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Microsoft bid on Linux.com
Chris M. Costello
sent us a link to a news.com article about the
Bidding War for Linux.com
which includes the exceptionally interesting tidbit that
among the bidders was one Microsoft corporation. Other
bidders were Red Hat (duh) Compaq (that makes some sense)
and HP (huh?)
Why would MS want Linux.com? Trying to squish the competitor again?
like duh. Of course. You don't think they'd actually want to promote Linux now, would you?
Why? To hype MS-Linux, of course :-). Just you wait and see. My bet is on August 15, 1999 announcement, and mid-2000 release date. Mark my words... 'cause I'd know :-)
Why would those companies want linux.com?
Why didn't Linus registered himself?
Why aliens are living in my freezer?
Why I use Windows 95 at work?
Why my salary sucks?
Why LinuxWorld uses Compaq's running WinDOZE?
Why A Commando type operation don't change the above fact?
Tell me why?...
Here's aquestion I was just thinking about last night. If NT5 is not going to be approved for government use, and Linux is being seen as a REAL threat, what's stopping M$ from releasing their own version of Linux??? Nothing. This would give M$ a line into the Unix market and an "untainted" product.
Microsoft purchasing linux.com seems about as anti-competitive as it gets. As far as their court case, they are lucky they weren't able to buy it.
I'm really VERY curious as to what MS would have put up. My first thought is that they'd put up nothing... just leave the domain dead. Still... I wonder what their proposed plan to Fred was.
After the LSA thing, I can't help but feel that the folks who own linux.org are somewhat antagonistic (or at least uncaring) to the general linux community.
This linux.com thing has essentially replaced them as _THE_ linux site. It also underscores the monetary value of such a key domain name. I wonder what they'll do now.
Any thoughts anyone?
Hmm, yes! I can picture it now. M$ needs the months to code their super "cab" pacage system, and to include bugs so that the final product is on par with NT.
I would've owned the site every single day until they shut down and shipped out.l inux.htm
Check out the new Microsoft Linux
http://www.microsoft.com/fake/wesuck/linuxowns/
I think we now have a pretty good idea of just how scared MS is of the linux juggernaut. Heck, I guess I would be too, if the products I made were slowing being overrun by a superior and free alternative.
Also, if MS had ever actually purchased linux.com (which I couldn't see Fred allowing to happen, even for a huge some of money), then we could have all had some fun trying to think up a new name for what we now call linux.
Wonder what they have up there sleeve? Ahh who cares...even if they did buy it...none of us would go to the site. And even if they did make a os revolve around the Linux kernel they would still FUX it up somehow! M$ is going down. and there doing everything they can to try and stop it :P
Natas
http://www.mp3.com/pedophagia
Linus owns the "Linux" name, and thus can reclaim it at any time at the drop of a 30 day notice according to NSI's own rules governing domain name disputes. Even The Bill couldn't stop him. So I'm not worried. If linux.{com|net|org} gets out of line or finds itself registered to the Dark Side of Computing, Linus has the Schwartz and the power to squash.
The OSS model derives income from support.
Judging by M$ current support quality, they'd
fail in this world.
they are going to pay for gnulix.com
and just why, exactly, can sco bitch-slap evilM so easily?
isn't sco owned, not the other way around?
Typing linux in the Open Page dialog box on Netscape takes me to www.linux.org. Hmm.
For those who still aren't convinced, here's another sign of the lengths MS will go to manipulate our world and spread misinformation. They have endless money and large teams of smart people who do nothing but this sort of stuff. The scale they work on is huge. We catch them sometimes, but they surely do many deceptive things that we don't notice, all the time. They've been caught doing really nasty things so many times, and they continue, so they must be succeeding enough other times to make it worthwhile.
Intrigue is really there and it really happens. It's not just paranoid delusions of anti-MS fanatics.
(Sorry to restate the obvious if you know this already.)
James
james@jmarshall.com
Yea, but you forget, there are many ppl that are blindly following Bill Gates and anything with the M$ name on it. And, M$ would not have much to provide in support. Most of the support material has already been written...
Remember, just a while ago, Bill was saying that he never had a customer ask about linux. Why would MS waste their time FUDing about linux when their OS is so vastly superior?
The only thing which would prevent them from releasing their one version of Linux would be their pride. Doing so would mean admitting that their operating system doesn't cut it. BTW, Linux is probably not approved for government use the same way NT4/5 isn't.
About as much as you get paid for turning a trick on the street corner.
Exactly. The Linux Kernel only behaves like Linux, and contains no copyrighted UNIX code. So, there's no reason for M$ to worry about the similarities of Linux and UNIX
Though pride is a strong emotion, I think $$$ carries more weight in Bill's heart. I think Bill would prostitute his own mother if he could make some money doing it. He is known first and foremost as a shrewd businessman.
Remember, it was just a few months ago that Bill was saying he never had a customer ask about linux. Now, MS is using linux as proof of competition in the OS market. Soon, I imagine we will see some MS software being ported to linux. Ultimately, if they can make money doing it, they will release their own linux distribution.
I can't help but get a little paranoid here. Consider me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but its not the intent. Just something that popped into the noggin.
It just seems to me, that out of all the companies wanting the name, Microsoft would be hurt the least by offering oh, 5 cool million for whatever they wanted. They've spent more in the past for pettier things.
So yeah, I think they put up the five million dollar bid, and would have gone further if they didn't realize that there was no way they were going to get it. Hell, I'm a selfish b*stard myself, but if I owned linux.com, I would rather sell to some small company for thousands of dollars than sell to Microsoft for millions.
SCO is all but dead.
Who does MS have to fear?
You are smoking crack if you think SCO has anything on MS.
I would enjoy seeing what Microsoft would do with Linux.com in the same way that I would enjoy seeing what would've happend if Germany had won WWII or if all of europe had gone communist.
Sliders would do this sometimes, fall back into a parallel universe where women ran the world or whatever. Is it even on TV anymore?
If they didn't use the Gnu tools (and why would they?) they would effectively bar cheapbytes from selling CD's.
The kernel will remain open source.
But just you watch them port the Windows 98 desktop to Linux. Ouch. It would still be proprietary, and they would still get away with the same shenanigans they are pulling today.
But I don't think it will ever happen.
You obviously don't know your history. When MS sold Xenix to SCO, a part of the agreement was that MicroSoft should stay out of the Unix/Unix compatible market.
I think they were the wealthiest company that actually bid (I'm not quite sure how Compaq compares moneywise, but it was Digital and not the whole of Compaq anyway).
And even for the courts to uphold it, he wouldn't have to go after all the other sites. He'd have to enforce a "licensing" program, which might very well be for free.
Chapeau to Fred van Kempen.
It's greate to know that some people value a purpose more than money. But than, this seems to be a trait of the linux/OSS movement.
Chris
You see, if I owned linux.com, then I could teach everyone how to pronounce it properly:
linux (My-Kro-Soft)
are those banner ads there for free? I don't think so.
those extensions don't mean anything anymore. I think there was some kind of ruling that rescinded it, or it was never really enforceable.
Check out the Sci-Fi chanel.
(Monday nights at 9 here.)
Here's aquestion I was just thinking about last night
Get a life. Go out and meet some girls or something.
really?
So, just what part of "agreement" do you think MS understands and honors?
M$ could put Windoze NT on the Linux kernel,
and run the *NIX processes above that. (i.e.
replace init)
.COM = The bit that goes on the end of a normal URL, right after the company name bit that comes after the WWW.
.ORG = One of those wierd country codes or something.
