If on the other side you just want a single file or subdirectory, say in a large gigabyte size repo with graphics, textures and stuff, you have kind of a problem with git.
As designed. Git is "Source Code Management" system. Please note the magic "Source Code" words.
You shouldn't put in the things you can't diff.
And believe me - you do not want to put such stuff into SVN either. I do not think it was optimized to handle huge binary files. Many commercial systems do optimize blob handing, but believe me, performance anyway degrades quickly so much that you would avoid using the repo at all costs.
P.S. Actually I had in experience in past with SVN and blobs. In one project we had single repo for everything: GUI apps, system libraries and home-brew custom OS (what I worked with). In some cases we had to checkout everything and during the process there was one notable file: Visio diagram (~5MB) for GUI application workflow. I wasn't checking how much revisions the diagram had, yet its checkout was taking >30 seconds. At first I thought that svn client/server hanged. Asked my friend whether svn server is alive and by the time he tested svn server, my svn client came back to life.
Really the only one of note is that Git isn't so great at having multiple projects in the one repository [...]
That's plain taking things out of context. KDE organization was named... stupid? ugly?... because they in some places have repo for single directory. What is pretty much stupid and ugly.
As well, while Linus mentioned that having many projects in single repo isn't that great, he also mentioned that no practical limit was hit yet. With Linux kernel or imported whole KDE tree, Git still performed better than anything else.
Also note that the speech is quite old - it is more than 1.5 years old. Many things have changed since then.
This one is shorter. (hint/trick: 'localtime' should be called in scalar() context (."\n" implies that) to out user readable date; perldoc -f localtime).
2.6 supports more hardware that 2.4 - especially embedded hardware. Several architectures in 2.6 (ARM, PPC) went through restructuring to allow easily add another board/module support.
And more importantly - for "mass market" - with 2.6 you also get much much better support from hardware vendors. In 2.4 times market was only heating up. Now, in 2.6 times, the embedded Linux market is full swing. You would be hard pressed to find H/W vendor who doesn't support Linux now - but only few of them do support 2.4 now.
If you're doing embedded systems in mass market volume, it's a matter of hardware requirements and cost per unit.
If you are talking about memory consumption, then think again. In past years I haven't seen embedded system with less than 64MB RAM. When I asked "isn't it expensive? we can run on less RAM." I got a response that when buying in any kind of volumes, 32MB or less vs. 64MB make pretty much no difference. Cheap RAM is dirt cheap nowadays.
Add here fact that 2.4 has numerous problems in its virtual memory implementation, meaning that on less RAM 2.6 would run better than 2.4. And do not forget that in 2.6 kernel is truly modular - you can't remove I believe only PCI bus support, rest is optional - you can further decrease kernel image size and its memory footprint.
Oh yeah. The article mentions the Just Say No: No Keyboard, No Monitor, No Wires. That was really bothersome in 2.4 times that kernel couldn't be used without video and keyboard.
Framebuffer in 2.6 is really cool, compared to old 2.4 times when it was doing some weird things without possibility to change the hardcoded behavior. We had the fun with 2.4 when due to driver problems, embedded system was mixing up LCD screens: touch screen was actually showing Linux console. [N.B. reaction of manager who first witnessed the bug was surprising - he wasn't surprised at all. He was seeing Linux console and knew that system was running Linux so having instead of touch screen Linux console appeared to him absolutely OK]. IIRC we had to use trick with fbmem to avoid that happening on target system.
From all I heard (I was in embedded business only in 2.2/2.4 times) that 2.6 integrated some number of patches from embedded folks and generally can be customized to run on smaller number of resources. Also, the improved I/O (much lower latencies) and scheduler (interactivity; soft-real-time) would benefit in embedded too. 2.4 has number of problem related to memory management, when virtual memory subsystem can easily grab half of available RAM - only for supporting virtual memory. 2.6 solved the problem for most architectures.
Generally, many embedded folks moved to 2.6 already - mainly due to support for more new OTS hardware. 2.4 has this support only through vendor patches (e.g. I used in past BlueCat and MontaVista patches).
