Microsoft, I don’t buy it. I emptied my mind of prejudices and tried to believe in it, but I still don’t buy the whole sweetened fairytale you are marketing to developers. I really tried, but I couldn’t.

The more I think of it, the clearer it is to me what’s happening here. Microsoft loves Linux, I believe that’s true, but in their own way. Maybe not for the reasons the rest of the people and industry do, but they do nevertheless.

The Devil Is in the Details

There are two false assumptions that I’ve seen people make since Microsoft changed its hard feeling against Linux, and stopped spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), at least publicly: “Linux is a Cancer”, the “Communism Fallacy”, “Has a dysfunctional ecosystem”, etc.

First off, what Microsoft loves about Linux is actually the business opportunities that it brings to them. They love the fact that, even if in an awkward way, they can join the party the rest of the industry has been throwing for years now. They are late, and on top of that, they used to mock and attack the Linux community, but still the door is open, for them too.

They have other obvious business reasons for not liking Linux so much though. I’m not judging it, but they are patently there. So, I’d bet they will play a Harvey Dent (Two-Face, Batman) role where they love Linux in public, have a few public gestures supporting it, but at the end of the day, the bulk of their collective effort goes against it.

All in all, Microsoft loves Linux for one concrete reason, the fact that the vast majority of modern cloud technology is based and runs Linux. No more and no less. Given the somehow unusual circumstances where a Software Development company has been forced to turn into an Operations one and maintain a humongous cloud; it was unavoidable that they use, embrace and ultimately love Linux. They actually had no other choice, did they?

Connect the dots. Microsoft Openness web highlights:

“Join Azure”, “Linux”, “Open Cloud”

Secondly, when Microsoft fancies Linux in public so profusely, they are being a lot more precise than you probably think. Even if you and I put Linux and Open Source in the same bucket (conceptually speaking), they do not.

They love “Linux”. That’s what Microsoft loves. Period. Do you see where I’m going here?

Think about it. There is a reason -called Azure- for them to love Linux. There is also a very pragmatic reason to add Windows support to SSH or to contribute patches to Samba. However, the truth of the matter is that, all that is nothing but peanuts, no more than a drop in the ocean.

Is All That Love Just Marketing?

Yes. I sincerely think so. I know, I know. I’m a party pooper. How cool it’d have been if it was real, uh? -- Let me elaborate on this a little bit though.

In May of 2015, Microsoft was on the news for an astonishing reason. It wasn’t for their Microsoft Openness marketing campaign, nor their “Microsoft loves Linux” slides. Far from it. Microsoft was on the news because it threatened some UK’s Members of Parliament (Steve Hilton and Rohan Silva) with job cuts if they approved an IT reform promoting the adoption of Open Source in government institutions.

Those are facts. Remember, May 2015. Most of what you’ve been seeing about their love is the smoke coming from a burning pile of money of a Marketing campaign to appeal to the developer community (most of whom consume a ton of Open Source technology on a regular basis).

One must admit that it does feel good to see all that marketing campaign being orchestrated. In a way you realise that things changed so much that they had to stop mocking you to try to appeal to you. That’s something. The attacks against Open Source continue though, but at least not as publicly as before. We moved from double page ads in national newspapers to mock Linux, to much more discrete guerrilla tactics.

Are things really changing at Microsoft? Quite frankly, I have no idea. It doesn’t look like the essence has changed even if their message around Linux is radically different nowadays.

Microsoft, Put Your Patents Where Your Mouth Is!

Enough complaining already. Giving off about other people’s or companies’ doing is way too easy and unproductive. Instead, I’m going to elaborate a little bit on what I think Microsoft ought to do if they really want to become a good citizen of the Open Source community, which is, by the way, the only way they will manage to pull off their plan around Linux in the first place.

First and foremost, Microsoft, put your patents where your mouth is. Join the Open Innovation Network (OIN) and contribute all your related patents to the poll so nobody else can mess with Linux again. That’s something you’d do for an operating system you love and you depend on.

Hope it doesn’t get awkward here. People do everything for love, so I’m positive that if your love is as strong as advertised, you will be more than happy to join the collective effort of protecting Linux from the industry’s bullies. Wait! Unless... you’re actually also making money by enforcing those patents against many other Linux-loving companies. That’d be so incredibly twisted:

Again, just facts. You can make your own conclusions.

Oh, and while you’re at it, what about getting rid of that pesky Secure Boot thingy? I’m positive you keep pushing for it with the best intentions, but from the Linux side it’s an unnecessary pain you’re putting us through. Needless to say, it mustn’t be yet another continued attack against Linux and its community, because I have to admit, it does feel pretty much like it:

All in all, marketing campaigns, even expensive ones, can only fly for so long. If you really want informed people to believe you’re truly in love, I’d kindly suggest a couple of subtle, yet substantial, changes in your behavior. Until then, there will be a big part of the Open Source community that won’t buy it, for very good reasons.

So, please, stop pretending you love Open Source, and embrace it - for real this time.

Final Words

Before people ask, I’d like to clarify how all this relates to the Red Hat-Microsoft deal, especially since I’m a Red Hat employee. Well, let me get it straight. It doesn’t.

In my understanding, the deal is a good thing for both companies, at a business level. In a nutshell, Red Hat benefits by increasing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) availability, which will have a sizable positive impact on the adoption of Open Source in enterprise environments. If Red Hat keeps doing great as it is now, we’ll keep hiring more and more engineers to work on Open Source projects, which again, is great news for the Open Source community in general.

All in all, the commercial deal between the two companies is a good thing if you ask me, although it has barely anything to do with the subject covered in this post.