Slashdot Mirror
Rumored LinuxCare/TurboLinux Merger
Subject: [US-staff] Confidential heads up...
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 20:31:26 -0800
From: Paul Thomas
Turbolinux Confidential
Hello everyone,
As i've said many times in the past, one of the jobs of the CEO is to increase shareholder value. One of the ways of doing this, is to find partners for acquisitions or mergers. As part of this, we are constantly in discussions with other companies in our industry. The vast majority of these discussions never result in any substantial relationship or agreement. Our discussions with LinuxCare however have become more serious, and have resulted in the signing of a LOI (letter of intent). A LOI merely states that both companies will make best efforts to reach a definitive agreement.
The boards and management teams of both Turbolinux and LinuxCare believe we have very complimentary strengths, that together make us much stronger as combined companies.
i know you each have lots of questions. Unfortunately because we are still early in the discussions, and don't yet have a final agreement, i don't have all the answers. i will do my best to answer your questions early next week when we have a company meeting. Until then, please stay focused on the business at hand. The one thing i can guarantee is that these things always take longer to complete than staff you think they will (or should).
Thanks in advance for your support and understanding.....paul"
All what base60 nonsense? 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and you're done with 60.
Meantime, consider how handy 60 is... it's divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, AND 6 (and of course, 30, 20, 15, 12, and 10). You can slice it, you can dice it, and when you're done you still have a reasonable number. Thus "I'll see you in a quarter hour", or "we'll spend a third of the hour doing blah, half of it doing blah, and the remaining sixth doing blah.".. you're still on integers. Plus it overlays so well onto a 12-hour clock. with five minutes per hour segment. Considering that they also divided the day into 24 hours, that's pretty slick.
Give credit where credit is due. Would you rather be using Swatch(tm) Internet Time?
I was wondering if I was the only one who noticed that. Hey, we're all humans! :)
--
Scott Miga
suprax@linux.com
Actually, as I understand it, TurboLinux has been considering dropping their own distribution, at least for the desktop. That makes a lot of sense to me. It takes a lot of people to update packages and do QA and everything. They'd be better off focusing on products and services for the enterprise. Better yet, they could spin off their TurboTools configuration program as an add-on to Red Hat Linux. That way they could let Red Hat do the dirty work of maintaining the distribution, but still sell something as their own, along with support.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
> I am willing to take bets that in 5 or 10 years, only 2 distros will exist
I thought the same thing 3 or 4 years ago: at the time only Red Hat, Caldera, SuSe, Debian & Slackware appeared to be left; all of the others had vanished due to lack of time, or lack of audience. And Slackware looked like it would be the next one to vanish.
Now TurboLinux & Mandrake are branching their own distributions; look at www.lwn.net for news of distributions, & there are dozens of new ones being created because . . . well, because someone thought it would be cool, & offers a new way to get under the hood & learns how Linux works.
None of the distributions have a lock on the Linux community; they all have their own problems, & each problem is an invitation to someone to fix & create her or his own distribution. Which may become the flagship distro, as Slackware once was, & Red Hat appears to be today. And some of the current distros will fall out of use, to become entries in Linux Trivia Pursuit.
As long as we have the source, this waning & waxing of numbers of distros will continue. It is a sign that the Linux community is continuing.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
Someone had better alert the Debian priesthood of the incoming flock who would rally under its banner ... last I looked it was doing its damndest to put as many bureaucratic obstacles in the way as possible of new developers. Knighthood looks like a less involved process than becoming a debian developer.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Wait, no, Linux is CONSOLIDATING!
Chicken Little, how can they BOTH be bad?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
While I must admit that I enjoyed reading this fascinating memo, personally I don't think it should have been posted. I'd have been more than satisfied with informed-sounding speculation that later turned out to be correct.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
super fast mega care linux
turbo super mega good caring linux
super happy caring linux turbo computer fast
mega quick penguin cautious quick care
hello kitty.
i've alwasy been a fan of not using capitals, ever since my BBS days in the mid 80s. i actually started doing it because the left-shift key on my Tandy 1000EX gave out, and i got used to just ignoring it :). i continued doing it later out of habit, and because i find it makes messages look less formal, and more like a casual conversation (though you'll never see me skimping on grammar, that's a totally different story).
:)
still, if i'm *ever* writing an email for work, or anything remotely professional, i'll take that extra time to hit that shift key over there. i can't believe that a CEO, addressing his entire company about something as important as a merger, would use lowercase throughout his message. very strange indeed (and unprofessional to boot!). but then i also would be disgusted if a CEO didn't wear a suit and tie on a regular basis. maybe this is the new way of thinking? casual dress and lowercase Is?