In my experience changing kernel on embedded system is quite easy task. Using development system within couple of days you can come up with suitable minimal.config (one needs development system since on target embedded systems might not have sufficient resources to run vanilla kernel). Generally it would either work or not. Normally it works.
Also note that H/W vendors started being more active in 2.6 times. In 2.4 times best shot at Linux driver was some crude port from e.g. LynxOS or VxWorks. From all I know, 2.6 now supports more PowerPC system than did patch from MontaVista for 2.4 I used three years ago.
Last, but not least, if you are looking at new modules, many hardware vendors supply Linux compatibility information. 2 years ago finding module with "Linux compatibility" chapter in documentation wasn't a problem at all.
I was simply giving an example. Nothing more. NT time vs. Unix time makes not much difference.
Time conversions e.g. hardware clock to OS time (where Zune30 borked) are by no mean trivial functions anymore as they were in past: DST, leap years, non-leap years and now leap seconds. Probability of coding error are pretty high and even testing not always helps since people also tends to make mistakes on date calculations.
MP3Tunes looks like it's following the idea of 'You gave it away so we can give it away too'.
I thought that was called "non-discriminatory" condition. If party X gave party A something on particular conditions, it can't refuse to give party B the same thing on same conditions.
Essentially, PM3Tunes say that they are being discriminated. IANAL so have no clue whether it is applicable.
Try RTS "Total Annihilation." (I doubt you can buy it now - but it is still available on torrents.)
The "micromanagement" word didn't exist in the times yet. TA solved the problem beautifully by allowing you to automate pretty much all units and (!) all buildings. This is also the only RTS where "Patrol" command is useful.
Played it many times. Still have it installed. Still enjoy it.
P.S. Remake called "Supreme Commander" unfortunately was not up to the level of original. Not to mention - extremely slow and buggy. Also graphics was problematic: essentially, you never see your units (since they game made unit sizes proportionate: imaging real scale of battleship vs. rover) - only geometrical figures on strategical screen (which is only usable view). Since GPG moved on to next game, I doubt they'll patch the game anymore.
Well, one can say that AMD is still paying debt to F/LOSS for spurring adoption of AMD64, especially in server space where before AMD wasn't present at all and now a major player.
Or probably they learned how to use F/LOSS community to their own advantage. After all for AMD it is another way to outsource driver development.
Frankly, given current proportion of nVidia vs. ATI install base, seeing that traffic in ATI related Linux forums outpaces similar nVidia forums by magnitude of 10 (and no, the messages are not all complains) I see that AMD/ATI gained quite publicity. If one build Linux box now, temptation to include ATI card - even for nVidia fan - is very real. Two years ago there were no question at all: nVidia was Linux standard.
I use nVidia right now and can confirm that they are buggy as hell. And they always were: I had in past Riva128 and TNT2. I have tried to use couple of advanced features (e.g. profiles trying to ease switching from plain dual head to dual head with my HDTV) only to find that they work probably once out of ten times. Often leaving system in unusable state. Sometimes crashing OS completely.
Back in old days (Rage128, Rage Pro) ATI though sucked hard on performance side was always of better driver and graphics quality. (And functioning video playback acceleration they implemented first.) Then it changed: ATI tried to catch up with performance of nVidia h/w and driver quality degraded very much (esp with 3D games). Now ATI started again properly polishing their drivers (in 38x0 times) and their quality now apparently is on par with nVidia.
N.B. most industry uses nVidia and only few of game companies actually test thoroughly with ATI cards: problems experienced by users often relate to that lack of QA. Some cases of lacking performance also sometimes relate to in-game optimizations favoring nVidia 3D implementation.
Quality of drivers - just like any other software - is never constant.
The whole point of RTFA is that ATI released now more or less complete documentation for R600 and R700 chips. (One more document is still internally waiting for final approval).
ATI already did what everybody asked it about. Now the ball in hand of OSS community to develop driver for the cards.