This is a bit outdated. SCO, last year, got that contract overturned and rendered null and void because the same contract required them to keep some old MS Xenix code in their operating system (wonder if that is why SCO sorta has a lower atmospheric pressure than the surroundings).
So, MS is free to go into UNIX buisness if they want. However, does anyone really believe that Microsoft could survive in a market where they have no credibility and no unfair advantage?
I don't think M$ did it with the intention of jumping into Linux bandwagon. Probably as a desperate bid to retard Linux growth. M$ turning into Linux is very unlikely because, they will have to eat back all FUD about Linux. This is a clear desperate bid to slow down Linux. Any other ideas?
Except SCO got that contract overturned in court themselves... it's no longer there.
If the agreement also prohibits unix clones,
then
(a) linux is dubious
(b) the GNU utilities are intended to be UNIX-like
and so could not be used
(c) the BSD-related programs would also cause
problems
It would be seen as a cynical marketing ploy.
If Linux guys slag off Microsoft, even unfairly, it's not for commercial gain in the majority of times. Therefore it's fair enough.
I wouldn't have a problem with Microsoft saying `use our product it's easy to run out of the box' providing it was. I would have a problem with them saying `Linux is full of holes' which a disturbing number of Computing Officers seem to think here at Oxford. The truth is fine. FUD for commercial purposes is not.
Tom Ford (Network problems not logged in)
Yeah.
Sliders is - or was as of a couple months ago when I last had a chance to watch it - on the SciFi channel on Saturday mornings. I think I'd heard that SciFi Channel is/was producing new shows in the series.
Want to place a bet on this?
I don't think MS is going to kill their goose that has laid the 50 billion dollar egg, aka Windows.
what companies M$ owns? With so many billions,
perhaps they ultimately own VA Research??
Non-profit does not mean you can't make money, it means that making profit is not your goal. I work for a non-profit organization that raises and spends millions. Banner ads are perfectly valid.
I'll admit, I don't know much about the guy, but I haven't really heard all that many wonderful things about him in the past. I've gotten the impression that he's been trying to make money off of Linux for a while now. Not that I have anything against making money from Linux, just against the whole instant-millionaire philosophy.
On the other hand, maybe I'm being way too harsh. I mean, it's not as if he just sold it for as much as he could get or anything. Maybe he really is just a very devoted guy who simply saw an opportunity to arrange things so that he doesn't need to worry about money while seeking loftier goals and, at the same time, get linux.com in the hands of an organization that can afford to give it the resources that it needs.
I guess I really just don't know enough. Good thing MS didn't get the site though. Although, maybe they would have charitably allowed it to be maintained by the community. Then maybe pigs would have flown, of course.
To let folks know they're aware of what the 'next big thing' is?
To keep alive speculation on M$ Linux?
C'mon, if they REALLY wanted it, they'd have bought it.
Yeah, So they could sell it to Bill, who owns their soul.
MS probably put in the $5 million bid just to make it more expensive for the other bidders.
Unfortunately, they failed to realize that money is not everything.
Foiled again!
Yeah, I don't think they had benevolent intentions. linux.com is obviously a very prominent domain name. Every company now has a domain name. When you want to find out information about a company, you first try company-name.com. Obviously, as more people get interested in linux, they will try linux.com to find out more information about linux.
Nope, I can't think of any reason why M$ would want to own the domain name to the fastest growing OS in the world.
People have very short memories ! If M$ wants to make a linux distro, they will and their marketing dept. will do the rest.
-M
Maybe Microsoft has had a change of heart and decided to stop distributing their crappy software and make a fresh start with Linux! Maybe they want to be NICE to the open source community! Maybe they want to decomission all their crappy proprietary commotitized protocols and file formats! Maybe... what? Oh... hell hasn't frozen over yet? Never mind then...
I wouldn't give 2 nickles for "gnulix.com".
With a name like that, folks just might be thinking
it's a support site for a new kind of cereal.
Seriously -- it's a stupid name, and a non-catchy
amalgam of phrases.
Two grep's down.
I'm sure they would not use it to promote Linux.
My Ideas:
1) Resell it for more money
2) Do nothing with it (keep others from getting it)
3) "Start" a Linux portal. (Would bring in lots of money for MS, and boost stock price, you know how Wall Street loves portals). Of course they would announce that there were doing it for the good of the community, the way they did when they announced that they were giving away IE.
The problem for MS with attempting to jump onto the Linux buzz is that probably a good 70% of the current Linux Firestorm is fuled by Anti-Microsoft sentiments amoung both user/buyers and other industry players. Not that Linux isn't technically superior. But as pointed out so many times, MS never did depend on technical value, only marketing hype, hidden hooks and "bugs", and lockin contracts.
Marketing wise, they are in hostile territory here. The GLP shields the hidden hooks and bugs issue. And of course, lockin contracts are far more difficult when there are viable options.
I suspect the MS attackes will be centered on legal and copyright tactics, as hinted at in the holloween papers.
The bright ray of hope is that DOJ-MS case will end in a relativily simple and eligant remedy, declairing the windows API to be an essential facility and made public domain. Then the expected legal attacks will be aborted before they can even begin. (this remedy, btw, avoids the risk of being overturned on appeal because it goes to far as a breakup or oversite regulation would do. It also avoids the risk of being useless in preventing MS's continued destruction of the IT industry like the last judgment)
...still reeling from the fact that someone cared about something more than money.
My favorite quote:
"They just threw cash at me," he said.
That is what makes the open source community unique, we don't all have a price at which we will sell out?
You know, this could probably be just someones idea /EASILY/ afford 3 or 4 times
of teasing the 'linux zealots' from someone inside
MS, rather than an truely official corporate move.
As someone said, they could
what the site was bought for (and thats being VERY
modest). Sounds to me like it was just a cute prank.
:)
But aren't "windows" also often rectangular glass :)
portals often found on homes? I mean -- whats a "Linux",
except for an OS?
Cause my salary doesn't suck :)
It's microsoft. It's unix. Oh... my... God...!
We wouldn't buy MS-Linux, but you can bet that the less enlightened masses who hear that Linux is so great will pick the MS box just because it's MS. And a lot of companies would do the same thing....
EVERYBODY has their price. If Bill came and sat a billion dollars in cash down in your living room in exchange for you kissing his ass, you'd be asking "do you want tongue with that?"
www.whitehouse.com looks like the real whitehouse site to me. We all know what goes on there. ;-)
To prove THEY HAVE COMPETITOR and escape court orders or lesson the sentences at the end of trial. Bill gates is using his marketing brain to prove that there are competitors ..again and again quoting in press and now done this bidding. ..be ready for some firing from MyCrowSoft!
But the truth we know that Lunix is still not any where near the Desktop. Just goofing all and showing a virtual enemy for the time being. My hats off to Gates' brain. But once after the trail
I've wondered about this for awhile now. What (or who) does M$ own? I've pored over SEC reports, (Yes, I don't have a life.) dug through news articles and announcements, etc. I'd love to see a site that tracked their percentage ownership in other companies and in turn those companies' ownership of other companies. The site would of course depend on people to send in Verifiable evidence of ownership and collect it in a central place. For starters I know they own a "substantial" percentage of CMGI which is a holding company which invests in lots of web businesses (and has a 20% stake in Lycos). Then there is the Apple investment, all the cable company investments and so on. How can you boycott a company if you can't even determine everything they own?
I find this very difficult to believe. and it's a TERRIBLY easy thing to fake an email request for a domain name.
The 'reem' part, of course. Isn't that their favorite part of any agreement?
(yes, I know it's spelled wrong. It's a joke, son, a joke, see?)
Reading the posts here, I can think of three reasons why ms might want linux.com.
