Slashdot Mirror
13 Reasons To Celebrate the New MS-Novell Pact
An anonymous reader writes "The recently announced agreement between Microsoft Corporation and Novell, Inc. has resulted in much concern that it could be harmful for Linux and other free software. However, the agreement itself, as well as its timing and comments made by Microsoft executives about it, may actually be a very good thing — and perhaps even worthy of celebration!"
Not only are these points weak, they're a stretch. And number four is laughable, That's right, folks, this agreement will make developers so angry that they'll triumph in the face of Microsoft telling them they're all patent infringers. Yep, sound argument to me. Let's see here
And also, some of the footnotes are pure comedic genius, It's so funny because the way I see it, this was the perfect way to hobble Linux & threaten all the application development on it so that the competition for Windows dwindles & therefore they can produce pure crap and we'll have to use it. Please explain yourself, Linux Information Project.
My work here is dung.
Long gone are the days when developing or using a system was such a simply thing like pressing the power button and enjoying the ride. Unfortunatly people these days are more involved in the political side of the things than in the same process of joy. So for many peoples these days their holy words are "no politics, no joy". MS and Novel have a pact? So what? This will tbe the end of MS? No freaking way! The end of Linux? of course not! So is this whole FUD wave a way to satisfy the politian than most people (men) have inside?
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
The reaction the open source community finally arrives at as a whole will be an indication of wether or not it has matured to the point where it can function as a legitimate entity in the business world.
There are three distinct reactions to Microsoft's blatant and utterly un-subtle attack on Linux:
1) Swift and decisive public action sending a clear message to the computing and business worlds that this aggression will not stand, man. Novell software and patent minefields like mono are purged from all open source distros and entities.
2) Wallowing in ignorant self-delusion that maybe it will all go away.
3) Self-defeating and inane +5 Insightful masturbatory posts letting everyone know just what a open minded and reasonable person you are for trying to look on the bright side of this frontal assault on Linux. "Hey, Microsoft can't be ALWAYS evil...maybe they just want to be friends!"
Read groklaw.net, get informed. If you aren't scared to hell about the long term implications of this attack on Linux through patents, you haven't read enough about it.
The time for sticking your head in the sand is over. Microsoft is in open war with Linux. And no matter what you think of their products, Microsoft execs live to destroy. And they have you directly in their sights. Are you going to stand there and be slaughtered like a dumb animal or wake up and get informed and take decisive action?
There is just one single reason why you should not comment or give this link to other people, the more traffic this gets the more of these "news" posts we get on slashdot. I for one do not welcome our FUD overlords.
Microsoft has ever so recently started creating it's own 'pro-windows' Linux websites and putting up propoganda. Linfo.org is one of those sites. It's registered to an email of ips@connectexpress.com who do promotions for companies. The registrant is from Bellevue, Washington where half of the Microsoft campus is (Redmond is LITERALLY across the street).
The phone number used for registering this site goes to an answering service. This is nothing more than a propoganda site sponsored by Microsoft
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
With the IBM and Novell news, unfortunately LINUX is in EXACTLY the same position UNIX was almost ten years ago. IBM, and Microsoft/Novell have effectively fragmented the LINUX industry, and potentially weakened Open Source in general. Following history, both Novell and Red Hat will continue to add value, and further distance their distributions from each other, and other distro's such as Ubuntu, Debian, etc ...
Didn't we learn anything from the UNIX/Windows wars?
I oppose Novell's agreement with Microsoft and I will abandon the SUSE sphere soon. I am about to join the Ubuntu cosmos (without this meaning that I enjoyed their recent binary driver announcement, but that's another story). Note to Debian developers : I would install exclusively Debian on all of my machines and servers if it was officially 64bit and had more updated software.
What can Microsoft do? Sue Torvalds? Sue some particular programmer with little income that violated their patents? Sue one of the commercial Linux vendors? Who can Microsoft sue or buy to stop Linux? No-one.
All MS can do is spread FUD. Linux isn't dBase, Linux isn't DOS, Linux isn't FoxPro. It can't just be acquired.
Microsoft Corp. vs the one thing they can't buy and actually have to compete with? I fail to see the threat.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
In the 1800s they had a law in England that forced every self-propelled vehicle on the road to have a horseman precede it waving a red flag. Many historians argue that this law had a strong effect in delaying the invention of automobiles. I don't think so. The automobile was invented as soon as a suitable engine was developed. The boilers and steam engines of the mid-1800s were practical only for locomotives, they were too heavy to use without steel rails. As soon as lightweight engines were available, the red-flag law was rescinded.
I think software patents are just trying to delay the inevitable, the old-style software business is dead. Free software is what Clayton Christensen called a "disruptive innovation". It will kill the old business model because the old model is stuck in a corner from which it cannot evolve. The most they can do to delay the inevitable end is to outsource development to some less-developed countries where programmers get lower wages, but that is a self-limiting process.
In the end, free source will prevail because it uses the power of the internet, where people from the whole world can participate in a project. Intellectual property is a two-edged sword: it allows companies to derive higher profits by charging royalties from every user, but at the same time every user must pay again for a development that has already been paid for. In the end, a free market will always favor the one who has lower costs.
I hate to break it to you, but the linux community was fragmented A LONGGG time before Microsoft and/or IBM started paying attention to it. The different distros, each with their own little tweaks and changes ensure that Linux is always be fragmented. This is healthy (IMHO) because it reduces monoculture and encourages innovation. If you are not a power user and want to be able to use a stable distrobution, then go with Redhat or SuSe. As long as you keep your home partition separate from the root partition, then you can transition easily when/if your distro bellyflops and/or goes bankrupt.
Ultimately, this won't happen because of the power of opensource. Anyone can fork a distro and maintain it. Anyone can take diffs/code from another distro and apply it to their own. So your favorite distro will probably never die but live on in another name. This is an impossibility in a M$-centered world though. Innovation (except for theirs, and not even so much then...) is discouraged.
Cheers
Ben
I agree for the most part. But there is still one very large question mark, what will the ISV's do? Like it or not, software availability drives the OS, not the other way around. Most large businesses are looking for prepackaged applications, either not having the resources, or the time to write from scratch. So the dilemma for ISV's is what distro do I write to?
For a while there was hope that controlling the LINUX kernel would reduce fragmentation. Instead now the market becomes even more fragmented, with some applications running only on SuSE, some only on RedHat.
Until LINUX solves this problem, we will be forever in the OS wars, even between LINUX and LINUX. Large businesses will stay away for the most part, and LINUX will be relegated to a much smaller portion OS than it deserves.