I'll now try to buy ATI cards where it makes sense
With ATI 48x0 cards, it makes sense anyway: or you want to tank AMD for the OSS work or you want best price/performance ratio GPU available today. It is very hard to be wrong with the cards, unless you are a very demanding pedant with too much money.
Can you name an Intel chip comparable to e.g. ATI RV7x0 (found in 48x0 cards)?
Intel video is 2D or 2.5D at best. Here we're talking about currently one of the fastest GPUs available. Obviously amount of info needed to program Intel driver vs. ATI 48x0 driver would differ by magnitudes.
I used Natural Elite before. But I spilled a beer on it and wasn't able to bring all keys to work back. I spilled on ASZX keys, yet right half of functional keys stopped working.
Now they are in tight supply: MS doesn't produce them anymore and MS Natural Ergonomic was only thing I could find as fitting replacement.
My wild guess that MS didn't managed to sort the mess around "Insert" key in Windows, so they simply started removing it from their keyboards.
In past, if anybody can recall MFC library, main application window always had in right low corner indicator for status of "INS". MFC and indicator are gone now, yet most of Windows applications would happily switch between insert and replace editing modes on press of "Insert". That gets very messy when one tries to insert missing word in middle of line, but before by accident hitting "Insert" (e.g. in Outlook with its dysfunctional Undo).
Keyboards made in "past 27 years" minus keyboards made in past 2 years. MS started killing off "Insert" key on their keyboards and now some new Logitech and Genius keyboards have simply bigger "Del" key too, but no "Insert". Many ergonomic keyboards produced now do not have "Insert" key. All new ergonomic keyboards from MS do not have "Insert" key. But thankfully they still sell old models.
Split keyboards normally means keyboards which are literally split. Google images for "split keyboard".
I use to call "MS Natural Ergonomic" line a "butterfly keyboards."
As to your question... No, have never seen such keyboard. If you really want to have something like this, I guess your best shot is to go after producers offering highly customizable and split keyboards. Google for "split keyboard" - there are some number of producers. Also, you might want to start with image search: there are number of shops poisoning results, with image search it is easier to filter out junk.
Compare previous PR "Vista Beta CD" with new PR "Windows 7 with free notebook." Using car analogy: to test new iPod dock, Apple started giving away BMWs.
P.S. Also notice that no single review ever complained by installation process of Windows 7. With Vista number of glitches due to missing drivers was big.
It was reported all over the net: under Windows 7 review program, bloggers and journalists received copy of Windows 7 - installed on new and quite good laptops. No precise date is set on when they have to return the lappies back to Redmond.
a) Push development on their platforms like.NET onto Linux, so that even Linux developers will be developing for Windows and will be in their control, and in turn have some sort of control over Linux software and the Linux ecosystem.
I doubt with Linux zoo of languages C# would make any huge splash.
But frankly, I'd say ".Net on Linux" has also positive side effects: Windows devels, bound by their jobs into Windows, now have a choice. And I have more than one friend who tried Linux solely to try their.Net app on Linux.
Point here is that Linux community should try to gain from deal to the fullest. Seeing what's happening now with Java, I doubt that in the end M$ would have any control over Linux or its ecosystem. If they push.Net too hard, they might become victim of its own popularity.
b) Push their "patent protection" scam. These days, you can buy any kind of insurance you want, even patent protection insurance! There's no end to the number of individuals waiting to take your money for false senses of security.
Here I can only hope for best. Recent rulings on patents and prior art (C# is conceptually not far from Smalltalk) mean that M$ would have hard time to enforce its patents. More than one analyst said already that M$ has no chances to enforce its patents and will not risk enforcing the patents: most if not all of the patents would be invalidated quite quickly.
Also I think that GPL provides enough protection to end-users and essentially leaves the burden of responsibility on Novell. The day Novell would choose to pass responsibility to end users - would be the last day of Novell in business. They can't be that stupid as to lose trust of its users and (most importantly) paying customers.
c) EVIL. But seriously I'm sure there's all kinds of reasons.
