Microsoft, a tech company historically known for its opposition to the open source software paradigm, turned to embrace the approach in the 2010s. From the 1970s through 2000s under CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft viewed the community creation and sharing of communal code, later to be known as free and open source software, as a threat to its business, and both executives spoke negatively against it. In the 2010s, as the industry turned towards cloud, embedded, and mobile computing—technologies powered by open source advances—CEO Satya Nadella led Microsoft towards open source adoption although Microsoft's traditional Windows business continued to grow throughout this period generating revenues of 26.8 billion in the third quarter of 2018, while Microsoft's Azure cloud revenues nearly doubled.[1]
Microsoft open sourced some of its code, including the .NET Framework, and made investments in Linux development, server technology, and organizations, including the Linux Foundation and Open Source Initiative. Linux-based operating systems power the company's Azure cloud services. Microsoft acquired GitHub, the largest host for open source project infrastructure, in 2018. Microsoft is among the site's most active contributors. While this acquisition led a few projects to migrate away from GitHub,[2] this proved a short-lived phenomenon as by 2019 there were over 10 million new users of GitHub.[citation needed]
Since 2017, Microsoft is one of the biggest open source contributors in the world,[3] measured by the number of employees actively contributing to open source projects on GitHub, the largest host of source code in the world.[4][5]
- ^ Bright, Peter (April 26, 2018). "Even Windows revenue is up in Microsoft's $26.8 billion 3Q18". Ars Technica. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
- ^ "GitHub rivals gain from Microsoft acquisition but it's no mass exodus, yet". ZDNet. May 6, 2019.
- ^ Asay, Matt (October 30, 2017). "Why Microsoft and Google are now leading the open source revolution". TechRepublic. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
- ^ "Microsoft may be the world's largest open source contributor, but developers don't care--yet". TechRepublic. November 4, 2018.
- ^ Asay, Matt (February 7, 2018). "Who really contributes to open source". InfoWorld.