On Mon, 18 Sep 2017 05:21:44 +0000, Ian Stewart wrote:
"Microsoft hired a group of developers from Digital Equipment Corporation led by Dave Cutler<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler> to build Windows NT, and many elements of the design reflect earlier DEC experience with Cutler's VMS and RSX-11, but also an unreleased object-based operating system developed by Dave Cutler<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler> for DEC Prism."
Remember that Cutler had just quit DEC in a huff over the cancellation of his big OS project there. So Microsoft were taking advantage of this useful brain that DEC had just thrown away. Microsoft hiring Linux kernel developers may be a little different, if they continue working on Linux. If they don’t, then the situation becomes more analogous to the Cutler one. Of course, hiring Torvalds himself away from the Linux project would be the ultimate analogue to the Cutler case; but there’s not a chance of that happening.