There is no argument that M$ will ever do something for free and likely would try to cash in if any opportunity would arise.
As.Net goes, due to its limited application field (mainly GUI applications) there is little possible harm to Linux ecosystem.
Or, as I'm always tempted to say: I do not care, I use IceWM and/or KDE;)
Sun ships some GNU software with the OS and also has a "companion CD" for download that contains common GNU and other open source software not shipped with the OS. Their high performance compiler suite is also free and runs on both Solaris and Linux.
If it's not installed by default - it's useless. Hardware configuration (OS is part of which) is often frozen shortly after servers pass all tests.
Or even if config isn't frozen yet, good luck kissing asses of all admins and their managers to install anything on the servers.
Huge servers are generally bought to run some huge expensive software. Such software is always comes with huge responsibility. That means if system runs - nobody would ever touch - least install - single piece of anything extra on the systems. Because down-times can easily cost you a job.
For the both Solaris and HP-UX servers, usually default setup is production setup. Default setup of both is absolutely useless as daily work goes.
M$ might keep the deal floating for sole purpose to have something next time they are sued for desktop/server OS monopoly.
On other side, connections of M$ are so deep rooted in IT industry, that I guess that you can't buy a PC without ever using a single component produced by company not dealing with M$.
Yes, they are evil. Yes, we have to keep our eye on them. But you can't go around without ever coming into contact with them.
P.S. Actually on several occasions M$ was spotted to actually signing - often dummy - deals with pretty much everybody, including innocent bystanders on side roads. So when another company tried to find unaffiliated with M$ party - as e.g. witness in court - they couldn't.
Slashdot Mirror
If on the other side you just want a single file or subdirectory, say in a large gigabyte size repo with graphics, textures and stuff, you have kind of a problem with git.
As designed. Git is "Source Code Management" system. Please note the magic "Source Code" words.
You shouldn't put in the things you can't diff.
And believe me - you do not want to put such stuff into SVN either. I do not think it was optimized to handle huge binary files. Many commercial systems do optimize blob handing, but believe me, performance anyway degrades quickly so much that you would avoid using the repo at all costs.
P.S. Actually I had in experience in past with SVN and blobs. In one project we had single repo for everything: GUI apps, system libraries and home-brew custom OS (what I worked with). In some cases we had to checkout everything and during the process there was one notable file: Visio diagram (~5MB) for GUI application workflow. I wasn't checking how much revisions the diagram had, yet its checkout was taking >30 seconds. At first I thought that svn client/server hanged. Asked my friend whether svn server is alive and by the time he tested svn server, my svn client came back to life.
Really the only one of note is that Git isn't so great at having multiple projects in the one repository [...]
That's plain taking things out of context. KDE organization was named ... stupid? ugly? ... because they in some places have repo for single directory. What is pretty much stupid and ugly.
As well, while Linus mentioned that having many projects in single repo isn't that great, he also mentioned that no practical limit was hit yet. With Linux kernel or imported whole KDE tree, Git still performed better than anything else.
Also note that the speech is quite old - it is more than 1.5 years old. Many things have changed since then.
$ perl -e 'print localtime()."\n"'
This one is shorter. (hint/trick: 'localtime' should be called in scalar() context (."\n" implies that) to out user readable date; perldoc -f localtime).
What you are talking about???
2.6 supports more hardware that 2.4 - especially embedded hardware. Several architectures in 2.6 (ARM, PPC) went through restructuring to allow easily add another board/module support.
And more importantly - for "mass market" - with 2.6 you also get much much better support from hardware vendors. In 2.4 times market was only heating up. Now, in 2.6 times, the embedded Linux market is full swing. You would be hard pressed to find H/W vendor who doesn't support Linux now - but only few of them do support 2.4 now.
If you're doing embedded systems in mass market volume, it's a matter of hardware requirements and cost per unit.