1) A FUD dispenser.
2) To promote their own Linux distrobution.
These have already been discussed. But...
3) Let the Linux community use it in an attempt to
gain controll of Linux.
Think about it, I could see ms trying to gain controll of as much of the Linux publicity as possible, being nice at first. Their thought could be that if they let the Linux community use their infrastructure it would become more influential (this is a full blown conspiracy theory) and if it grew in a way they didn't like, they could either steer it or shut down what they controll.
This may be a stretch, but I could see those toads trying this. Of course, any Linux user who has ANY trust in ms for ANYTHING needs to have their head examined. I would expect that the wariness most Linux users have of ms would prevent something like this from being successfull.
The fact that MS failed the FIPS 140 test means that federal agencies and Canadian government cannot purchase or use NT 4. This doesn't extend to State government systems. And this doesn't mean that all the NT boxes that they already purchased are going out the window. Infact they are probably grandfathered. Although it very much should.
I work for the State of Arizona Government and they just upgraded this year from Novell and Sun Systems to NT. They have had weekly problems. When one server is up, the other is down. Nowadays, the State has no more than maybe half of their servers up and running. Infact they are trying to go back to Sun systems. I'm the only one pushing for Linux systems.
They mainly want to use NT on cheaper PCs. Once again I shout Linux. In government nobody can hear you scream. And unless you threaten there jobs. They don't listen. Now with all the coverage on Linux. I have other system admins coming and asking if Linux can really kill the giant. And I tell them Linux will in 3 to 5 years.
This is nonsense. I dont see Windows NT running on a HP V Class machine any time in the next 10 years.
die by the gun.
MS is gonna be bit hard on the ass by more than one of its own legal actions.
Hubris. Gotta love it.
Yep, it was sick allright. And it was damn funny too. Thanks for the laugh. :)
Maybe this is a joke, but have you actually BEEN to Europe? Anyway believe me, when I look around, I see (almost) no communists.
MS FUD? Linux? Nonsense. MS invented unix. It was a wonderful lark with which to explore C, Bill Gates new programming language.
Don't you remember?
;)
I would definitely lick Bill's ass for a billion dollars. Well worth it. Anyone out there want their ass licking for a billion dollars? Me, I'm easy.
OTOH, I wouldn't sell Bill the linux.com domain for that.
A billion dollars is an unimaginably large sum of money. Which makes it less valuable than it sounds.
Now if I were FvK, I'd have sold the
site to M$ or whoever at $5M, and then
got Linus to use his trademark ownership
to get the site back again right
afterwards. Split the $5M with Linus
Rich.
I agree 100% that the money should be spread out. Give some to Gimp/GNOME crowd some to KDE crowd and definately some to FSF. But when money comes into play, its all greed no glory. VA is the Dell/Compaq/etc. of Linux. Slashdot is the ZDnet of Linux. Red Hat.. well I'm not even going to get into that.
And about moderation.. take a look at the "Linux.com" story a few days ago. Most articles that had very good points got moderated. Tells me Rob can't handle the truth about this issue. I think its time for someone to start a REAL news site. One that spreads FACTS and not FUD. I really hate how people you once considered doing good for the community suddenly turn against it. But thats money for you. This is America, land of the free.. home of the greedy.
Because Big Bill's gonna announce: "F*ck NT, it doesn't work, we're just gonna release a Linux distro instead." Honest. Really. I read it in the "Weekly World News. . ."
I have seen this a couple of times but can't figure out what it means.
So what does Micros~1 mean??
I think MS is seriously looking at a strategy of releasing their own version of Linux with a whole slew of binary, proprietary kernel modules, their own windowing environment, complete with proprietary APIs, and ALL of their own tools. I'm sure it would be booting straight into MS11 envt.
Then when the pointy hairs give in to the penguins at your workplace, they'll be saying "Ok, we'll switch to linux, but it's going to be MS-Linux."
Then we might as well be using NT. They definitely won't contribute ANYTHING open-source. They WILL poison Linux and NOT CARE because if they succeed, they're making $, killing RedHat, etc, and tying in their own proprietary calls. If they fail, their spin dept. will make MS's failures look like Linux's failures.
>i'm not worried. M$ Linux would be crushed by the market anyway. They'd get in too late in the game to be a threat.
wasn't the same said about IE?
Did you read the article? The domain was already in use; bids were being accepted by that owner, not by InterNIC. Besides, InterNIC doesn't auction off fresh domains. They sell the domain to the first buyer and let the lawyers sort it out in the event of trademark infringements.
You're right, james. It's the paranoid ravings of someone who watches the x-files too much. Conspiracy theories piss me off.
The really screwed up thing is that tons of federal government agencies are running on NT. I am a contractor at an AF site where they are all-MS, except that they use Netscape instead of IE. I just had to take a security test that said that if I connect my PC (company owned) to their network, I'm responsible for making sure that the security of the network is not compromised by it and that I am supposed to contact the CSSO to make sure. Now I know that my box isn't going to compromise their security, but I decided to find out exactly what their security standards were. I tried calling their CSSO, but couldn't get him on the phone. I plan to try again when I go back over there tomorrow. I'm quite curious to know how they justify purchasing NT. I even printed out information on all of the products that have been government approved for use as a network OS. NT isn't one of them. I won't show them that stuff unless they start lying though. They probably just don't have a clue about it. I don't want to get myself on their sh*t list either, so I'll have to just act like a concerned user who is worried about security liability after taking that test.
There's also that story several months ago about several AF and/or Navy sites that were being switched from their existing networks to NT networks. Congress ruled that it was illegal due to the fact that they did not provide a sole-source justification for using Microsoft. There may have been other reasons as well, but I don't remember them saying anything about NT not being approved. Do they even pay attention to their own standards?
If Bill came and sat a billion dollars in cash down in your living room in exchange for you kissing his ass, you'd be asking "do you want tongue with that?"
First off, this isn't a very realistic scenario, so it doesn't really prove your point. I can counter your argument with an even more absurd hypothesis, such as "If Bill came and sat a billion dollors in cash down in your living room in exchange for you killing yourself, would you do it?", but this doesn't prove that you don't have a price.
Second, kissing Bill's ass, as replusive as that may be, does not quite have the same moral implications that selling linux.com does. Kissing Bill's ass may taste bad, but it surely does not have the same ramifications to the linux community that selling linux.com to MS would have. Kissing Bill's ass may have a negative impact on you personally, but selling linux.com to MS would have a huge negative impact on the linux community as a whole, and Fred probably would have been ostracized with his testicles strung around his neck.
It is obvious that Fred weighed the implications of selling off linux.com against how much money he could make, and chose the former (though he did make some money, since linux.com is in high demand). I suspect that you, on the other hand, are just sitting at home waiting for the day Bill Gates comes knocking on your door, asking you to suck his dick for a quarter. Please post all pictures to comp.os.bill.take.me.im.yours.
: So who gets the money that people bid, and if this guy keeps it, what gives him the moral right to profit from the linux name?
Because he was smart enough to see this coming, and bought the domain so someone would buy it from him at a greater price later on? Nothing wrong with that as far as I see.
: Surely he should plough the money back into the linux community.
Why? Be glad he didnt sell it to the highest bidder (probably was microsoft).
--Loki
It's a Win95/NT/98-aware way of joking about the fact that you can't even fit Microsoft's name into the 8.3 format it enforced for so long (and still retains backward compatibility with). 95 and 98 may be that way, but not NT. NTFS has true long filenames.
Or, what is she is already married?
If you got time to slam others, maybe you should be looking for a new boy friend.
just don't forget, you really shouldn't have sex until you are a teenager.