- j
TurboCare? Come on people, be creative!
As any Market Guru (tm,patentpending) would tell you, you have to Sell The Product to The Masses.
Call it LinuxLinux and call it a day.
Don't you hear the stampeding feet of the masses rushing to your doorstep? I do.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
Our installer is written from scratch in python.
If I had the moderation points, I think I'd be inclined to just mark it down as a troll. About the only thing that helps Windows claim to not be 'hard to install' is that most people have never done an Wintendos install. Even when Windos becomes so bolluxed up that they need to do a clean and install, they often get 'an expert' to do it for them.
Personally, I'd rather do a Linux install than a Wintendos install any day (having done a number of both of them).
`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I seriously think that a continued disregard for usability may be a FUD tactic on the part of MS. -- I mean given how nasty the OS is (you really have to walk on tiptoes with it) -- all they have to do is suggest that any other OS is harder to use, and people will run screaming. It's an ass-backwards way of keeping people from finding out how nice Linux really is.
`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Secondly, its an easy conclusion that most of the distros will fold. The value add of 90% of the distros out there is negligable at best, and by no means can one forge a succesful business out of downloading RH and pasting their own logo on it.
Actually since it is a merger you would either have a summation or a multiplication...
TurboLinux + LinuxCare
(Turbo * Linux) + (Linux * Care)
=
(Turbo + Care) * Linux
or
TurboLinux*LinuxCare
(Turbo * Linux) * (Care * Linux)
=
TurboCareLinux
So we either get Turbo and Care Linux or We get Turbocare Linux Squared!
I sig therefore I am...
Alright, that's it! I've had it! There is no such thing as ease of use or user friendliness. It's all your head. It's really all about ignorance and wanting to learn something new.
For example, my mom won't switch to Linux because she doesn't want to go through the learning curve, not because it's not user friendly.
And as far as new computer users using Linux instead of windows is concerned, it has nothing to do with user-friendliness either. It's because they want to be able to walk into a store and know that any program in any box that they could possibly buy will work on their computer. Windows is the closest to achieving that as of right now and that's the hardest thing that Linux can compete with.
In other words, a computer is just an appliance to most people. You wouldn't want to buy bread that will only work in a toaster with such and such OS would you???
Enough of this "Linux isn't as easy as blah blah blah..." argument. Ease of use is just an excuse to not learn anything new. The term "computer illiterate" really means "I don't give a shit about computers and how they work". Using the unix shell is just as easy as pointing and clicking once you learn how to do it!
In the 80's when everyone used DOS no one who used a computer was complaining that it was too hard. It was just the people who wanted to use a computer but didn't want to learn how to. So companies like Apple and Microsoft took advantage of this and came out with GUIs and said "You're stupid. Use our product! See? Now you have less to learn!" hence the terms "computer literate" and "user friendliness" were coined.
Sorry being offtopic...
--
Garett
(For those that don't get it - TurboLinux was originally Pacific HiTech, but they changed their name and kicked out the founders. Perhaps something similar will happen here.)
Hooked On LinuxCare! Phonics for the open (source) minded.
Other than this having to do with Linux, how
is this front-page worthy news?
Simple, there are no back pages
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
LinuxCare has been pretty distro agnostic up to this point because of the service agreements with the likes of Dell. They have to go with what their clients want and be strong in all. My question is, will this make them more of a distro pusher on their clients? Will their staff be able to provide support to RedHat products without mentioning that TurboLinux has "a better way to do this." I think LinuxCare fills am important space in the commercial linux market by giving companies (like dell) someone to outsource linux support services to.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
The beauty of Linux (and free software) is that as long as there is the desire for something different (more distros) that something different will exist.
You mentioned debian. But the Linux hackers that don't like debian will make their own "not debian" distros.
Just go to linux.org and look at all the millions of different non-commercial distributions.
--
Garett
And starting rumours about new mergers is another great way of getting the stock up a few points isn't it? And it's pretty easy too, what with places like /. willing to post unsubstantiated stuff...
Shutup.
Neither company is even publically traded.
LinuxLinux...Linux for Linux users.
There can be only one. Who will win? Probably the most commercially succesful.
I am willing to take bets that in 5 or 10 years, only 2 distros will exist, and that they will be incompatible - Debian and the commercial one. When there is only one commercial distro, it will be powerful enough to ignore its heritage, and it will be under pressure from the shareholders and market to capitalise on its holdings. This will mean that it will become increasingly dissociated from its heritage and ideals.
The true future of Linux and the Open Source way lies with Debian, IMO. The commercial companies just don't have the commitment, and are under to much marketplace pressure to be expected to confirm to fuzzy-wuzzy 'ideals'.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The