If you are talking about memory consumption, then think again. In past years I haven't seen embedded system with less than 64MB RAM. When I asked "isn't it expensive? we can run on less RAM." I got a response that when buying in any kind of volumes, 32MB or less vs. 64MB make pretty much no difference. Cheap RAM is dirt cheap nowadays.
Add here fact that 2.4 has numerous problems in its virtual memory implementation, meaning that on less RAM 2.6 would run better than 2.4. And do not forget that in 2.6 kernel is truly modular - you can't remove I believe only PCI bus support, rest is optional - you can further decrease kernel image size and its memory footprint.
Oh yeah. The article mentions the Just Say No: No Keyboard, No Monitor, No Wires. That was really bothersome in 2.4 times that kernel couldn't be used without video and keyboard.
Framebuffer in 2.6 is really cool, compared to old 2.4 times when it was doing some weird things without possibility to change the hardcoded behavior. We had the fun with 2.4 when due to driver problems, embedded system was mixing up LCD screens: touch screen was actually showing Linux console. [N.B. reaction of manager who first witnessed the bug was surprising - he wasn't surprised at all. He was seeing Linux console and knew that system was running Linux so having instead of touch screen Linux console appeared to him absolutely OK]. IIRC we had to use trick with fbmem to avoid that happening on target system.
No clue what gp meant.
From all I heard (I was in embedded business only in 2.2/2.4 times) that 2.6 integrated some number of patches from embedded folks and generally can be customized to run on smaller number of resources. Also, the improved I/O (much lower latencies) and scheduler (interactivity; soft-real-time) would benefit in embedded too. 2.4 has number of problem related to memory management, when virtual memory subsystem can easily grab half of available RAM - only for supporting virtual memory. 2.6 solved the problem for most architectures.
Generally, many embedded folks moved to 2.6 already - mainly due to support for more new OTS hardware. 2.4 has this support only through vendor patches (e.g. I used in past BlueCat and MontaVista patches).
In my experience changing kernel on embedded system is quite easy task. Using development system within couple of days you can come up with suitable minimal .config (one needs development system since on target embedded systems might not have sufficient resources to run vanilla kernel). Generally it would either work or not. Normally it works.
Also note that H/W vendors started being more active in 2.6 times. In 2.4 times best shot at Linux driver was some crude port from e.g. LynxOS or VxWorks. From all I know, 2.6 now supports more PowerPC system than did patch from MontaVista for 2.4 I used three years ago.
Last, but not least, if you are looking at new modules, many hardware vendors supply Linux compatibility information. 2 years ago finding module with "Linux compatibility" chapter in documentation wasn't a problem at all.
I was simply giving an example. Nothing more. NT time vs. Unix time makes not much difference.
Time conversions e.g. hardware clock to OS time (where Zune30 borked) are by no mean trivial functions anymore as they were in past: DST, leap years, non-leap years and now leap seconds. Probability of coding error are pretty high and even testing not always helps since people also tends to make mistakes on date calculations.
Try once yourself to code conversion from "seconds since 1/1/1970 00:00:00" to any other user digestible presentation.
It's not as easy as it might seem.
MP3Tunes looks like it's following the idea of 'You gave it away so we can give it away too'.
I thought that was called "non-discriminatory" condition. If party X gave party A something on particular conditions, it can't refuse to give party B the same thing on same conditions.
Essentially, PM3Tunes say that they are being discriminated. IANAL so have no clue whether it is applicable.
Try RTS "Total Annihilation." (I doubt you can buy it now - but it is still available on torrents.)
The "micromanagement" word didn't exist in the times yet. TA solved the problem beautifully by allowing you to automate pretty much all units and (!) all buildings. This is also the only RTS where "Patrol" command is useful.
Played it many times. Still have it installed. Still enjoy it.
P.S. Remake called "Supreme Commander" unfortunately was not up to the level of original. Not to mention - extremely slow and buggy. Also graphics was problematic: essentially, you never see your units (since they game made unit sizes proportionate: imaging real scale of battleship vs. rover) - only geometrical figures on strategical screen (which is only usable view). Since GPG moved on to next game, I doubt they'll patch the game anymore.