If given even half a chance, M$ will destroy us.
I am sick of their crap. What the fuck? They bid
for linux.com, then they "cannot confirm" it? They, and their product, are what comes out of my ass after a hearty Mexican meal. We must not let these bastards destroy the open source movement. Their actions here demonstrate that they will do it if they can.
I am grateful to the man for having the honor and integrity to seriously examine the candidates and try to do what is best for linux. He should keep at least some or most of the money. Perhaps, though, he will recognize the efforts made by the linux community and make a generous (or even not-so-generous) donation to some worthy linux/OSS-related entity. We need financial resources - it looks like M$ is coming after our collective ass. L^3!!! (LONG LIVE LINUX!!!)
Fuck you, Bill.
:)
Yes, I'd do it as long as he additionally changes his name to "Ben Dover".
Hear, Hear!
Thanks, Fred. You truly our interests in mind.
We would all love to see what M$ proposed.
This worries all of us, I think. We just have to hope that the non-M$ people involved have as much integrity as Fred and don't bow to the M$$$'s.
Though I guess those people would just be hounded, or fired, or worse. We may be in trouble here...
I seem to remember reading about the attitude at Netscape in '94 or '95 being joyous and upbeat, but with an underlying knowledge that "We are doomed".
i loved that show, and fox replaced it with the shittiest shit shit show. you had to tell if the stories were true or made up. it was extremely corny... and, even the stories that were "true" were just stories they got from other sources besides show writers... the ones that were false were stories made up by the show writers. i watched it about 3 times.
Bill hasn't ever heard a customer....
Don't rest on your laurels. They can and do eat companies for lunch. Not everyone will turn out to have the idealism that Fred has demonstrated, and there will be many who will fight to see Linux squashed, and they'll be paid from the M$ coffers. It is naive to think that things are as simple as the chain of events you have outlined.
When Microsoft loses the current DOJ court case then your salery will really suck d00d!!!
anybody have a link to Pooh Goes apeshit?
'Support deal'? from MS?
You have got to be joking, right?
MS's idea of support is to sell 'certified engineer' certificates to 12 year olds and family pets. Then it tells them to go forth and reboot.
That is SO much help.
That there was no Microsoft bid. If you knew the
guy "Fred Van Kempen" you would know better. He
is perfectly capable of making up an imaginary
high Microsoft bid to make the others bid higher.
Oh shutup, you're just full of it..
I remember reading that when the Apache folks were working on their first NT port, they found that to keep directories and files secure, they had to take care of both versions of the filenames.
The Apache developer then tested IIS on a whim, and found that at the time it did NOT secure the 8.3 version of the filename! This was about a year ago.
If microsoft had bought it.. Can't linus sue them? Like other companies are doing that stuff...
Why would you use M$ Linux anyway? M$ already has enough bloated, buggy, insecure code I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up in any attempt they made at making their own version of Linux, and that attempt alone not to mention their version of Linux would be so horrible it defies imagination. Summary: M$ Linux would be a big pile of shit, and M$ and Linux do not go together.
got $5.5 millions from their offer, make some donation to some linux organisation made to protect linux (linux international?). together with the organisation, Linus sue Microsoft. Then Microsoft get VERY bad press for using deep pocket to by "mother theresa"'s domain name (linux comunity is not a competitor because they don't even have the mony to buy their domain name). M$ give-up before loosing too much image-points or they lose in court. Anyway, not a fun game to play!
I want to register it for my new company. I'm going to sell salt lick so that people can watch gnu's feeding in thier back yards.
People who get pissed at conspiracy theories make me smile.
Saltlix?
Nonsense. SCO is already the leading vendor of UNIX, and the recent pact with IBM will see AIX folded into an upcoming release of SCO UNIX. On top of that, the media circus surrounding Linux is reminding people that UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems run better than NT and always have done.
One wonders why Linux fanatics feel the need to attack anything that isn't the `one true OS' (which varies depending on which Linux-based OS a given fanatic worships).
...and watch yourself get sued off the face of the planet for 10 million for not dealing in good faith.
Actually, if MS does do Linux, (which I doubt) I would expect they would be meticulously GPL about it...
Why?
1. Make frustrated Microsoft employees happy by
an officially supported "charitable" type activity.
2. A great PR foil for the company
3. As a loss-leader to show people they "really care" and as a entry point to their own market.
They don't need MS Linux to be profitable. They could afford to give it away for free, make all of it GPL'ed, and it would just be another way for the Microsoft name to get stuck in your head.
SCO UNIX is actually the biggest competitor to NT in the x86 server market, in large part because it provides the best integration with Windows clients of any UNIX (or UNIX-like) OS.
I believe a Microsoft executive sits on the SCO board, but this is not unusual. There is also an executive from Novell (among others). The board represents the owners (Microsoft holds a small stake in SCO), not the management.
If you do any in-depth research into SCO, you'll find most of its executives have been very pro-UNIX and anti-NT. They heavily pushed the NC agenda (the biggest potential threat Windows has ever faced) a year or two ago, before it ran out of steam.
At the end of the day, SCO is probably the only vendor providing a full set of software and support than can server as a direct UNIX replacement for NT.
Until such moment that individuals must succumb to invasive technologies that control our very minds we still have a choice in what we believe.
I applaud the linux community in a concerned effort to keeping the heritage of linux alive and breathing on its own merits.
The almighty dollar can, and normally does convolute ones thinking. But linux is on a plateau of itself.
Fight the good fight and I assure each and every one of you that it will be worth it in the end. Even bloody wars have been fought based on foundational beliefs.
DO NOT SELL OUT LINUX !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Interestingly, Microsoft refused to terminate the deal, preferring instead to sabotage SCO with that XENIX baggage (and collect royalties in the process).
It was only when the EU competition authorities ruled it was anti-competitive, in that it interfered with SCO's ability to compete with NT, that Microsoft was forced to accept to SCO's request to terminate it.
Microsoft is not interested in any platform which it does not own (i.e. control). Without ownership of the platform, Microsoft would have no inherent advantage over its competitors. Without such an advantage, the chances of maintaining the 90% market shares Microsoft depends on in its key markets would be slim indeed.
Consumers look at the name only, not the features/source code. If M$ screws Linux over all we need to do is say Linux is dead, and call the next release GPLix (or something...) and the consumers will see that a brand new OS is born that is better than the final release of Linux. M$ can spout all the FUD they want!
-Anonymous Loser
Microsoft can create its own distribution, or not. Doesn't really matter.
The MS franchise is built on the Win32 API, not the Win95/98/NT operating systems. If/when Linux becomes too big a threat, MS can just roll out their own "special" closed-source Win32-compatible Linux library.
They'll talk about how much more compatible it is than WINE when running MS apps. And how much faster it runs than WINE. And how much they want to embrace and extend the wonderful new Linux platform. Oh, by the way, it just so happens that non-MS apps tend to crash when run against this library.
And the lost revenue from not selling the OS any more? MS Linux apps will be priced a bit higher; after all, MS will need to recoup the costs of its big new development effort, right?
Hey, they said Internet Explorer would be free forever. "That'll be $89 bucks for the service pack, I mean, Windows 98. Have a nice day."
You watched it three times? I couldn't stomach the previews:)
Hey!
Don't you be insulting healthy, honest, Dutch salesmanship. We've done worse than that in the past.
...What happens to the ARM, Sparc, 68000 and Power PC ports?
Is this a TRUE community resource? Will Intel allow VA to host say the PowerPC Linux homepage? I don't think they will. I know Intel worded their contract with Be so they would never "promote" another CPU. You'll notice Be reccomds "Genuine Intel" as the best price/performance ratio "out there" (still not making a direkt compare to that AYE-EM-DEE company).
