Five Proofs That Microsoft Likes Open Source
1 — Microsoft just acquired Xamarin
Last February 24, Microsoft announced the takeover of Xamarin, the company that made the implementation of the .NET framework, in order to operate under Linux and OSX and to create multi-platform mobile applications with .NET framework for Android and iOS.
On April 4th, Microsoft announced that all Xamarin tools would be free. This is a big change with a major financial impact. The takeover was expensive and the only source of income for Xamarin was their technology for developing multi-platform mobile applications. By making it free, Microsoft takes a huge write-off and gives its community a number of tools to develop .NET on all platforms.
2 — The company will automatically support Bash on Windows
On April 1, Microsoft surprised everyone by announcing that Linux’s very popular Bash would be automatically supported on Windows. In English, this means that all the power of Linux Bash will now be automatically available on Windows, which will make life easier for developers and especially for teams working on Windows and Linux simultaneously.
To make it work, Microsoft created the Windows Subsystem for Linux which creates a complete bridge, and makes it possible for Linux libraries to roll with no direct change on Windows. Few years ago, who would have believed that Microsoft would partner with Canonical, creators of Ubuntu, to integrate the best Linux on Windows?
3 — A version of SQL Server will be available on Linux
On March 7, Microsoft’s executive vice-president — cloud, announced that SQL Server would be available on Linux from mid-2017. Until now, SQL Server always ran on Windows, and Microsoft intended to attract people to Windows to use its products.
With this opening, Microsoft has now embraced Open Source and wants companies to use its products when they want to, not because they have to. This marks a big change from the Steve Balmer era.
4 — The company completely transformed the platform to .NET Open Source
Microsoft announced that the entire .NET framework would be Open Source on the server side so that applications developed with .NET technology could run on Windows, Linux and OSX. This means that Microsoft decided to tackle Oracle with its java technology, while making it possible for .NET to run on all operating systems.
Microsoft has now given its developer community all the necessary tools to break down the reservations of customers who only want to use Linux, or companies that only use Apple computers.
5 — It supports Docker
Microsoft also announced that Docker would be supported on Windows and on its Azure platform. Docker is a micro-container that carries out a reduced Linux kernel, thereby isolating the application and guaranteeing that it always runs the same way.
In the past, applications were carried out on the same device, and if several applications depended on shared libraries, then there was a risk that the versions of the shared libraries were not the same for each application, causing several problems.
By isolating each application in its own container, all the applications can run on the same device without any problems.
Microsoft now provides Linux ready-to-use images, to run asp.net, for example.
Conclusion
Microsoft has changed dramatically under Satya Nadellea, the new chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. It now equips its developer community to embrace Open Source and to choose the best technology for each problem.
Microsoft’s business model has changed: the future is no longer Windows and Office, but Azure. The company understood and is now working to be open to the world, after several years of delay and a budget of billion dollars per year.
Microsoft now makes it possible for customers to choose their deployment platform, whether Windows or Linux, and the same technology can also be used on iOS and Android.
