Michael should be getting royalties
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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It's not just Microsoft tho. Redhat, oracle, facebook, Google, intel, AMD, they all contribute to linux. Removing their contribution would effectively make the kernel unusable
Isn't taking corporate money and extracting it into a public good a positive?
You have it backwards. The corporations are extracting free public contributions.
Everyone is getting free stuff; that's the point. If you want companies to not use free stuff to make money then either linux is worse, or companies need to po away.
So what's the problem with that? We get contributions for free to make newer hardware working, they improve already existing stuff, they solve bugs and everyone take advantage from that.
Hardware manufactures (Intel, AMD, etc) SHOULD be contributing to Linux. How could they EEE if they aren't directly competing? The better compatibility they have with Linux, the more server CPUs they can sell. That's their motivation, and it's aligned with the OSS community.
Microsoft also uses Linux. They have both Windows Subsystem for Linux, and they also use it in house I'm certain. Linux is technically competition for MS, but not really. They aren't trying to sell Windows to the people choosing Linux. To assume malice when there's perfectly reasonable reasons for them to be contributing is likely wrong.
Also a good point, but Microsoft has a history of EEE so it's also fair to be sceptical of them.