It takes a lot to shake the IT industry, but now, it feels as if a planet has left its orbit
It takes a lot to shake the IT industry, but now, it feels as if a planet has left its orbit
Few things leave hard-bitten IT journalists speechless because we have seen almost everything, and then some. But the recent news, which concerns Microsoft contributing code to Linux as part of the General Public License (GPLv2) is one of those things that happens only rarely, and so this gives us the feeling that it is truly earth shattering.
To understand why it is shocking, you have to understand that Microsoft, which owns 90 per cent of the desktop OS market, can't stand Linux, which owns at best one to two per cent, according to Wikipedia. This is because Linux, a free OS (free as in free speech, not free beer) threatens its stranglehold on the server market.
Server king
While Microsoft has very little to fear from Linux in the desktop area, it sees Linux as a major challenger in the server space, for here, Linux is supreme. According to Top500.org, as of June 2009, out of the top 500 systems, 443 (88.6 per cent) run a Linux distribution. Linux is also extremely popular when it comes to hosting Web servers and according to netcraft.com, of the top ten hosting sites in June 2009, three ran Linux, four ran FreeBSD (a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution branch) and two ran unknown OSes. Only one of them ran Windows Server 2003.
This naturally makes us ask one question why is Microsoft, which is suffering so much from Linux's onslaught in the server market, sleeping with its enemy? Microsoft had initially in July 2007 refused to work with Linux distributor Red Hat to improve interoperability. However, the Redmond giant this year in February 2009 changed this stance and made an agreement with Red Hat to collaborate on virtualisation interoperability.
The February deal is in itself a major development because it showed how much Microsoft has changed its stance. In 2007, Microsoft said that Linux infringed on several of its patents, though this claim has been seen by many as an attempt to use legal tactics to fight a competitor that it has not been able to face head-on in the market.
Why the change?
Microsoft's change in stance from accusing Linux, to collaborating with it, and then finally to actually contributing code has raised a lot of speculation, but one need not see anything of the Evil Empire conspiracy theory behind it. One of the most possible reasons could be the fact that enterprises, who are running both Linux and Microsoft products, would have probably told Microsoft to push for interoperability with Linux. This is highly probable because many enterprises these days run mixed environments and so interoperability is critical.
And big companies like Microsoft listen to users, because their customers tend to move on to competitors if they are spurned. In fact, this is one of the reasons why Microsoft and Sun entered into a 10-year technology-sharing pact in April 2004. At that time, Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun put it very succinctly when he said, "Maybe the customers are getting more in charge these days."
And in all probability, this same logic is operating today.
QUICK TAKE
>>Microsoft is collaborating with Linux
>>It has contributed code under GPLv2
>>This has happened perhaps primarily because enterprise users want it
What Microsoft did
Microsoft has submitted driver source code for inclusion in the Linux kernel under a GPLv2 license. The code, running to over 20,000 lines, consists of four drivers. If these drivers are added to the Linux kernel, then Linux can run more seamlessly on Windows Server 2008 and also collaborate with Hyper-V hyper visor technology.
The fact that this code has been released under GPLv2 means that Microsoft cannot charge royalties or assert patents covering the code that it has contributed.
