Microsoft Makes List Of Linux’s Top Contributors After Years Of Battling Open Source Platforms

The Linux Foundation and Microsoft have not been the best of friends over the last decade, in fact until recently Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux a cancer that threatened some of Microsoft’s biggest products including the companies flagship operating system. With that being said Microsoft this week make the Linux Foundations list of top open source contributors.

Realizing that it needs the support of the open source community to thrive Microsoft has been contributing code for such big name open source projects as Hadoop, Samba and even Linux.

According to Linux contributors Microsoft accounts for 1 percent of all contributions to the Linux kernel between the release of version 2.6.36 in October 2010 and the released of version 3.2 in January 2012.

If those numbers hold up Microsoft would now be one of the top 20 corporate contributors to the Linux operating system although they are still far behind Red Hat (10.7), Intel (7.2) and the Attachmate Group (3.3).

Microsoft began its push into open source contributions in July 2009 when it donated 20,000 lines of device drive code to the Linux community and then in July 2011 when Microsoft developer K. Y. Srinivasan was among the top contributors to Linux kernel version 3.0.

In the meantime Linux contributors are actually betters Microsoft’s code, for example the 20,000 lines donated by Microsoft are now just 7,000 lines and they support more devices.

Are you surprised by Microsoft’s change of heart regarding the open-source community?

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Tags: Linux, Microsoft, Top Contributors

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James Johnson James is a new media professional with more than half a decade worth of experience in the online writing space. He currently serves as the Associate Editor of Inquisitr.com and the Editor-in-Chief of SocialNewsDaily.com. He also serves as a resident writer for Splash Press Media. In his spare time James consults businesses regarding SEO and Content Development.