How ever, I think he should support some Linux Projects with a bit of the money. He is not a hero, just because of he didn't take the highest offer. His intention was to prevent this domain against commercial abuse, and then he sold it to a company. No company should have such an important domain, because all what they do looks like that what linux will do.
"In order for this to work, they'd have to proprietarize Linux and WINE."
Uh? Why? There would be no WINE in the MS distro - just Windows for Linux.
After all, this is a group effort.
Creating a "board" is no guarantee they won't become part of the elite and forget their humble origins. Historically, just look at the big unions in America and you see what happened when you don't have elections (Jimmy Hoffa).
It seems like Linus will avoid infighting at ANY cost. Didn't he approve those Maxim drivers that violated Linux licensing? Maybe I am mistaken..
Already we see increased censorship here at Slashdot. Posts are being moderated or outright DELETED for questioning the soundness of linux.com deal. This only raise questions as to what CRITERIA qualify for the board??
Certainly our Linux would not be so good without Free Software??? Can you measure that against Slashdot? I like slashdot, but we would have another BBS to vent our thoughts... but would we if things were different have another Linux? Or is it a good strategy to supress dissent?
I have seen more posts here "moderated" on this subject than I have ever seen on say ZD-Net Talk Back Forum. Just print out a page of the subject headers 30 minutes apart and see how many go below the default threshhold of 0. WHy? Who is right ans who is wrong?
Linus should show some leadership here. linux.com is his trademark -- and arguably a "derivitive work" of Linux.
Will VA allo w other vendors to "host" mirrors, like so many generous people host Freshmeat? This would mean non-VA "hosted by" logos, and I bet that aint gonna happen. Intel is going to help improve Linux on Intel to the neglect of other ports. Wasn't Microsoft also "kind" by building lots of cool features into IE, then giving it away? Maybe you don't like IE, but enough companies fount it "close" or "superior" to Netscape that you could not ask your boss to register your Netscape browser.
We won't see any Merced CPU clones soon. Like Slot One, Intel is abusing IP laws to prevent competion. And now they own our domain, at least in indirect sense.
It *really* did look like we were hgoing to win. Now we trade one monopoly for another. A cpu is just a 'thing'... now we go from Wintel to Lintel, instead of "Lin-anything-that-works-well".
see Subject...
Um, then you get pissed off pretty easily. If you don't think this stuff really happens, you haven't been around very long, or you're not paying attention.
Why would M$ bother to ship a Linux distro disastro when they only need to *announce* that they will ship a Linux distro.
After the M$ Linux distro product announcement, the pointy haired ones will be start waiting for the M$ version instead of buying other commercial linux distros.
M$ Empire Strikes Back.
They could have used it in the DOJ trial. Put up information talking about how good windows 98 is and that microsoft is good for the consumer and point to that in the trial: "Look, even a page for a competing operating system says that microsoft isn't a monopoly"
But why?
It looks this way. HP announced last month that they would be porting Linux to IA-64. At Linux World, they are showing Linux actually already running on IA-64 (under a simulator).
NT sysadmin are, on average, toward the lowest paid in the entire field, and they all think they make the most. Hmm.
I think Softwaer AG did a port of DCOM
and windows (OS/2 already in the market)
and preaty much any ms product sense dos.
one contract makes m$ enough to destroy market
whenever it wants.
And it sounds vaguely like bollocks pronounced with an English accent (Bolix)
yes, but I suppose the difference is that you can
/x" do? (don't have an nt box handy)
also type:
cd program files
and have it cd in the appropriate directory
on win9x, you have to type:
cd "program files"
well, I haven't checked this under win '98
what does the x switch in "dir
ROFL! :)
that made my day, thanks
now that's an interesting comment. after all, be is designed from the "ground up" for multithreading, and hence multiprocessing, no?
I like amd's processors (though I wish they would design the core-logic chipsets and a reference mobo for their cpus),
but last time I checked, you couldn't do SMP with a K6/K6-2/K6-3.
...Yes I know about OpenPIC (which I actually liked from the little I know of it), but I don't know of any mobo's that support it. Do you?
If micros~1 had gotten their hands on the domain, this is almost exactly what they would have done.
I can also see them pointing to win utilities that do the same thing as a linux function, such as traceroute and GIMP. They would provide tons of information on how to make linux boxes be 'compatible' with the industry 'standards' set by micros~1, such as samba and mschap.
You've given me something to think about, and now I'm not going to get much sleep tonight. They might not do it with linux.com, but they are training up their people to counter the linux threat.
Fortunately, VAR has the domain, and will hopefully do good things which will benefit the entire commercial linux community.
Um...not smart. I'm not trying to start another flame war here, but if a killer FreeBSD were available right after MS "schlurped up Linux",
MS could schlurp it up too. After all, there is nothing in the BSD license that states that MS can't use their code.
All MS would have to do is embed the "Regents of the University...." into all of the executables.
Actually, what would be pretty cool is if he started a legal defense fund. We're going to see lawsuits from Microsoft in the near future; we all know that. It's standard corporate scare tactics. Furthermore, the FS/OSS/whatever community is probably going to see itself in the position of filing lawsuits in the near future to defend the GPL.
We definitely will need some kind of legal fund in order to keep the software free.
--
No matter how hard you work to make something idiotproof, someone will always come along and make a better idiot.
Okay, okay....
So maybe the previous message has instilled a sense of duress. Just relax!
Here's my tips for the linux community
1) only sure thing is death and taxes (death maybe)
2) linux, being that it is so marketly powerful can begin to 'call its own shots' where the 'big boys' used to tread
3) following 'good business models' can be profitable even in respect to the GPL licenses and Mr. Torvalds
have a nice day!
* even if linux takes off into outerspace as the most powerful OS that has been created; let's not forget and pay respect to linux's humble beginnings
* monopoly has and never will be a viable solution to the world's economy
"NT sysadmin are, on average, toward the lowest paid in the entire field"
This is a correct statement. I wish I still had the URL that showed the statstics.
So basically his orginall statement should read.
"Why I use Windows NT at Work? Because I wasn't technical enough to gain knowledge in other areas"
Where I work (hint BIG CO. and Telecommunications), What the NT guys get paid compared to our (Unix) salaries are embarrassing. I actually feel sorry for them.
Rob.
It's under a license they describe as "BSDish". Read it here.
dir /? shows:
/N with the short name inserted before the long name. If no short name is present, blanks are displayed in its place.
...
/X This displays the short names generated for non-8dot3 file names. The format is that of
...
sorry too lazy to format it.
>I'd love to see a site that tracked >their percentage ownership in other
m l
>companies and in turn those companies'
>ownership of other companies.
This is a start:
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/catalog.ht
Just an observation but your salary might suck because you're a retard and your boss knows it!
Uhh... Dude! You're going WAY too far back in time for me...
:-)
I lose sight of anything outside the current scroll buffer.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
But *technically* (or just legally?) Linux isn't *really* UNIX. No UNIX source code. They could probably argue that in court.
I'm not worried. M$ Linux would be crushed by the market anyway. They'd get in too late in the game to be a threat.
That's not good.. The only way M$ can try to defeat Linux is to become the "one true Linux" to the world. This would mean releasing their own distro and supporting it just long enough to fool the real world into thinking M$ == Linux, and then *BAM* they'll pull an ActiveX and conveniently "forget" that their Microsoft Linux product ever existed.
There are already pages at Microsoft with information about more or less 'transitioning' from MacOS to Win95. So you could expect something like 'at linux.com we can _help_ you transition from linux to windows NT when you outgrow linux! Oh, and here are some ls themes' ;) ;) ) and so on.
