Microsoft Contributes to Samba, World Keeps Spinning

Amid all the tempest and turmoil here in the technology world, it can be easy to get lost in the details.

After all, with all the software patent battles, the endless debates over the Linux desktop, and a never-ending array of other topics to quibble over, who can be blamed for missing the proverbial forest with all these distracting "trees" standing in the way?

Events of late have provided an excellent illustration.

A 'Notable' Submission

"If you follow the Samba Technical Mailing List, you may have noted a patch submission that came in on October 10th, 2011," wrote Samba team member Chris Hertel in a blog post recently.

"As often happens, a couple of developers at a company found a way to improve core Samba code," Hertel went on. "They got permission to submit the patches under their own copyright and the terms of the GPL, and they sent the patches in.

"It happens all the time in Samba, and we are always grateful," he added. "The only notable thing in this particular case is the company for which those developers work: Microsoft."
'That's How Far Things Have Come'

That's right, none other than Redmond itself recently contributed code to none other than the Samba project's open source file, print and authentication services software for Windows clients, which is now a standard piece of most Linux distributions.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has contributed code to other projects before, of course. Its relationship with Samba, however, has been tense at best.

"A few years back, a patch submission from coders at Microsoft would have been amazing to the point of unthinkable," Hertel noted. Today, however, "most people didn't even notice the source of the contribution. That's how far things have come in the past four-ish years," he added.
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