Say it Ain't So! Microsoft Joins the Linux Foundation

Microsoft has joined the Linux Foundation as a platinum member. Microsoft made the announcement today at the Microsoft Connect 2016 event in New York.

“The Linux Foundation is home not only to Linux, but many of the community’s most innovative open source projects,” said Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President, Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise Group. “We are excited to join The Linux Foundation and partner with the community to help developers capitalize on the shift to intelligent cloud and mobile experiences.”

Microsoft has also released the public preview of SQL Server for Linux, which allows customers to test SQL Server on Linux and Linux-based Docker containers.

Microsoft is also partnering with Samsung to introduce their Visual Studio Tools for Tizen, a Linux-based operating system that is hosted by the Linux Foundation. The tool allows developers to build .NET apps for the Tizen operating system, which runs on millions of devices, including TVs, wearables, mobile devices, and many IoT devices.

Despite its long-standing reputation as the archenemy of Linux, Microsoft has emerged in recent years as one of the leading contributors to open source projects; their contributions on GitHub are evidence of the fact that the company is investing heavily in Linux and open source technologies. Microsoft has developed an operating system for networking switches in Azure that runs on the Linux kernel and has released many of its core products as open source, including .NET and PowerShell.