Well, maybe not the ls themes, but get the picture? Expect this approach, whether or not it's technically justifiable (it wasn't with the Mac transitioning pages either, and those pages are out there). The argument will be that standardization is only Windows, that you _will_ be involving Windows in your plans, so here is the way to seamlessly transition _from_ linux to all-Windows, here are some tools that can convert pine mailrscs or whatever into Exchange or Outlook Express (note pointed lack of converters going the other way!
That is what a microsoft linux.com would be.
I've worked on similar UNIX->NT porting projects. Filenames really suck on NT.
1. There is two names for non 8.3 filenames
2. The default location for installation of Vendor software is "%SystemDrive%\Program Files". This is a pain in the ass for command line utilities that take absolute pathnames as parameters.
Various other things are a pain in the ass like password authentication, user creation/deletion in a domain environment, temp file creation (%TEMP% is a user environment variable not available for services). I can't remember anything offhand that was better on NT except the product installation. With InstallShield for UNIX, I don't think this is the case any more.
To summarize: UNIX is great.
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." --Gandhi
Well we've been ignored, we've been laughed at and now Microsoft is getting ready to blast both barrels at our community. We've almost won.
The more you know, the less you understand.
Posted by Phantom of the Operating Syste:
Fred van Kempen did his bit to become a part of linux history. Kudos to a responsible person!
:)
-phantom
Posted by macguy:
If NT4 isn't approved for government use, then I'm scared! About 80% of the State of Ohio is run on NT. No wonder we're having so many problems with our servers, someone forgot to tell the head honchos NT sucked so bad.
Posted by Phantom of the Operating Syste:
got the feeling M$ offered him a _lot_ of money,
and he turned it down in favor of a 'little' from VA research. I'd guess that there was a substantial difference. A few million would be pocket change for M$.
-phantom.
Posted by Mr.Perlbot:
Test comment
According to the article, not everyone offered plans for the site. All people who offered money and no plans got refused.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Wouldn't Microsoft's attempt to buy a linux.xxx domain be an attempt to hijack the trademarked name of a major (MS's words, not mine) competitor?
... and boy are they gonna fall hard. (Some other OS communities should take this hint as well)
If Red Hat tried to buy out windows.com, MS's legal team would be frothing at the mouth.
Looks like the boys in Redmond still don't know how to play fair, even with their coffin fully nailed by the DoJ.
Arrogance will be their downfall
If you can read this message, your threshold is too low.
Wasn't MS one of the companies that wanted to crack down on domain squatting? Linus owns the Linux trademark, I'm sure he would have authorized somebody with money to litigate this.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I'd like to know how much they offered. Being that
if they really wanted it, they could offer anything they want. $20M would disolve anyones morals.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Well, yamssm (yet another ms scummy move) Remember way back when, when the internet was a "huh?" for most people, but the World Wide Web was the latest thing? MS had clue -10 about it. Despite the revisionist history they have tried to write, they missed the wave. Then all of a sudden, bg redirected the whole friggen company to focus on www applications and then proceded to tactically nuke netscape. I remember reading trade rag reports about ms's "about face" on the www, and the reporters using just that term a number of times. Okay, ramble, ramble, we all know that, etc. But the thing is, ms is like a large, slimy, somewhat foul-smelling invertebrate chia pet on steroids. Once it gets moving toward something, it just don't stop 'til it surrounds, stuns, and then dissolves its prey. While, of course, surrounding itself with a smoke screen upon which is displayed a peaceful country scene. And, like any other large, slimy organism, it sometimes takes a while to change directions and begin the hunt in earnest.
Of course, I could be wrong.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Actually, Linux competes in the Unix market, therefore it could be argued in court that Microsoft would be entering the Unix market.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Wasn't Microsoft complaining a while back about domain hijacking? They were taking certain domains back that they claim were infringing on their trademarks and such. What hypocrites.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
... it exists. It was developed at HP in-house
but never released as a product.
See, MicroSuck does not own the soul of HP.
Isn't it $70 now?
--
Hmmm. I guess most people here (including me) would support someone who ran a site called microshaft.com that contained anti-ms jokes, anti-ms truth, and anti-ms FUD in equal quantities.
But I would also support a site called linucks.com run by Microsoft that contained anti-linux jokes, anti-linux truth, and anti-linux FUD in equal quantities.
It's not a case of supporting the little guy against the big guy - it's a case of supporting free speech against spin and evangelism.
Anyway - that's not directly relevant - just curious to see how people would feel if MS _did_ do something like that.
-----
Yes - it would be interesting.
I think an MS linux distro is quite possible - remember that MS had xenix in the beginning, and they have never been averse to backing two horses if that seems sensible.
Also, I think MS may port DCOM to Linux, although that is less certain. No-one I know in the shrink-wrap development scene has much interest or faith in CORBA.
I think DCOM is a case of MS doing it badly but doing it better than anyone else, so unless CORBA really takes off, I think alot of the people who might start developing for KDE/GNOME would love to see a proven object model available.
Remember folks - outside of Unix, if it isn't OO, it isn't in the running.
-----
Err.. In the UK anyway, non-profit means just that - the company cannot make a profit - all revenue must be ploughed back into the company (as opposed to going to investors in the form of dividends, or to employees in the form of profit-based bonuses). So, in the long term, the company can only break even.
Non-profit organisations can be very lucrative things, of course. Large charities will employ people with 6 figure incomes, so long as they can justify that it's a reasonable way to spend the charity's funds.
-----
It's on the SciFi channel after Star Trek. Around 9pm maybe?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
That's funny...
/x" on NT and you'll see them.
I can still type cd \progra~1 and have it work on NTFS...
Actually do a "dir
"True Long Filenames" would be a filesystem with 1 filename per file.. Not 2.
E2FS has "True Long Filenames" 8)
-Jerry (jsegler@gerf.org)
SCO would have MS's ass if they got into the UNIX market. As UNIX-like as Linux may be, UNIX is a brand name. So in trade-agreement parlance, Linux wouldn't count.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Sorry, the name is really growing on me.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
None.
Microsoft stole all it's ideas from other companies. It won a precedent-setting lawsuit against apple over the copyright of Apple's "look & feel".
What they gonna do, claim fvwm95 or StarOffice or KDE stole the look&feel they stole from the Mac?
It would be funny to see them try.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Thank you for your interest in Linux.
[decapitatedpenguin.gif]
Your browser will now automatically be redirected to microsoft.com
please click here if your browser does not support redirects.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
What else would they be doing? They sure as hell wasn't going to be supporting the site to benefit Linux.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You see, MS signed a few agreements as part of their spinoff of SCO that were required for SEC reasons- one of them is that they don't go into the Unix market- ever.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In order for this to work, they'd have to proprietarize Linux and WINE. Since both seem to be GPLed items, distribution would REQUIRE distribution of the changes to the source code that make it "MS Linux". And if you don't think that someone would come up with either a normal lawsuit or a class-action over the violation of the GPL that would be needed by MS to make it happen- you're sadly mistaken. And it would be ugly for MS to attempt such a thing- especially at this point in time.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
they want to spread linux, help linux development and provide HOWTOs for sure
this realy makes sense
just another "small thing" which makes me almost hate M$
hany
i think that prety good ilustration of MS owning www.linux.com can be found at http://www.whitehouse.com/ :>
hany
IMHO MS is not planing to kill windows with ownership of linux.com. i think their plan is to infiltrate (with some MS Linux distribution) and after wide spread of such a think make som trojans into it (i.e. bugs, incompatibilities, ...) and after spreading such a thing too provide "easy upgrade from that bad linux to our nice windows "
OR
just spread not that good news about linux to the widespread so called computer users which are unable to see the diference between www.linux.org and www.linux.com
hany
MS have to fear knowledge - wide spread knowledge
why? beceuse they can't sell their products to people which know "how it works"
hany
there is MSIE available for UNIX. it is entry in UNIX market, isn't it?
hany
i personaly am aware of claim on any .com page while it means "commercial" therefore there can be thousands of reasons not to tell truth (or not to tell everything)
it does not mean that anything on .org is right because it is made by non-profit org. :)
hany
oh sorry. i forget about monika & bill :)
hany
Since my last post got deleted by SOMEONE...
