Linux kernel patch signed off by Microsft emplyee?

[moonman]

I was looking throught the latest changelog for kernel 3.6.1 today and I stumbled upon this:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'c')ommit 43f7940638e3135e4536c326a8eb1b9c4f66d87b
Author: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
Date: Wed Sep 5 14:37:37 2012 -0700

tools/hv: Check for read/write errors

commit 436473bc2173499ae274d0f50111d1e355006caf upstream.

hv_kvp_daemon currently does not check whether fread() or fwrite()
succeed. Add the necessary checks. Also, remove the incorrect use of
feof() before fread().

Signed-off-by: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
Signed-off-by: K. Y. Srinivasan <kys@microsoft.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

[Kurlon]

I want to say @microsoft.com makes up for a noticeably large percentage of commits. I'll see if I can find the relevant stat but I'm sure I've come across articles about it before.

Edit: In 2011, MS was the 17th most active corporate contributor to the kernel: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04 ... ntributor/

[moonman]

Interesting article. It seems though whatever MS does is related to its products.