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Microsoft releases 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community under the popular GPLv2 license.

Microsoft has released 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community.

The software giant announced its move at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention in San Jose, Calif., on July 20. The code, which includes three Linux device drivers, has been submitted to the Linux kernel community for inclusion in the Linux tree, Microsoft said.

The drivers will be available to the Linux community and customers alike, and will enhance the performance of the Linux operating system when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, Microsoft officials said.

In a Q&A about the release of the code on Microsoft’s PressPass site, Tom Hanrahan, director of Microsoft’s OSTC (Open Source Technology Center), said, “This is a significant milestone because it’s the first time we’ve released code directly to the Linux community. Additionally significant is that we are releasing the code under the GPLv2 [General Public License Version 2] license, which is the Linux community’s preferred license.”

Hanrahan added, “Our initial goal in developing the code was to enable Linux to run as a virtual machine on top of Hyper-V, Microsoft’s hypervisor and implementation of virtualization.”

Sam Ramji, senior director of Platform Strategy in Microsoft’s Server and Tools organization, said part of Microsoft’s motivation behind this move is to help companies cope with “the current economic climate,” which calls for increased heterogeneity.