Submitted by The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today announced that Microsoft has joined the organization at a Platinum member during Microsoft’s Connect(); developer event in New York.
For those of us who witnessed the Microsoft of the late ’90s and early 2000s, this is yet another one of those “the industry has really changed” moments.
The Linux Foundation funds Linus. So technically now Linus is part employed by Microsoft.
Being employed is something different. He would have to follow instructions.
But he definitely is now getting paid by them. Talk about “deep throating Microsoft”…
Its about azure.. If they can get companies locked into azure with their we love linux approach they stand to make a lot of money, 1/3 of azure instances are Linux it wont be long until over 1/2 are Linux. They probably paid around £500K to join the alliance – they stand to gain millions if not billions from linux in azure. They can embrace Linux in the cloud as they can make money from it, the distribution doesnt matter- they can then extend any business by providing MS sql server instances for the most important part of any business (the data) and then lock them into their cloud infrastructure – aws does something similar – they all do. The thing about cloud infrastructure is that while the server instances can be transient the data gathered cant and the data gathered can very easily be locked into the vendors custom in house sql engine, at least aws is running a modified gelara. There is always a fine print a nice little catch.
If microsoft had really changed its behaviour it wouldn’t be trying to shift munich back into the windows desktop fold: http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-partner-claims-munich-should…
It still sells a bunch of bogus patents to android manufacturers, have they stopped doing that ? I haven’t seen any news articles mentioning them dropping the bogus patent claims.
It still is trying to lock down the pc market, so that it only runs windows – have they eased off on secure boot nonsense ?
How about the fact that windows 10 is full of spyware, have they disabled any of that and made it opt-in ? I dont think they have.
They are still an anti-consumer company only interested in what benefits them and currently becoming a platinum member benefits them, they are still a massive turd no matter how much they try to spit and shine themselves.
From what I understand, they’ve doubled down by locking out non-Windows OSes on desktop and laptop machines that carry Microsoft’s “Signature Edition” branding.
http://thehackernews.com/2016/09/microsoft-signature-edition-linux….
This had nothing to do with the signature edition… And nothing to do with Microsoft. Lenovo being lazy, having no support for Linux for this type of hardrive controller. And there was never any evidence that Microsft locked down this laptop, or any others. In fact, I know a lot of people running Linux on Signature laptops.
Laptops and consumer desktops don’t have RAID so the hardware support excuse is totally bogus. The only plausible reason is to stop users installing Linux. The order to lock bootloaders almost certainly came from MS.
Proof?????
This has nothing to do with Microsoft, and nothing to do with Windows.
Lenovo themselves locked the disk controller into the RAID mode in order to force Windows to use the Intel driver, which works better with power management. Otherwise, Windows uses the standard AHCI driver.
Linux doesn’t support Intel’s RAID mode, though. Lenovo has since released a BIOS that switches it to the standard AHCI mode.
You don’t find it the least bit odd that it only affected Signature Edition PC models? That’s what stood out to me when the news first broke on it.
No? You find it strange that this laptop, sold by Microsoft under its Signature lineup, was optimized for running Windows with optimal battery life? They should have sold the laptop with worst battery life so that Linux can run on it without problem?
The problem was that Lenovo did not give the option, at first, for running under the AHCI mode. Because they don’t care about supporting a niche case of someone running an alternate OS under this laptop.
And the biggest problem is that Linux has no driver for this RAID controller. It’s not Microsoft fault, and Lenovo has every right of using this technology if it’s better.
Wath does Microsoft has to do with a lack of driver for a third-party piece of hardware under Linux?
The Yoga 900 is a low end laptop. It has no possibility of using RAID.
It doesn’t affect only Signature Edition PCs, though. It affects all Yoga 900 and 900S models.
Drumhellar,
Yeah, the whole thing seemed fishy to me as well. I think it’s likely that there were bad communications and/or misunderstandings within Lenovo’s PR department rather than ill-intent.
