Overview

• The June 23 dinner brought Linus Torvalds, Bill Gates and Windows NT architect Dave Cutler together for their first in-person meeting.
• Mark Russinovich shared a selfie of the trio on LinkedIn and joked that no major Linux kernel decisions were made but hinted at a follow-up dinner.
• The event marks a departure from Steve Ballmer’s early-2000s “Linux is a cancer” stance, reflecting Nadella’s strategy of integrating Linux into Azure and contributing to the Linux Foundation.
• Cutler’s attendance highlighted the convergence of the Windows NT lineage and the Linux kernel community under a more collaborative tech environment.
• Analysts say the meeting signals a broader industry shift as former rivals explore partnerships in open-source and enterprise computing.