/. advertiser without you post getting DELETED.
1) "Linux" is a trademarked name
2) Linux owns Linux (tm) regardless of who registered it.
3) Linux is a community effort, and proceeds for the sale of the domain name should go to the community at large. I'm sure for example it costs money to drive GNU.ORG, no?
4) Some of this money could go to Slashdot.org also so you can say something "un-politically correct" bad about a
It's plainly obvious Intel is trying to buy or muscle in so the Linux World Domination, if it happens, will ONLY take place on Intel processors. Intel buys off Be, and no PPC version... Intel buys out VA, and no Alpha or AMD versions...
Every popular revolution that has been thwarted, usually happens because the establishment co-opts the movement by inviting the "elite" for dinner. Microsoft and Intel are famous for this.
It's also exceptionally rude to censor someone's post without notifying them, even if after the fact. I'd like to see WHICH part of my post (in the linux.com article) was "Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated.".
:-(
correction:
2) LINUS owns Linux (tm) regardless of who registered it.
Just correcting typo before the spelling flames arive...
MS Linux would be available for $2 plus shipping at Cheapbytes.com. You could legally share your MS Linux CD with all your friends. The only way MS could prevent it would be to use a proprietary non-redistributable install program. If they did that, and you were the type of person willing to try Linux, why would you choose restricted MS-Linux rather than a distribution that you can do as you please with?
SCO could not do a thing if Microsoft touched the UNIX market. That particular agreement was made null and void in late 1997, much to SCO's relief (SCO was sick of having to keep their OSes XENIX-compatible)
In fact, IIRC, the fact that the SCO-Microsoft agreement was dissolved was a Slashdot article.
- Sam T.
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
Considering that MS did not outright deny making the bid, I think that Van Kempen is probably telling the truth about this point.
Been there, Done that, Sold the t-shirt to the next idiot in line
I honestly think this is dead on. When I saw that MS bid on the domain, I imediately thought 'why? So they can put out their own distro?' It makes sense, really. If they really wanted to, they could make Windows run on a Linux shell. Sure it would take a lot of work, but they've got an army of code monkeys to do it. It would help them recapture some of the server market, and they could improve (gasp) their home client OS.
So what if they have to open source the kernel? They no longer have to do all of the work of maintaining their own - the Linux army would do most of the work for them.
It may not (probably wouldn't) even be as stable as other distributions of Linux, but they would capture market share with 'their' version since they would have a lot of end-user software already compatible with it.
This is not to say that this would kill Linux, or even really hurt it, but it would slow its grwoth on the desktop market greatly, and even if Microsoft only retains what they have now in that arena, they will still be the big cheese for a long time.
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
Ok, that's just twisted. Demented. Sick.
And it made me laugh.
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
I'd have to wait to see MS-Linux before passing judgement... who knows it could be good!
But seriously, at least it would be linux and not DOS/NT
.
There's this new invention. By the way. It's called the COMMA. If I could only figure out how to use it. I could write compound and complete sentences.
.
[...]
:-/
or if all of europe had gone communist.
[...]
Actually - I have yet to see a *single* communist country on the face of this earth... So far, I've only seen some poor excuses for socialism. It's a bit like the old "hacker vs. cracker" thing, really.
Real communism is most likely condemmed to be a nice dream - like real christianity and other things with a high moral goal...
argathin
SCO would have Microsoft's ass on a platter if they did this, and you know it.
SCO would. It would be illegal for them to release anything Unix or remotely like Unix. Sorry, your paranoia and the same paranoia of the same thing coming from many other people is entirely invalid.
SCO owns the Unix source code. SCO also had some sort of legal agreement saying that Microsoft _can_not_ develop Unix. Doing so would get MS in yet another law suit. And they'd most certainly lose.
It was argued that it could be stated in court (if M$ does write its own Linux, which is unlikely) that Linux isn't UNIX. It could also be argued that court can say that Linux is a UNIX workalike, and acts like UNIX more than, say, DOS, or something else non-UNIX-ish. Being a FreeBSD user and having only limited Linux experienced, I bet I could run a Linux box with little extra reading. This is because they're both [like] UNIX.
Time for your TLD refresher.
.COM = Commercial website.
.ORG = Non-Profit organization.
Upon doing so, they would get themselves in "Yet Another (TM) Law Suit."
I see that your life sucks, though. At least your work life. I don't see how anybody can use Windows NT and be happy. Isn't Windows NT supposed to be the "Power User's" OS for both the workstation and the server? And isn't supposed to be so easy? How odd. My mom is completely computer illiterate and she likes using my FreeBSD box more than the Windows NT boxen at work. Why?
Oh, and the salary for a *IX admin tends to be way better than that for an NT admin.
SCO had the contract after Xenix. Go read up on it sometime.
Nope. It's `entry' into the browser market (even though everybody uses Netscape ...)
Microsoft won't do this. They aren't stupid. Microsoft is one of the smartest companies I've seen. Who else can sell total sh*t to its customers and still have the market by the neck?
CORBA is object oriented. I don't know where this myth came from....lets look at the code for DCOM IDL
// uuid and definition of IGrid1
// uuid and definition of IGrid2
// uuid and definition of type library
// uuid and definition of class
// multiple interfaces
// multiple inheritance of interfaces
;-)
[ object,
uuid(3CFDB283-CCC5-11D0-BA0B-00A0C90DF8BC),
helpstring("IGrid1 Interface"),
pointer_default(unique)
]
interface IGrid1 : IUnknown {
import "unknwn.idl";
HRESULT get([in] SHORT n, [in] SHORT m, [out] LONG *value);
HRESULT set([in] SHORT n, [in] SHORT m, [in] LONG value);
};
[ object,
uuid(3CFDB284-CCC5-11D0-BA0B-00A0C90DF8BC),
helpstring("IGrid2 Interface"),
pointer_default(unique)
]
interface IGrid2 : IUnknown {
import "unknwn.idl";
HRESULT reset([in] LONG value);
};
[ uuid(3CFDB281-CCC5-11D0-BA0B-00A0C90DF8BC),
version(1.0),
helpstring("grid 1.0 Type Library)
]
library GRIDLib
{
importlib("stdole32.tlb");
[ uuid(3CFDB287-CCC5-11D0-BA0B-00A0C90DF8BC),
helpstring("Grid Class")
]
coclass CGrid
{ [default] interface IGrid1;
interface IGrid2;
};
};
Now for A corba IDL
interface grid1
{
long get(in short n, in short m);
void set(in short n, in short m, in long value);
};
interface grid2
{
void reset(in long value);
};
interface grid: grid1, grid2
{
};
hmmmm....
CORBA is much better at cross platform than DCOM.
Also, CORBA supports true inheritance, etc.
I say stick with Corba...
IMHO.
Cheers,
Nick
LSG
Micros~1 feed the hype of Linux (recent articles in MS-press, e.g. ZD, praising Linux) until such a point that they release MS-Linux, riding the Linux wave.