I noticed people complaining that Lenovo’s bios even broke windows install media that lacked the proprietary drivers. In the end, removing the AHCI option wasn’t such a good idea. It’s better to let users who have a need to go into the bios choose a mode. Hopefully they’ve learned their lesson and we can all move on.
It is 100% MS. OEMs get Windows 10 32 bit for free. Lenovo install 32bit Windows on their shitty 2GB RAM Atom and Celeron laptops. They lock the bootloader to stop owners from wiping Windows and installing Linux.
Proof????
Which systems? I’m having a really hard time verifying this.
A ludicrous excuse. I have never very rarely, if ever, seen the RAID interface of a board used and never for ‘power management’ reasons where there has never been an issue before or with any other piece of hardware. This is simply spurious.
It’s not just about Linux. It’s about stopping people, and businesses, from installing other versions of Windows such as 7. This RAID driver does not exist for 7 so any installer will not see the disk at all.
Edited 2016-11-21 17:31 UTC
It isn’t about using RAID for power management, it’s about using the Intel driver versus the Microsoft driver. That’s the real difference. I mean, is it so inconceivable that Intel’s own driver takes better advantage of power management features of the chip than Microsoft’s generic AHCI driver would?
No, it isn’t.
The first part of this is untrue – a driver does exist for Windows 7. It isn’t included on the install disk, so you have to roll your own. Also, the driver isn’t included on the standard Windows 10 install media, so, you have to roll your own (Which is what Lenovo did).
Yup. Standard Windows 10 install media won’t work, either.
Almost every company is (only) interested in what benefits them. Luckily that often ends up being what benefits their customers. There is no doubt that they are now opening up more of their products because that benefits them. It benefits them because it is what their customers want though!
Microsoft isn’t an angel, but it also isn’t the devil. They are simply one of the biggest opportunists.
oh really ? http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-latest-two-android-patent-p… thats march 2016 … No they havent stopped, same old bull..
and I cant even be bothered to read the rest of your response, considering you got this part completely factually incorrect.
There is so much unknown and speculated about all these patent settlements. Nobody has any idea how much money was involved and how many patents. The defense always seemed to be “It is cheaper for these companies to pay the extortion fee than to fight in court” which didn’t make much senese because there was a mention of 2 Billion per year and lawyers are not THAT expensive!
It is clear that Microsoft had a lot of trash-patents in there, but they also had some gold-for-them-patents (exFAT) otherwise manufacturers would have put their own patent portfolio against Microsoft or negotiated better terms. The ZD-NET 310 patents article that you linked to even mentions this.
Patents are a dirty part of business. Microsoft certainly played dirty here and luckily that stopped. Of course they still do patent licensing deals, but not the Android-extortion-one anymore. So just reading “Android, Microsoft, deal” in one article doesn’t mean what you think it means.
That statement is bogus and borderline revisionist.
You know when the patent payment stopped? When the Chinese government exposed the list of patents that Microsoft wanted royalties for. Then an independent review of the patents could start, and soon after, Samsung stopped paying. After a short legal battle, all Microsoft could reach is pre-installing Office apps on Samsung smartphones. Of course then everybody else stopped paying too, sometimes in exchange for Office pre-installation.
That manufacturers pay patent royalties is not the same as thinking that the patents are valid. It could just be that the risks associated with refusing to pay are not worth it.
You know why it had happened? Because Microsoft is scared. Scared that they’ll lose market share to open-source alternative.
There’s literally no other reason why they’d open .NET or buy Xamarin and remove all of Mono’s licensing restrictions. There’s no other reason why they’d do the move they’ve just did.
They know that the writing is on the wall and they know that, as soon as Apple bankrupts (without Steve, it surely will happen, preceded by putting Apple back to where it was in the early 90s), those users won’t go towards Windows, but towards Mac-flavored Linux distros such as elementaryOS.
They know they’re losing and they are doing everything they can to stay relevant in the OS/office space.
