Microsoft, the monolithic force in the land of software licensing and exclusivity, has joined the Linux Foundation as a high-paying Platinum member.
Today’s Microsoft is one of the biggest open source contributors around. Over the course of just the last few years, it has essentially built Canonical’s Ubuntu distribution into Windows 10, brought SQL Server to Linux, open-sourced core parts of its .NET platform and partnered with Red Hat, SUSE and others. As Zemlin noted, Microsoft has also contributed to a number of Linux Foundation-managed projects like Node.js, OpenDaylight, the Open Container Initiative, the R Consortium and the Open API Initiative.
The announcement is a big deal for both Microsoft and the open source community, but there have been signs that Microsoft was changing its stance on Linux for some time. The company has gradually warmed up to its former nemesis and embraced both Linux software and the community at large in the name of problem solving and collaboration.
There was a time where proprietary versus open source was a winner-take-all proposition, but that's in the past. Open source is now a major force in software development, and the industry realizes you can make yourself better, while also making others better at the same time. Microsoft has been embracing open source increasingly for the better part of a decade, including contributing to and supporting many Linux Foundation projects, so their decision to take the next step and become a Linux Foundation member didn't come as a surprise to us.
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