What then happens of course is that Linux is "the next best thing" and MS is the "name no-one got fired for buying" and so...< insert logical conclusion here >
Why is it that many people who claim to support standards have such atrocious spelling and grammar?
If MS ever owns anything having to do with Linux, you can bet it would only be a matter of time before they began to subtly and not-so subtly imply that Linux was their idea in the first place. And millions of clueless idiots would believe it.
----
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
Gee, from that example, DCOM is obviously more OO than CORBA.
;)
<PAUSE TYPE="DRAMATIC">
It's longer, after all. And more complicated. The Micros~1 way!
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
No matter what the M$ idea was the mere attempt is a reasonable suspicion to be added to the DOJ case.
It will be a real pitty if Van Kempen does not ship ALL M$ proposals to DOJ immediately.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Had microsoft won the domain, we would have seen no end to the FUD.
If mircosoft smells money in Linux they will get their fingers in the pie regardless of what it takes. Its only a matter of time before the "embrace and extend" begins. I think whoever made the call of the end of the summer for some announcement was spot on.
It will be all spun up in a manner that supports their defense in the anti-trust suit to boot. Kind of a "look, not only are we not monopolistic, we are actively supporting the competition." Much as they have done with their straw-man competition, Apple.
Left shift 1 for e-mail...
Fred was looking for not only offers of money ;) Who knows, if anyone has Fred's email address I think they should ask him, I'd really like to know.
but 'plans' for what the people who wanted the domain wanted to use the site for. What I'd like to know is what MS submitted as their plan for the site? A mirror of www.fud.com?
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow...
Because.
-Augie
Hmmm, I wonder what such a beast would do to the Linux community. Just imagine if they actually did it right, and MS Linux was actually good. Just imagine what kind of Distrobution wars we would have. Oh lord, I think I see it comming, hmm, we had better prepare.
-Master Switch, one more element in the machine
Why is it so odd that HP put in a bid? HP has for a long time offered UNIX solutions to companies, it's quite understandable that they'd put in a bid.
$100 for two years. gnulix.com isn't registered to anyone yet.
Isn't it $70 now?
Yea, I think you are right about that. Seems gnulix.com is worth even less than I thought.
You've obviously never been to the DOS Shell in Windoze 95/98.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Yeah but then, unfortunately, he'd probably have to go after *all* of the other sites which use linux in the domain name. Otherwise they'd probably toss the case out onto the street, saying he hasn't enforced it in the past....
etc. etc. etc.
Blech. Signatures.
At least someone is watching the bastions for the invading hordes...
I've said this before in other forums - when you target M$, and score a hit, they eventually shoot back. They've got a big gun too - just ask Netscape.
The unfortunate fact is that there's nothing in the GPL that says "you can't use this if you are an agent for or employee of Microsoft (insert other legaleese)..." , so they can indeed produce thier own distro. Every one associated with Linux is about to have a lesson in Big Business, from the biggest, dirtiest player in the league.
Wake up, people. Be preparred to duke it out with a 800 pound Gorilla.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
We're assaulting the motherland, kids, not liberating a colony like Ghandi was. Windoze is the very foundation of the M$ machine, and as such OSS is threatening it's very survival. You had better belive that they'll try whatever they can to screw up, pre-empt, short circuit, fud to death and/or buy out Linux.
We should fake them out - feed Linux to them in a long protracted battle, and develop a killer FreeBSD on the sly. When they're done schlurping down Linux and look up from the plate, we deposit our newly honed OSS OS right between their eyes.
One other passing thought - what happens to the 2 trillion dollars (or what ever the Redmond behemoth is worth) when Linux starts killing Windoze? Makes you think that there's more people out there that will want to see Linux limited to the geeks....
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
It's a reference to 95/98/NT's bogus attempt at "long filenames". If you look at a long-named file under MS-DOS, you get the first 6 characters of the name, then a tilde and then a digit. If your directory listing in Win95 would look like, say:
then the same group of files in DOS come out as:
It's a Win95/NT/98-aware way of joking about the fact that you can't even fit Microsoft's name into the 8.3 format it enforced for so long (and still retains backward compatibility with).
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
URL? What's that, man? Is that, like, some geeky name for a websight address?
Sorry, I just had to do that. Normally, "Web Sight" makes me scream...
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
Hey, man, I trust Microsoft on a number of things...
Indeed, it sometimes feels like there's something almost algorithmic about MS's spin department. Often, they'll simply invert the truth -- they say Win98 (re)boots faster than 95; I've found the exact opposite. They say NT is scalable; we all know better.
I want to figure out their algorithm and reverse it to get a Microsoftian-to-truth converter. :-)
Kai MacTane: Web developer for hire in San Francisco
When MS-Linux is eventually released (and I would be surprised if a behemoth like Microsoft doesn't do *something* significant while they are sinking in the tar sands) we need to be diligent and remind the PHB's why the proprietary, closed source development model is not an ideal one for the software industry.
I just hope Microsoft doesn't react for at least two more years. That's all we need to reach impetus for the desktop.
Yea, I posted thhe origonal "M$ Linux" as anon from one of my school's dumb terminals...anyhow.
Lets take another look at it this way. M$ sees that they are losing some servers to OSes like RedHat and Slackware, and even face the possibility that some ppl might not continue on the NT bandwagon for security/overhead/etc.
They are already looking at getting rid of the shell in their newer OSes (I hear this one is being passed over for Windoze 2000).
They need a server OS that is fast, solid, and has a shell.
So...they go for Linux, custom make their installers, even make Wine-32 that's compatible with the "M$ OS Flavor of the Day" (M$ Linux only of course...it can be done, it just usually isn't). They get a kernel that is constantly being updated/changed/etc and a whole bunch of media publicity to boot.
They gain back the server systems and a few "power users" in the process...
Every company that is now running a UNIX flavor or Linux suddenly moves to M$ Linux.
If you don't think this would happen, you don't know how businesses run. They would rather stick with M$ OSes throughout their system. Sure, it wouldn't happen overnight, but it would happen. Especially if M$ started some sort of a support deal for companies switching from another UNIX flavor.
Since Linux contains no UNIX source code, and
Linux isn't branded with the 'UNIX' moniker,
MS wouldn't be entering the UNIX market.
Rather, they'd be entering the LINUX market.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
SCO is crap, but it is far from dead. Not only do they own the UNIX source, SCO actually leads the UNIX market in sales.
However, in case you didn't know, SCO is pretty much in bed with Microsoft. So much so that an MS VP sits on SCO's board. Sorry, I don't have the name right now, I did a report on this last year in my business law class.
What do you mean IF all of Europe had gone Communist? They just prefer to call the same philosophy by different names (EU, "The Third way", etc.)
I would agree with this. I think this could be "fuel for the fire" of the DOJ trial. It proves that M$ is using their monopolotive weight and $$$ thus acquired to "squash" the competition in any way it can.
;-)
I'm happily running Linux as an M$ free environment
-- DuckWing
What market? There is no Linux Market as far as 98% of the world is concerned. If you're the average Joe Loser what would you buy;
M$ Linux with a desktop you are used to (since they would force the Win9X desktop onto it) from a company who've heard of and will run M$ Office.
Or some tiny weird company called Red Hat whom
you've never heard of
I heard HP has taken the initiative in Merced Linux. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
Gotta get me one of these!
What else would they do? It's their corporate style. When FoxPro became better than any DBMS Microsoft could put out (Access 1.0), they bought out Fox Software. When it was clear that Quicken ruled the market and Money would go nowhere, they tried several times to buy out and take over Intuit.