[PLUG] Microsoft - Key Linux contributor!

[Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay]

On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 8:14 AM, Mayuresh <mayuresh at acm.org> wrote:

> No problems with that. (Look I am not a stereotype MS basher.) All that I
> mean is the numbers do not necessarily indicate _intent_ to contribute.

This is an interesting way of putting it. The numbers for everyone
would indicate that they see significant business value (economic
drivers) in contributing to the enhancement of the kernel. For some it
could be getting things to be interoperable, for others it might be to
do innovation and, then again, there is a strong overlap between those
two perspectives.

> You might patch a thing n times just because it broke n times, does not
> make you a better contributor than someone who contributed fewer times
> though with better quality and functionality. Just the count is not a
> measure of intent.

The count is a measure of investment. And, for publicly traded large
corporations, making significant investments means a policy shift. It
wasn't that long ago that the current CEO considered Linux a disease
(I think it was 'cancer' as was told). Cut to today, it does make for
a different picture.

> They are unlikely to be doing it to help Linux/OSS prosper or something.
> They contributed to areas where they had a business interest. Hence I
> called it an illusion.

If you see that the business interest actually translates into
requiring to contribute kernel code, aren't they anyway enhancing the
kernel ?


-- 
sankarshan mukhopadhyay
<http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/>