Microsoft and Linux

It seems like it is getting colder, can you feel that?  Microsoft is releasing products that run on Linux and hiring Linux-like people.  Things are afoot on the internet.

Here are the moves Microsoft just made:

1. Their number one database program, MS-SQL was just released to run on Linux, Microsoft’s blog article here.
2. They partnered with Canonical, the maker of the most popular distro of Linux, Ubuntu, to create something where you can run Bash on Windows.  Microsoft’s blog article here
3. They hired the guy that made Oracle a Linux powerhouse (per se).  ZD Net link here

It sounds like they are very serious about Linux, which is funny for someone like me.  I have never, ever been happy with Windows.  I first had Linux on my Pentium 90 in 1995.  Sure, I haven’t been using as my primary OS all the time, and I may not be an expert, but I have always known the power it contains.

Now compare that to previous Microsoft executives.  Steve Balmer said, “Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”  How can they do an 180 in a couple of years?  I don’t know, but it sounds like a good move.

To be honest, I would expect them to not jump on the Linux bandwagon, but on a BSD license.  Linux is free and open source, but the BSD’s are free, open source, and you can take it and sell it without publishing your changes.

That is what Apple did.  Technically, that is what neXt did, which became Apple’s OS.  Apple took a great Unix BSD, made an awesome GUI, and stole all of the hipsters.  Those hipsters will always use Apple, and in ten more years, they will continue.  Apple’s market share will continue to grow because of that.

What Microsoft is doing is brilliant.  15 years late, but brilliant.