Well, one can say that AMD is still paying debt to F/LOSS for spurring adoption of AMD64, especially in server space where before AMD wasn't present at all and now a major player.
Or probably they learned how to use F/LOSS community to their own advantage. After all for AMD it is another way to outsource driver development.
Frankly, given current proportion of nVidia vs. ATI install base, seeing that traffic in ATI related Linux forums outpaces similar nVidia forums by magnitude of 10 (and no, the messages are not all complains) I see that AMD/ATI gained quite publicity. If one build Linux box now, temptation to include ATI card - even for nVidia fan - is very real. Two years ago there were no question at all: nVidia was Linux standard.
And so never nVidia drivers were.
I use nVidia right now and can confirm that they are buggy as hell. And they always were: I had in past Riva128 and TNT2. I have tried to use couple of advanced features (e.g. profiles trying to ease switching from plain dual head to dual head with my HDTV) only to find that they work probably once out of ten times. Often leaving system in unusable state. Sometimes crashing OS completely.
Back in old days (Rage128, Rage Pro) ATI though sucked hard on performance side was always of better driver and graphics quality. (And functioning video playback acceleration they implemented first.) Then it changed: ATI tried to catch up with performance of nVidia h/w and driver quality degraded very much (esp with 3D games). Now ATI started again properly polishing their drivers (in 38x0 times) and their quality now apparently is on par with nVidia.
N.B. most industry uses nVidia and only few of game companies actually test thoroughly with ATI cards: problems experienced by users often relate to that lack of QA. Some cases of lacking performance also sometimes relate to in-game optimizations favoring nVidia 3D implementation.
Quality of drivers - just like any other software - is never constant.
ATI needs to release far more to overtake them.
The whole point of RTFA is that ATI released now more or less complete documentation for R600 and R700 chips. (One more document is still internally waiting for final approval).
ATI already did what everybody asked it about. Now the ball in hand of OSS community to develop driver for the cards.
I'll now try to buy ATI cards where it makes sense
With ATI 48x0 cards, it makes sense anyway: or you want to tank AMD for the OSS work or you want best price/performance ratio GPU available today. It is very hard to be wrong with the cards, unless you are a very demanding pedant with too much money.
Can you name an Intel chip comparable to e.g. ATI RV7x0 (found in 48x0 cards)?
Intel video is 2D or 2.5D at best. Here we're talking about currently one of the fastest GPUs available. Obviously amount of info needed to program Intel driver vs. ATI 48x0 driver would differ by magnitudes.
I used Natural Elite before. But I spilled a beer on it and wasn't able to bring all keys to work back. I spilled on ASZX keys, yet right half of functional keys stopped working.
Now they are in tight supply: MS doesn't produce them anymore and MS Natural Ergonomic was only thing I could find as fitting replacement.
My wild guess that MS didn't managed to sort the mess around "Insert" key in Windows, so they simply started removing it from their keyboards.
In past, if anybody can recall MFC library, main application window always had in right low corner indicator for status of "INS". MFC and indicator are gone now, yet most of Windows applications would happily switch between insert and replace editing modes on press of "Insert". That gets very messy when one tries to insert missing word in middle of line, but before by accident hitting "Insert" (e.g. in Outlook with its dysfunctional Undo).
Keyboards made in "past 27 years" minus keyboards made in past 2 years. MS started killing off "Insert" key on their keyboards and now some new Logitech and Genius keyboards have simply bigger "Del" key too, but no "Insert". Many ergonomic keyboards produced now do not have "Insert" key. All new ergonomic keyboards from MS do not have "Insert" key. But thankfully they still sell old models.
Split keyboards normally means keyboards which are literally split. Google images for "split keyboard".
I use to call "MS Natural Ergonomic" line a "butterfly keyboards."
As to your question... No, have never seen such keyboard. If you really want to have something like this, I guess your best shot is to go after producers offering highly customizable and split keyboards. Google for "split keyboard" - there are some number of producers. Also, you might want to start with image search: there are number of shops poisoning results, with image search it is easier to filter out junk.
