Microsoft Joins The Linux Foundation as a Platinum Member

At its Connect event on Wednesday, Microsoft announced it was joining The Linux Foundation as a platinum member. The news came as a surprise to many considering Microsoft has built itself on closed-source proprietary software, which stands as an antithesis to everything Linux has stood for.

Microsoft has been contributing to Linux for several years, according to Ars Technica, and Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin welcomed the company’s decision: “Microsoft is better able to collaborate with the open source community to deliver transformative mobile and cloud experiences to more people.”

(Also see: Microsoft Takes on Oracle, Opening Up Database Software to Linux)

It’s clear that the current top executives at Microsoft – under CEO Satya Nadella – are trying to fully embrace open source with the new move, in what marks a clear departure from the old administration. Microsoft has open sourced Visual Studio Code and the JavaScript Engine used in Microsoft Edge, in recent times. And in March, Microsoft even partnered with Canonical to bring Ubuntu to Windows 10.

By joining The Linux Foundation, Microsoft has joined a premium club of sorts, amongst the likes of Cisco, Fujitsu, HP, Huawei, IBM, Intel, NEC, Oracle, Qualcomm, and Samsung.

(Also see: Microsoft Develops a Linux-Based Operating System - Azure Cloud Switch)

Google had its own bit of surprising news, too. The search giant is joining the .NET foundation, which oversees .NET languages that are a major competitor to Java, which Google uses on Android. Traditionally, Google has shown minimal interest in .NET but it now plans to support .NET in Google Cloud Platform.

The other big news for Microsoft was supposed to be Visual Studio for macOS, which the company ended up spoiling by revealing it on their Developers Network.