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Being fond of technology between the late 90s and the first years 2000 implied Be a witness of a fierce War of sides Among the supporters of Windows, Macos or being an alternative “outsider” that renegated both (and even Graphic environments) and hugged free software from the hand of GNU/Linux.
As standards of each of those sides: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds. Between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs there has always been a certain Love -od relationship What He led to collaborate and throw yourself The hit to the head recurringly.
However, after more than three decades dedicating expletives, we have had to wait until 2025 so that Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds are face to face and appear together (and well avenues) in a photo.
A historical encounter between two legends
Bill Gates has defended throughout his career the right of developers to license your programs I already charge for them who uses them. For its part, on the opposite side, Linus Torvalds bet on a Open and collaborative modelin which each user can adapt their tools to their measure freely.
Bill Gates and Microsoft. Linus Torvalds and Linux. Both represent the different ways of understanding the evolution of computer science in the last three decades and, despite being the main protagonists and flag bearers of the most fierce dialectical battles In the technology blogs of the 90 and 2000, they did not know each other in person.
The person responsible for facilitating the historical meeting has been Mark Russinovich, creator of the popular SysInternals softwarewhich currently acts as Director of Technology (CTO) of Microsoft Azure. Russinovich, always has been very supportive of the Open Source solutions and it was one The drivers of Azure support for Linux. That position has assured him a Good relationship with Torvaldswho accepted the invitation of the director for dinner with Bill Gates and Dave Cutler, one of the main Windows NT developers and Azure promoter.
It has transcended very little about what was discussed during the unique dinner, but what has transcended has been the historic selfie that Russinovich did to immortalize the meeting and that he has published in Your LinkedIn profile. It is undoubtedly an unusual image of two staunch enemies for more than three decades, which They just met And they pose with relaxed and affable attitude.
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Next to the photo, the host could not hide his emotion for having achieved such a milestone: “I had the emotion of my life, organizing dinners for Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds and David Cutler. Linus had never met Bill, and Dave had never met Linus. No important decisions were made about the kernel, but perhaps the next dinner.”
Linux very touched and more integrative Microsoft
The moment in which it occurs does not go unnoticed either. Linux has gained market share thanks to the proliferation of cloud infrastructure and is already installed in about 100 million equipment (mainly servers), achieving a 4.13% market share. In 2021 and 2022, the system had a 2% share, which has been growing since then. According to data Statcounter, the Windows fee remains in a loaf 70.21%.
For its part, Microsoft left behind the times of Steve Ballmer describing “cancer” To Linux. Since the arrival of Satya Nadella to the Microsoft direction, they have been carried out different approach samples between Windows and Linux. One of the most important was the possibility of deploying a Windows subsystem for Linux (WSL) that allows you to execute an environment Linux in Windows computers.
Perhaps, as Russinovich said in his post “important decisions were made about the kernel” but, taking into account the attendees of that dinner, they may talk about greater Linux integration On the Azure Platform of Microsoft. Maybe they decide at the next dinner.
Image | Mark Russinovich
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