Systemd supremo Lennart Poettering leaves Red Hat for Microsoft

[securitybreach]

Quote

To considerable amusement in the Linux community, the infamous lead developer of systemd has a new job – at Microsoft.

 

The news surfaced on a Fedora mailing list when someone found that they were unable to tag Poettering in a bug report because his Red Hat Bugzilla account was disabled, to which Poettering responded that he had created a personal account.

 

This has caused much merriment in comment threads on sites such as Phoronix, Hacker News, and Slashdot, from "Welcome home, Agent Poettering!" to "Good work!" to various quips about future combined Linux-plus-Windows operating systems.

 

Although near universally adopted in almost every mainstream Linux distribution, systemd remains highly controversial, as The Reg has covered at considerable length. Despite all the furor, systemd is merely one example of a trend towards richer systems-management tools on modern xNix systems, such as SMF in Solaris and its various open-source descendants or Apple's launchd.

 

Poettering, a 41-year-old developer who is based in Berlin, was born in Guatemala City and grew up in Rio de Janeiro. He is best known for his work on systemd, but other projects of his have also had broad uptake.

 

The PulseAudio sound server has been included both in Fedora and Ubuntu for a decade and a half, although it is now gradually being replaced with the less-CPU-intensive PipeWire.

 

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/07/lennart_poettering_leaves_red_hat/

[Hedon James]

does anyone else find it interesting, perhaps even a little concerning,  that Microsoft has successfully poached Lennart Poettering, Guido Rossum (Python), and Miguel Icaza (Gnome) from the world of open-source developers?  Maybe they're just hiring the best of the best...or maybe they're just trying to stunt Linux development by poaching them.  I don't know what to make of it, other than it's an interesting development that seems to have become a trend with MS.  FWIW...

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Yes. I'll admit I was "considerably amused".

[V.T. Eric Layton]

1 hour ago, Hedon James said:

does anyone else find it interesting

 

Microsoft's interest in GNU/Linux has disturbed me for quite some time... since waaay back when they started donating $$$ to the Linux Foundation. Since losing BIG TIME in the server market, I believe that MS has been extending its tendrils in order to place itself in a fortuitous position with regards to GNU/Linux as time goes by. I'm sure it's not being done for noble reasons. It's ALWAYS ALL about the $$$!

[securitybreach]

8 hours ago, Hedon James said:

does anyone else find it interesting, perhaps even a little concerning,  that Microsoft has successfully poached Lennart Poettering, Guido Rossum (Python), and Miguel Icaza (Gnome) from the world of open-source developers?  Maybe they're just hiring the best of the best...or maybe they're just trying to stunt Linux development by poaching them.  I don't know what to make of it, other than it's an interesting development that seems to have become a trend with MS.  FWIW...

 

Nah, its more than likely due to all the linux integration into Windows 10 and 11. It's also why Microsoft is a large financial supporter of linux as well. I knew something was up when microsoft became a platinum member

of the Linux Foundation https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/microsoft-fortifies-commitment-to-open-source-becomes-linux-foundation-platinum-member/

 

Azure and other things they offer are linux based already.

[raymac46]

I agree with Josh. Microsoft is well past its Balmer days when it thought of Linux as a "Cancer." Right now support for Linux by Microsoft has to be seen as  a positive.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I disagree. Mostly because $$$ corrupts any and everything. MS is BIG $$$. They have a profitable reason for getting involved in GNU/Linux and OpenSource. It's not going to be pretty. #Big_Biz does NOT do anything for "noble" reasons.

 

This comment above is my personal opinion and borders on violating the Scot's rules against discussing inflammatory topics such as politics, religion, etc. Delete if necessary.

[raymac46]

But IBM, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Google, Dell all support and contribute to Linux and they are in theory money making enterprises. Without the contributions of many big companies Linux wouldn't be where it is today. It's better that you have Microsoft supporting Linux than slagging it all the time.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

1 hour ago, raymac46 said:

It's better that you have Microsoft supporting Linux than slagging it all the time.

 

I just don't trust the ulterior motives.

[raymac46]

Okay...

[securitybreach]

Believe me they are not doing it for the benefit of Linux, I assume its because opensource is free and they are taking advantage of that fact. And really, who can blame them? It's like Edge....why come up with their own browser when they can just use chromium's source code and rebrand it?

[raymac46]

Lets face it..if Microsoft wants to have a successful Cloud services business, they are going to have to do stuff with Linux. That is where all their competitors are working. 

[Hedon James]

32 minutes ago, securitybreach said:

Believe me they are not doing it for the benefit of Linux, I assume its because opensource is free and they are taking advantage of that fact. And really, who can blame them? It's like Edge....why come up with their own browser when they can just use chromium's source code and rebrand it?

I think there's kernels of truth in there, but assuming the code is licensed as GPL, don't they have to make the modified code available to others?  they should take a page out of Steve Jobs playbook and look to BSD licensed software....take what you want, modify it, and keep your proprietary tweaks a secret.  LOL!

[securitybreach]

9 hours ago, Hedon James said:

I think there's kernels of truth in there, but assuming the code is licensed as GPL, don't they have to make the modified code available to others?  they should take a page out of Steve Jobs playbook and look to BSD licensed software....take what you want, modify it, and keep your proprietary tweaks a secret.  LOL!

 

Nah, its mostly used for backend things like the cloud infrastructure for Azure and office development. They're not modifying anything (they know there are lots of eyes on what they are doing), they are just using them with windows applications and development. The whole WSL was so that window's developers could have easier access to (microsoft owned) Github and use bash tools on windows. The naming scheme is completely backwards but don't get me started on that one. Its literally linux on windows not, the other way around... stupid double-talk. They only support open source for the free products that they can use without spending money on developers to create something similar for Windows. They started this whole thing back when they took SAMBA and used it for file and print services and integrated it into Active Directory and NT Domains.

 

 

[crp]

On 7/10/2022 at 9:56 AM, V.T. Eric Layton said:

I disagree. Mostly because $$$ corrupts any and everything. MS is BIG $$$. They have a profitable reason for getting involved in GNU/Linux and OpenSource. It's not going to be pretty. #Big_Biz does NOT do anything for "noble" reasons.

 

This comment above is my personal opinion and borders on violating the Scot's rules against discussing inflammatory topics such as politics, religion, etc. Delete if necessary.

oh please, stop. You really want to go back to the days of pre Red Had Enterprise?

If you are going to insist on no big money being involved with Linux than all the code and programs from IBM, Google, Sun , etc needs to be ripped out. And the Linux community has to stop complaining about lack of support from nVidea and MSFT and AMD. 

etc.

[crp]

i still hate systemd.

and how it has permeated into iptables and been used to replace tools like traceroute .

 

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Well, I can't say I disagree with you on that topic.

[securitybreach]

Nvidia support is stellar on linux, it's just that its proprietary.

[securitybreach]

Microsoft has no choice, open source  is the current and future leader of technology

[V.T. Eric Layton]

18 hours ago, securitybreach said:

Nvidia support is stellar on linux, it's just that its proprietary.

 

Yes! And the proprietary thing never bothered me.

[securitybreach]

5 hours ago, V.T. Eric Layton said:

 

Yes! And the proprietary thing never bothered me.

 

Well its the only closed source application that I use but I do not mind as it works very well.