This won’t happen overnight, but I can assure you that in few years, M$ will open entirety of Windows, both kernel and userland and make it available for free, perhaps even same will happen for MSOffice. That will be their swan song, they’ll get irrelevant shortly thereafter.
They may be still in business after that point, but only thanks to XBox and Azure.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Gandhi
Darkhog on the introduction of Windows 1.0:
For twenty years, I’ve been hearing how Microsoft was scared, how Microsoft was desperate.
It isn’t enough for Microsoft to make pragmatic decisions based on a changing market place. No. Microsoft has to be utterly terrified, and can see its own demise. This has been the case for twenty years, and for some reason, still is the case.
Whatever. It’s long past tiresome, and I’m amazed you didn’t throw in EEE conspiracies along with it.
Drumhellar,
Damn you Energy Efficient Ethernet task force! P802.3az is just a scheme by microsoft to keep more power for itself; They’re scared and desperate, I tell ya.
Well, while scared might be too big a word, it is not entirely inaccurate. Pragmatism and fear are not mutually exclusive. Adapting to a changing market out of fear of the competition is pragmatic and scared.
Well, there’s a difference between scared, and scared
This is the thing, in many ways they are scared. They used to be a very reactionary company and they still are.
Do you remember SUN ? They tried to fight Linux and they lost and now they are owned by Oracle and I loved SUN they were true innovators, way ahead of the curve, but their stuff was extortionately priced.
Right now microsofts only dominant sphere is the Desktop where they own monopoly status and cling to it tighter that anything else.
They failed in mobile and took Nokia down with themselves. In the server business they are dwarved by Linux. The web is mainly Linux and by extension the Internet, they have no where near a controlling interest. The Super computing space is owned by Linux.
3D cgi / movie processing practically all Apple and Linux.
The one area they have had any success is gaming / XBOX which they have used their desktop market share to leverage and that they almost blew with the xbox 1.
The brand has never been synonymous with quality or luxury, everyone knows microsoft has been involved in shady s***.
Microsoft or Apple wont suddenly disappear they have more money in the bank than some countries, but I dont see Microsoft holding onto their desktop dominance in 20 years. It is becoming harder to maintain. I also dont see Linux being as dominant in practically every other field in 20 – 50 years, it will be replaced projects like Linux require dominant characters like Torvalds and I see another kernel coming out and replacing it, probably some advancement in micro-kernels and hardware, but I do see another open source kernel dominating and I dont see a proprietary platform dominating.
Two reasons Linux hasn’t taken off in the desktop space – 1. Hardware compatibility, the desktop market is full of hardware vendors many of them only targeting the dominant player.
– 2. Lack of leadership in the desktop interface area, it requires a strong character like Torvalds or even Jobs to drive towards a unified simplified interface for the average user. Right now the closest we got for the desktop market is Shuttleworth and ubuntu.
The thing is though the Linux desktop area isn’t standing still. There are plenty of people that mock the year of desktop Linux, that mock any notion that Linux could ever be a viable alternative to Microsoft or Apple in the desktop area. The one thing that is forgotten, is that its constantly evolving, there has been many times where Linux had an opportunity to break into the average consumer desktop space (windows vista / windows me all of the failed ms desktops) but some of its tech just wasn’t ready for prime time and frankly they just weren’t sold by laptop manufacturers. How long until stuff like Wayland and Mir become the default ? There is a lot more interesting stuff coming out of the Linux desktop area and there is far more space for experimentation.
I have been out of IT for a few years but I would be surprised to find Linux on most small business networks…
Unless things have really changed small companies still mostly run on Microsoft software and I would consider that a major market for the company.
Hi,
I will continue to mock “year of Linux desktop” until they get the leadership needed to cease regularly breaking everything (evolving) and the leadership needed to end the “self-inflicted divide and conquer” mentality; because each of these symptoms of the “no leadership” problem are enough to cause continued failure on their own (and while combined, these symptoms reinforce each other, resulting in “iron-clad guaranteed ever-lasting failure”).
