Microsoft contributes a lot of changes to Linux kernel 3.0

[linuxviolin]

Microsoft contributes a lot of changes to Linux kernel 3.0 - › The 343 changes made by Microsoft developer...:

The 343 changes made by Microsoft developer K. Y. Srinivasan put him at the top of a list, created by LWN.net, of developers who made the most changes in the current development cycle for Linux 3.0. Along with a number of other “change sets”, Microsoft provided a total of 361 changes, putting it in seventh place on the list of companies and groups that contributed code to the Linux kernel. By comparison, independent developers provided 1,085 change sets to Linux 3.0, while Red Hat provided 1,000 and Intel 839.

The figures were published on Thursday in an LWN.net article which is available exclusively to subscribers until this coming Thursday (21 July); however, bloggers have already commented on the figures. LWN.net has produced similar analyses for all of the recently published kernels, including 2.6.39 and 2.6.38.

[xenopeek]

As a Linux Mint desktop user what do Microsoft's changes do for me? As I read the article, all these changes were bugfixes to Microsoft's HyperV virtualisation interface driver, which has suffered from bugs for past 2 years. Good that that they are fixing some of those bugs. But this is only of interest for running Linux on virtual servers, where HyperV runs as host, right? Kudos for them supporting that though.

[linuxviolin]

As a Linux Mint desktop user what do Microsoft's changes do for me? As I read the article, all these changes were bugfixes to Microsoft's HyperV virtualisation interface driver, which has suffered from bugs for past 2 years. Good that that they are fixing some of those bugs. But this is only of interest for running Linux on virtual servers, where HyperV runs as host, right? Kudos for them supporting that though.

Well, I posted this for information, as people "hate" Microsoft and its behaviour... You don't use Microsoft's HyperV? Right. But this code is however a great/good and useful contribution to FLOSS and to the Linux kernel... at least for users of this.

Also, have you followed the links in the article? E.g. this one in the words: "however, bloggers have already commented on the figures." in my quote? It links the David A. Wheeler's Blog, Thu, 14 Jul 2011: Microsoft, co-author of the Linux kernel... Quite interesting... E.g.:

Truth is often stranger than fiction. Microsoft was the fifth-largest corporate contributor to the Linux kernel version 3.0.0, as measured by the number of changes to its previous release. Only Red Hat, Intel, Novell, and IBM had more contributions. Microsoft was #15 as measured by number of lines changed, which is smaller but is still an impressively large number.

(...)

Microsoft has developed a number of FLOSS packages, such as WiX (for installing software on Windows), and it does all it can to encourage the development of FLOSS that run on Windows.

OK, maybe not everybody uses this technology but anyway it's a useful contribution... Especially from Microsoft.

[xenopeek]

Woah, don't skip my last line. I already agreed this is good of them

[linuxviolin]

Woah, don't skip my last line. I already agreed this is good of them

Yes, yes, yes, I don't skip it... lol