Microsoft just joined the Linux Foundation, but end users won’t notice right away - fitefesionfluen

If there's i thing to be said roughly 2016, it's that IT's grumbling of surprises. This yr has seen events you wouldn't have dreamt of a decade ago. When I register that Microsoft joined the Linux Basis, I couldn't believe it at the start. There's plenty of galvanising news for developers in this new partnership, but not much for Linux desktop users.

I first-class honours degree started experimenting with Linux in the tardive '90s and early aughts ('00s?), back when Steve Ballmer took the reins at Microsoft. In those days, Microsoft was famously hostile to Linux, or any other Bone for that matter.

Accelerating-forward 15 years, and Microsoft is cozying up to the very same platform that Ballmer had vilified. Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has embraced the ASCII text file scene.

While I was dumbstricken away the news, it didn't exactly blow my hairsbreadth back. Microsoft's product line has been getting increasingly more Linux-hospitable over the past brace of years. You give the axe spin up a Linux virtual machine in Microsoft's Azure platform, even as easily as you can an image of Microsoft's own IIS. Earlier this twelvemonth, Microsoft partnered with Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) to create the Windows Subsystem for Linux. In June, someone even got WSL to run Ubuntu's Unity desktop in Windows 10. Microsoft is planning to release its SQL Server database for Linux too.

James Niccolai

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently proclaimed the companionship's new love for Linux.

None of that really affects everyday Linux users, simply what volition make a difference of opinion in the short term is the money Microsoft injected into the Linux Foundation. Microsoft connected as a Platinum member, which means that Nadella and company will pony up at least $500,000 for the title,per yr. That money potty supporte fund Linux Foundation projects, most of which (the like Knob.js) aren't user-cladding in the least. However, a big receiver of the money will be the Linux kernel, so more resources and developer time give notice be spent on improving hardware support, security measur, and functioning. Besides the kernel, the most prospective consumer-facing project in the Linux Cornerstone to benefit will beryllium the Tizen mobile OS that Samsung (also a foundation penis) is looking for to apply on its smartphones in place of Humanoid.

(Present's a inclination of altogether the Foundation's corporate members.)

As with most corporal sponsorships in open-source, just about of the money goes to projects that tycoo substructure and web technologies that those companies rely on. Projects that create software that the desktop user uses daily (like GNOME Oregon LibreOffice) are unbelievable to see a lot, if any, of Microsoft's money. It's also fairly supposed that Microsoft desktop applications wish on the spur of the moment run on Linux or become more compatible, unless Microsoft starts paying some people to play on WINE stuffed time.

Being a member of the Linux Foundation doesn't even secure that a sponsor will continue old support for the Osmium. Make Adobe, for example: Adobe pays $20,000 each year as a Silver gray member of the Linux Foundation. Adobe also obstructed releasing updates for Flashgun to Linux Little Jo years agone. (The company just now recently started supporting the OS again in September.) There still ISN't a Linux version of the Creative Suite, which means you still need Windows (or Mac OS) to run Lightroom, Photoshop, and the like. And Acrobat Lecturer for Linux, in my feel, has been bad to the charge of nigh-uselessness.

Given Adobe's approach to Linux, I wouldn't expect large things from Microsoft when IT comes to the Linux desktop. If Redmond were to announce a release of DirectX for Linux, IT might—might—just make 2016 better, merely I North Korean won't carry my breath.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/411060/microsoft-just-joined-the-linux-foundation-but-end-users-wont-notice-right-away.html

Posted by: fitefesionfluen.blogspot.com

Share this post