Microsoft Joins The Linux Foundation At The Highest Level As It Moves To Attract More Developers

After announcing in March that it was bringing its SQL database to the Linux platform, we knew there would be more where that came from. Today Microsoft announced that it is joining The Linux Foundation and that’s not all. It also announced that it would be joining at the highest membership level which is the Platinum level which actually costs $500,000 annually. Now that’s some price to pay and with this, they join the likes of Cisco, Oracle and IBM.

As you see in the image above, the website has been updated to add Microsoft as one of its Platinum members. This seems odd because just 15 years ago, former Microsoft CEO called the alliance a cancer and now it looks like the cancer has spread to Microsoft in the new tech age. How time flies

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit organisation that promotes the advance Linux and collaborative development. The Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies, including prominent technology corporations such as the companies you see in the image above and developers from around the world. In recent years, The Linux Foundation has expanded its services through events, training and certification and Collaborative Projects. Examples of Collaborative Projects at Linux Foundation include OpenDaylight, Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), AllSeen Alliance, Cloud Foundry and Node.js Foundation.

That said, you can imagine what influence an organisation at the Platinum level wields within the organisation. John Gossman who is on the Microsoft Azure team will sit on the Board of Directors of The Linux Foundation.

“Microsoft has grown and matured in its use of and contributions to open-source technology …The Company has become an enthusiastic supporter of Linux and of open-source and a very active member of many important projects. Membership is an important step for Microsoft, but also for the open-source community at large, which stands to benefit from the company’s expanding range of contributions.” This is all according to Venture Beat which had a chance to interview Jim Zemlin who is an executive director at The Linux Foundation.

In retrun Microsoft had some good words to say about The Foundation. Scott Guthrie who is the executive vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group said “As a cloud platform company, we aim to help developers achieve more using the platforms and languages they know…“The Linux Foundation is home not only to Linux, but many of the community’s most innovative open-source projects. 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.”

With this, the biggest software maker in the world or probably the biggest pure tech company in the world joins a rival organisation and aims to do more on the platform in 2016 and it’s been a long time coming. This plunges Microsoft into the open source world which would afford some of its platform to be accessible to developers the world over.