– Brendan
The failure isn’t that there is no “year of the Linux desktop”. The failure is with those who think that is somehow required for Linux to be successful.
Your strawman regarding windows 1.0 is hilarious, because it is well documented Microsoft developed it as a direct reaction to a preceding product they saw as a threat: VisiOn.
So I’m confused if you were trying to discredit the previous poster’s claim, why you at least partially kind of proved it.
I’ll be damned. Pigs can fly once more.
Add in “Microsoft SQL Server for Linux” and you start worrying about future MS-software being ported.
I better do this ahead of time:
echo “app-misc/clippy” >> /etc/portage/package.mask/microsoft
Edited 2016-11-18 02:18 UTC
The *industry* has not changed AT ALL.
Has Micro$oft stopped to steal money from other companies using Linux products arguing they own a patent?
Nope.
Same old patent troll and thieve as always.
Well yes, Microsoft has changed.
They no longer use patents to extract money from Android manufacturers, now they primarily use them for forcing Office apps preinstallation.
Also they stopped trying to hurt Linux everywhere, even where doing so hurt Microsoft more than Linux. The SSH support for PowerShell is one such example.
What hasn’t changed however is that Microsoft will still push their own proprietary formats and interfaces where they can, and agitate against those (e.g. municipalities) who try to move from Microsoft to vendor-neutral open standards.
Proof????
Is amusing to see the “Linux has won” chants when it is not about that. Linux Foundation is NOT a happy community of geeks developing FOSS from their passion but a corporate cartel trying to control the future of the OS, just have a look at who is there: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/members/corporate On equal footing with Microsoft we find Oracle, Huawei and so on…
More than a sign of love from Microsoft it can be seen as a sign of sellout of the Linux Foundation which allowed in (and in a top position) a litigious entity which harasses with patent threats its product and its previously existing members.
Of course it is, its full of players using Linux to make money. IBM saw this straight away, instead of competing it just used Linux to make money. The Linux foundation isn’t an ethical body, its about funding development. Its the business end of Linux development.
Microsoft should have been banned from Linux Foundation.
Accepting them is a bad move.
Agreed! Microsoft = wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Just one remark: The core of Android is patent-unencumbered. Support for proprietary standards like Microsoft LFNs for FAT32 and Microsoft Exchange is what is being licensed by Microsoft. OEMs will pay to have support for those (despite being unnecessary to the OS itself) because customers want it. For example, I want my Asus Nexus Player to read Microsoft LFNs from FAT32 USB sticks, so Asus pays Microsoft the patent royalty and passes the cost to me.
In that sense, OEMs are paying just another royalty like they pay for H.264. FAT32 used to be essential to the OS in the Gingerbread era when the place that user photos and the like got stored was a FAT32 partition (for easy mounting on a Windows system as a USB drive) but now it is all Linux filesystem and MTP mounted as “multimedia device”.
PS: Still can’t believe the FAT32 LFN patents and the MP3 patents are still alive. MP3 patents expire sometime in 2017 but haven’t managed to find solid info on FAT32 LFNs.
I thought it was the exFAT patents Microsoft was pursuing royalties for, since the Fat32 LFN patents were sidestepped by Linux developers
(Specifically, the patent is for a method for making long file names compatible with software that only supports 8.3 file names – the kernel sidestepped this by making the FS produce junk data in place of 8.3 file names, which is a problem with old software, but not for software that works with LFNs)
Wasn’t there an old saying about Microsoft? Something about “embrace, extend, extinguish”? Which part does this appear to be?
If anyone is curious about what that means:
“Embrace, extend, and extinguish” was [used internally by Microsoft](http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f2600/2613.htm) to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors”.
Edited 2016-11-20 21:24 UTC
Something tells me if there’s anything people here already knows, it’s that.
EEE can’t work with Linux, and certainly not against GPLd software.