bad intentions behind it, is wrong. They will only help, they have 0 interest to make Linux fall and risk something better taking its place...

You do realize it's the other way around in the server sector, right?

Windows Server is the joke vs Linux.

 

[Frick]

its like intel feeding amd to keep alive and make them profits and avoid monopoly. lol
but well, i still love linux whatever M$'s done

I undertand what you are trying to say, but it's nonsense. Linus is not like AMD and the situations are the same in the same way as the sun is like a human being: They are both things that exist.

 

[jabbadap]

https://lwn.net/Articles/451243/

They've provided more than Oracle and Google combined.

This is a tad old, but hey... http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2166123/microsoft-contributed-code-canonical-linux-2632

These might not all be Linux specific, but hey, it's only 40 pages so I'm sure you can go through them all in no time... https://github.com/Microsoft

Heh you took the old statistic when microsoft were forced to do code dumb for their in kernel vm drivers. Look at the more recent development:
https://lwn.net/Articles/654633/
https://lwn.net/Articles/668870/
https://lwn.net/Articles/679289/

 

[GAR]

Bill Gates is one of leading supporters of weather modification, he is a scum bag to the fullest

 

[R-T-B]

Bill Gates is one of leading supporters of weather modification, he is a scum bag to the fullest

and given he has nothing to do with Microsoft today, that is completely off-topic.

 

[Katanai]

You do realize it's the other way around in the server sector, right?

Windows Server is the joke vs Linux.

I know how it is, I used to work in that sector. Windows Server is not a joke though, it sells much more than you think. In the PC market Linux has 2.5% of that space. In the server business Windows Server has much more than that, maybe 20-30%. There is also Unix in that space so it really isn't a straight comparison like you make it out to be. That's not the main focus and income base for Microsoft though. The PC market is and they really don't have any competitors there, just those 2 kept alive so no one screams monopoly...

 

[R-T-B]

I know how it is, I used to work in that sector. Windows Server is not a joke though, it sells much more than you think. In the PC market Linux has 2.5% of that space. In the server business Windows Server has much more than that, maybe 20-30%. There is also Unix in that space so it really isn't a straight comparison like you make it out to be. That's not the main focus and income base for Microsoft though. The PC market is and they really don't have any competitors there, just those 2 kept alive so no one screams monopoly...

You are of course correct, I was using hyperbole perhaps by calling Windows Server a "joke," it's just less used than Linux/Unix.

 

[Katanai]

You are of course correct, I was using hyperbole perhaps by calling Windows Server a "joke," it's just less used than Linux/Unix.

Linux and Unix are completely different operating systems man. Unix doesn't even run on the same architecture Linux does. Unix is usually run on Intel Itanium or risc processors. Linux was actually developed as a port of Unix to the x86 architecture. But they have both developed since then in different ways, they don't share much in common nowadays...

 

[Aquinus]

Unix doesn't even run on the same architecture Linux does.

OS X is a Unix by legal definition, it runs on x86, just as Solaris does which is also another legal Unix. If you're going to make claims, at least research them first. Not all operating systems that are by definition a Unix run on x86 but, to claim all of them don't is more than an exaggeration, it's straight up false.

 

[Katanai]

OS X is a Unix by legal definition, it runs on x86, just as Solaris does which is also another legal Unix. If you're going to make claims, at least research them first. Not all operating systems that are by definition a Unix run on x86 but, to claim all of them don't is more than an exaggeration, it's straight up false.

Those are all ports of Unix to x86. They are legal ports made under license. Still the original Unix never worked on Intel x86. And to this day in the server sector Unix isn't sold with x86. OS X has 0 footprint in the server sector. And Solaris was mainly sold on the SPARC architecture which is a RISC processor like I've said in my previous statement. Linux is not Unix no matter how much anyone wants to make it out to be. There is 0 software that can run on both operating systems we are talking about here without major modifications. If no piece of software can run on both OS then they are not the same OS now are they? If you want to talk about a modern Unix OS then talk about HP-UX, Hewlett Packard Unix, that's the closest modern OS to the original Unix and no piece of software on HP-UX runs on Linux or vice versa and never will! Saying Red Hat Linux is the same OS as HP-UX is just a dumb statement...

 

[Aquinus]

Saying Red Hat Linux is the same OS as HP-UX is just a dumb statement...

I'm not saying that. By legal definition, Linux is not a Unix but, there are operating systems that can be had that are legally licensed as a Unix and can run on x86. That's all I'm saying. That isn't me saying that Linux is a Unix, but confirming that it is Unix-like.

My simple point is that, as @R-T-B said, there are a lot of servers running a Unix-like OS, we don't have to bastardize the discussion into making this a pissing contest about what constitutes a "real Unix."

 

[Katanai]

I'm not saying that. By legal definition, Linux is not a Unix but, there are operating systems that can be had that are legally licensed as a Unix and can run on x86. That's all I'm saying."

The only OS that falls under that category is Solaris which at the height of it's popularity was mainly sold on the SPARC architecture not x86. So please don't make it out to be like Unix running on x86 is a common thing because it just isn't! Red Hat Linux used to work on the Itanium architecture too but the newest release doesn't do that anymore because it was not a success. So when I said Unix and Linux don't even work on the same architecture I wasn't wrong. The only exception being Solaris which is a true Unix although much more modified from the original than HP-UX is. And that OS mainly runs on SPARC to this day. Solaris on x86 has an insignificant market share and penetration in the server space. And that is the only exception to what I said and I'm willing to accept it.

 

[Katanai]

My simple point is that, as @R-T-B said, there are a lot of servers running a Unix-like OS, we don't have to bastardize the discussion into making this a pissing contest about what constitutes a "real Unix."

I am not bastardizing anything, quite the contrary. My response was to writing Linux/UNIX in a statement and calling it a day...

 

[R-T-B]

Linux and Unix are completely different operating systems man. Unix doesn't even run on the same architecture Linux does. Unix is usually run on Intel Itanium or risc processors. Linux was actually developed as a port of Unix to the x86 architecture. But they have both developed since then in different ways, they don't share much in common nowadays...

Did I say otherwise?

and while they share nothing in common in code base, you'd be a fool not to see how they often imitate one another... there are many operational similarities.

There is also the BSD's, which have a unix codebase but do not pay the licensed unix fees...

 

[Katanai]

Did I say otherwise?

Yes you did. What you wrote implies they are the same thing: "it's just less used than Linux/Unix."
But whatever, I'm not here to argue just to spread some information...

 

[R-T-B]

Yes you did. What you wrote implies they are the same thing: "it's just less used than Linux/Unix."
But whatever, I'm not here to argue just to spread some information...

I simply was combining two competing products in a sentence, not implying they are the same.