>Just having a lot of developers give up their mac books and instead choosing to run windows again increases the chance that they might end up in Azure, which a

>Just having a lot of developers give up their mac books and instead choosing to run windows again increases the chance that they might end up in Azure, which as we learned recently mostly runs Linux stuff these days. Key point in that sentence is this: "increases the chance that they might end up in Azure". That's the big strategy change that Nadella brought in. Balmer was ingrained in "Windows on every desktop" as the company's purpose - so linux/mac/anything else was a threat. The strategy now is, in essence, "do your compute and storage with us". In that context, Windows is almost a commodity: of course MS would _like_ you to be on Windows, but it's more important that you're on Azure. Irrespective of how you feel about Microsoft, they've always understood the importance of attracting developers. That hasn't changed. Some (though, evidently, not Balmer) recognised a shift to the *nix-based environments - e.g. LAMP and related. There's been a steady and directed effort to address that by embracing those platforms rather than rejecting them. No better examples than WSL2 or .net core. All are saying "they're all fine - because they all work on Azure". >Employing this many people to work on open source costs billions. The pro-OSS stance is, first and foremost, a commercial decision. As long as you run your apps on Azure, Microsoft makes money. If the community is funding development of the tools and frameworks you use, what's not to like? Double bonus in that the firm is now seen as being a community supporter instead of an enemy. Like Amazon, Microsoft has found a way to benefit commercially from open source. Warm and cuddly community spirit is all very nice - but it doesn't pay shareholder dividends. Which is not to denegrate the behaviour: I'm sure there are lots of people at Microsoft for whom the spirit and values of open source are closely-held beliefs. Equally there will be others who don't hold those beliefs and simply see OSS as a convenient tool to wield for commercial success. > Maybe buying Gitlab would not be a bad idea for them ... I really hope that doesn't happen. They already own Github. Buying Gitlab too would reduce choice with no obvious benefit to the market.