[Tfug] Microsoft releases 20K LOC for Linux kernel

[Claude Rubinson]

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 01:10:58PM -0700, Glen Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Thu Jul 23, 2009 at 12:29:36PM -0700, Claude Rubinson wrote:
> > There really isn't much news here.  Microsoft's been releasing 
> > software under the GPL for at least a decade--certainly the  
> > entire time that they were attacking it as "cancerous," 
> > "virus-like," etc.
> 
> What else has MS released under the GPL? I am aware of the MS-PL 
> and MS-RL licenses which have been certified by the OSI. But they 
> are not the "GPL" license.
> 
> And since I am not aware what else they have released under the 
> GPL, I also do not know this: Have any of the other releases been 
> on a similar scale? Both size and visibility.
> 
> If not, then I'd say this is news. Not only that but I think the 
> community response alone is newsworthy. And Linus's response is 
> interesting in that he seems to not feel that any more caution is 
> required than usual.

The big one is the the Unix Services for Windows toolkit, which is
basically a stripped-down GPL'd Unix platform for Windows.  I made use
of it a previous company that I worked with back in the
late-90s/early-2000s.  It largely serves the same function as cygwin,
though it's not as extensive.  They bought it off of some other
company in the mid-to-late 1990s and, I believe, have maintained it
ever since.  It's certainly more lines of code than a kernel driver;
whether it's more visible is more subjective.

It is noteworthy in that it's the first time that Microsoft's
contributed directly to Linux, the kernel and, as such, provides a
nice talking point.  But I don't think that it's either the "change of
face" that some seem to want nor a "trap" that others suspect.

Claude