Microsoft has contributed thousands of lines of code to the Linux kernel, the open source software at the heart of the widely used Linux operating system. And now, the software giant has contributed some controversy too.
Sometime over the past few years, as Microsoft beefed up the Linux kernel with code related to its Hyper-V virtualization software, one unidentified developer needed a name for a piece of code used by the software, and for some unknown reason, he went with this: 0xB16B00B5.
That’s hexspeak for “Big Boobs.”
Red Hat kernel developer Matthew Garrett is not impressed. “At the most basic level, it’s just straightforward childish humour,” he wrote on his blog. “But it’s also specifically male childish humour. Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that software development is a boys club where girls aren’t welcome.”
