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Dvorak On Microsoft/Novell Deal

zaxios writes, "John C. Dvorak has weighed in on the recent Novell-Microsoft pact. Among his insights: 'Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best.' But now, 'the idea is to create some sort of code that is jammed into Linux and whose sole purpose is to let some proprietary code run under Linux without actually "touching" Linux in any way that would subject the proprietary code to the GPL.' According to Dvorak, it's only a matter of time before Linux is 'cracked' by Microsoft, meaning Microsoft figures out a way to run proprietary code on it."

3 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Hmmm .... Microsoft Linux? by Salvance · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As scary as a 'Microsoft Linux' sounds, there'd actually be some significant advantages to Microsoft apps being able to run on Linux (as pointed out to me by another /. reader yesterday). To a system administrator, the prospect of having servers that cooperate better, and possibly a single secure desktop, is enticing. Hardcore Linux users probably scoff at the idea of running Office on a Linux box, but as a IT manager myself it sounds like a great idea. All of a sudden, I could rollout a single secure Linux O/S to all desktops and servers, then have the ability to run Windows apps when needed.

    Is this Microsoft's intent? Unfortunately, probably not. I don't see them providing users with the ability to get rid of their Windows PCs ... they will probably either maintain a cooperative capability (a la Virtualization) that the Novell deal provides, or use their Linux foothold as a means to eventually entice Linux users back to Windows.

    Who knows, the end result will be interesting for sure.

    --
    Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
  2. why are we publicizing this FUD? by dAzED1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    yeah, because Oracle cracked Linux. So did Veritas (which I was personally running products from on Linux servers as much as 5 years ago).

    Bullsh*t. By putting this on the front page of /. taco, you're merely assisting MS's propaganda machine further demonize the GPL and Linux in general. I don't suppose you made charitable donations to SCO too, did you?

  3. Re:Meta-flamebait by jsebrech · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have come to think of any Dvorak story posted by Slashdot as meta-flamebait. They know it is just going to cause the comments to degenerate into a total circus of hatred.

    They're not just flamebait, they're flamebait on purpose. The purpose of the dvorak flamebait articles is generating clicks on the articles in question, and generating the ad revenue linked with those clicks. This has even been admitted by dvorak (or one of the dvoraks, since it's likely to just be a name they assign to writers), and this admission of guilt has appeared on slashdot.

    The key thing to learn about this is to never, ever, browse to a dvorak article, because that is exactly what they want you to do.