Microsoft: The open source company

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The news from Microsoft’s Build developer conference that surprised me most was that Microsoft will ship a genuine Linux kernel—GPLed, with all patches published—with Windows. That announcement was made with the announcement of Windows Terminal, a new front-end for command-line programs on Windows that will, among other things, support tabs.

Microsoft’s increased involvement with open source software isn’t new, as projects such as Visual Studio Code and the .NET runtime have operated as open source, community-driven projects. But this week’s announcements felt a bit different.

The Linux kernel will be powering Microsoft’s second generation Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The first generation WSL contains a partial re-implementation of the Linux kernel API that uses the Windows NT kernel to perform its functionality. In choosing this approach, Microsoft avoided using any actual Linux code, and hence the company avoided the GPL license with its “viral” stipulations that would have arguably forced Microsoft to open source WSL and perhaps even parts of Windows itself.