Let's ses...
* Best Generic Keyboards
* Best Macro Gaming Keyboards
* Best Hybrid Gaming Keyboards
* Best Keyboard Gamepads
* Best Media Center Keyboards
For "Best Keyboard for Work" I nominate "Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000"
Pros: very reliable; mostly Linux friendly; has "Insert" key (VIM friendly).
Cons: "F Lock" nonsense; no USB hub.
Compare previous PR "Vista Beta CD" with new PR "Windows 7 with free notebook." Using car analogy: to test new iPod dock, Apple started giving away BMWs.
P.S. Also notice that no single review ever complained by installation process of Windows 7. With Vista number of glitches due to missing drivers was big.
It was reported all over the net: under Windows 7 review program, bloggers and journalists received copy of Windows 7 - installed on new and quite good laptops. No precise date is set on when they have to return the lappies back to Redmond.
a) Push development on their platforms like .NET onto Linux, so that even Linux developers will be developing for Windows and will be in their control, and in turn have some sort of control over Linux software and the Linux ecosystem.
I doubt with Linux zoo of languages C# would make any huge splash.
But frankly, I'd say ".Net on Linux" has also positive side effects: Windows devels, bound by their jobs into Windows, now have a choice. And I have more than one friend who tried Linux solely to try their .Net app on Linux.
Point here is that Linux community should try to gain from deal to the fullest. Seeing what's happening now with Java, I doubt that in the end M$ would have any control over Linux or its ecosystem. If they push .Net too hard, they might become victim of its own popularity.
b) Push their "patent protection" scam. These days, you can buy any kind of insurance you want, even patent protection insurance! There's no end to the number of individuals waiting to take your money for false senses of security.
Here I can only hope for best. Recent rulings on patents and prior art (C# is conceptually not far from Smalltalk) mean that M$ would have hard time to enforce its patents. More than one analyst said already that M$ has no chances to enforce its patents and will not risk enforcing the patents: most if not all of the patents would be invalidated quite quickly.
Also I think that GPL provides enough protection to end-users and essentially leaves the burden of responsibility on Novell. The day Novell would choose to pass responsibility to end users - would be the last day of Novell in business. They can't be that stupid as to lose trust of its users and (most importantly) paying customers.
c) EVIL. But seriously I'm sure there's all kinds of reasons.
There is no argument that M$ will ever do something for free and likely would try to cash in if any opportunity would arise.
As .Net goes, due to its limited application field (mainly GUI applications) there is little possible harm to Linux ecosystem.
Or, as I'm always tempted to say: I do not care, I use IceWM and/or KDE ;)
Sun ships some GNU software with the OS and also has a "companion CD" for download that contains common GNU and other open source software not shipped with the OS. Their high performance compiler suite is also free and runs on both Solaris and Linux.
If it's not installed by default - it's useless. Hardware configuration (OS is part of which) is often frozen shortly after servers pass all tests.
Or even if config isn't frozen yet, good luck kissing asses of all admins and their managers to install anything on the servers.
Huge servers are generally bought to run some huge expensive software. Such software is always comes with huge responsibility. That means if system runs - nobody would ever touch - least install - single piece of anything extra on the systems. Because down-times can easily cost you a job.
For the both Solaris and HP-UX servers, usually default setup is production setup. Default setup of both is absolutely useless as daily work goes.
M$ might keep the deal floating for sole purpose to have something next time they are sued for desktop/server OS monopoly.
On other side, connections of M$ are so deep rooted in IT industry, that I guess that you can't buy a PC without ever using a single component produced by company not dealing with M$.
Yes, they are evil. Yes, we have to keep our eye on them. But you can't go around without ever coming into contact with them.
P.S. Actually on several occasions M$ was spotted to actually signing - often dummy - deals with pretty much everybody, including innocent bystanders on side roads. So when another company tried to find unaffiliated with M$ party - as e.g. witness in court - they couldn't.