With 20,000 lines of code

Jul 21, 2009 08:06 GMT  ·  By

While Microsoft has yet to officially release Windows 7 to manufacturing, it managed to contribute to the evolution of the rival Linux OS. The Linux kernel has grown with the addition of 20,000 lines of code from Microsoft. Somewhere between pigs flying and hell freezing over, the Redmond company is joining over 100 corporations around the world that are contributing pieces of code directly to the code of the Linux open-source operating system. On July 20, 2009, Microsoft made available no less than 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community. Essentially, the software giant released three device drivers that were designed to be included into the Linux tree, submitting the code to the Linux kernel community.

“This is a significant milestone because it’s the first time we’ve released code directly to the Linux community. Additionally significant is that we are releasing the code under the GPLv2 license, which is the Linux community’s preferred license,” revealed Tom Hanrahan, director of Microsoft’s Open Source Technology Center.

Of course that the device drivers set up to be integrated in the Linux core ultimately benefit Microsoft customers. The Redmond company indicated that the drivers could be accessed by the Linux community and customers, and would boost the performance of the Linux platform in scenarios in which the open-source operating system was virtualized on top of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

“Our initial goal in developing the code was to enable Linux to run as a virtual machine on top of Hyper-V, Microsoft’s hypervisor and implementation of virtualization,” Hanrahan added. “The Linux device drivers we are releasing are designed so Linux can run in enlightened mode, giving it the same optimized synthetic devices as a Windows virtual machine running on top of Hyper-V. Without this driver code, Linux can run on top of Windows, but without the same high performance levels.”

Hanrahan pointed out that the move from Microsoft came as a direct consequence of feedback from customers with heterogeneous environments looking to standardize on a single virtualization technology. With virtualization capable of cutting the deployment and management costs of an IT infrastructure, cutting hardware investments first of all, the Linux device drivers can contribute to server consolidation.

“Customers have told us that they would like to standardize on one virtualization platform, and the Linux device drivers will help customers who are running Linux to consolidate their Linux and Windows servers on a single virtualization platform, thereby reducing the complexity of their infrastructure. Consequently, they’ll have more choices in how to develop and deploy solutions, while still managing their entire data center from a single management console,” Hanrahan explained.

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