Microsoft's love affair with Linux deepens

ZD Net ^ | 21 September 2015 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[ShadowAce]

Hell must be getting chilly. Microsoft is no longer just supporting Linux as Hyper-V virtual machines (VM) and Azure clouds, the Redmond giant is producing its very own Linux "distribution" -- Azure Cloud Switch (ACS) .

Notice the quotes around distribution. Microsoft has not created its own server or desktop distribution. Indeed, you can't buy, lease, or download ACS. This way Microsoft gets to offer Linux-based services while staying on the right side of Linux's GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2) legal requirements.

Linux's GPLv2 requires that the code be made freely available only if you're actually shipping your code to external users or customers. If all you're doing, as is the case with ACS, is enabling users to interact with the service over the Internet, you're in the clear.

So, while Microsoft has created its own internal specialized Linux distribution, you're not going to be able to download it yourself. I rather suspect most of you don't need to download and compile your own Linux-based cross-platform operating system for running data-center network switches anyway.

According to Microsoft Azure Networking principal architect Kamala Subramaniam, ACS -- once it's operational -- will "allow us to debug, fix, and test software bugs much faster. It also allows us the flexibility to scale down the software and develop features that are required for our data-center and our networking needs."

Subramaniam continued: "ACS also allows us to share the same software stack across hardware from multiple switch vendors. This is done via the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) specification, the first open-standard C API for programming network switching ASICs, of {Facebook's] Open Compute Project (OCP)."

She also described ACS as a "Lean Stick." By this. Subramaniam means ACS is designed to target Microsoft's specific data-center network needs rather than trying to be a universal network switch solution.<

Borrowing directly from the Linux design model, ACS also uses a "Modular Stack" instead of a more Windows-like monolithic image. The advantages to this approach, said Subramaniam, is to make "validation easier with less probability for hidden, high priority bugs and reduces new feature request time lag."

Finally, in saying that ACS is taking the "approach of disaggregating the switch software from the switch hardware" and it "will continue to be a growing trend in the networking industry." Microsoft is clearly betting not just on Linux but software-defined networking (SDN) as well.

ACS may be just a background data-center and cloud networking enabling technology instead of what most people think of as a "Linux distribution," but it still represents a radical change in Microsoft's approach to Linux.

At the century's beginning, Steve Ballmer called Linux "a cancer." And for years afterwards Microsoft treated Linux as if it were a cancer. Microsoft sponsored SCO's copyright attack on Linux and claimed that Linux violated unnamed Microsoft patents.

Then, as Microsoft's old leadership started dropping out, Microsoft started working with Linux. In 2006, Microsoft and Novell partnered to enable SUSE Linux to run on Microsoft's Hyper-V virtual machines. At the time, this was largely seen as a cynical maneuver for Microsoft to pry Linux customers away. It became more. By 2011, Microsoft, in pursuit of getting Linux to work with Microsoft Hyper-V, became a top five Linux contributor.

By 2014, with Ballmer out of the picture, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella declared that Microsoft loved Linux. Why the change in heart? Because, except for the desktop, the enterprise has turned to Linux for mobile computing, servers, data-centers, and the cloud.

Nadella, not wedded to the operating system and programming philosophies of the past, followed the money. And, the money in the 21st century of technology has moved to Linux and open-source software.

Today, experts both inside and outside Microsoft, see Microsoft becoming an open-source company. True, ACS is no MS-Linux, but it is one more big step forward in Microsoft supporting Linux.

Who knows, maybe by decade's end, we will see Microsoft Linux Server 2017.

[ShadowAce]

[Bobby_Taxpayer]

Maybe they are finally taking a hint from Apple. Instead of Windows being an operating system, it could just be a gui over a Linux OS.

[ShadowAce]

That decision would cause a lot of layoffs. :)

[ThunderSleeps]

To me what is interesting is not that they are using Linux - lots and lots of companies are. What is interesting is that Microsoft did not choose to build upon some part or parts of Windows.

Is this an admission that Windows is unsuitable for this kind of work/market? An admission that Windows internal design and architecture does not lend itself to the design approach taken here? If so, what does that say about Windows long-term in an ever expanding market? That is, desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, watches, Internet-of-things? Makes it seem like Windows is this monolithic, unwieldy beast trapped in an ever more limited cage...

[ShadowAce]

Excellent point. I think that is what is being said, though not quite as straightforward as you have. :)

Windows started life as, and continues to be, a desktop OS. The fact that is has been shoehorned into a server role speaks more to the creativity of MS than to the quality of the software.

[stratboy]

Actually BSD not Linux

[GingisK]

Microbloat doesn’t use its sandbox languages in their own work either. They write for WIN32 in c or c++ without MFC.

[Bikkuri]

:D

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

This should surprise no one. It sounds like a big deal but it’s a bit like saying that there is linux embedded in their thermostats in their buildings, or in their microwaves or refrigerators. And no - it’s not BSD - it’s linux.