From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (cthulhu.engr.sgi.com [192.26.80.2]) by neteng.engr.sgi.com (970903.SGI.8.8.7/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) via SMTP id KAA421571 for ; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:30:16 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: (from majordomo-owner@localhost) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (950413.SGI.8.6.12/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) id KAA18204 for linux-list; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:27:25 -0800 Received: from oz.engr.sgi.com (oz.engr.sgi.com [150.166.61.27]) by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (950413.SGI.8.6.12/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id KAA18188 for ; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:27:23 -0800 Received: (from ariel@localhost) by oz.engr.sgi.com (970903.SGI.8.8.7/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) id KAA54904 for linux@engr.sgi.com; Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:27:22 -0800 (PST) From: ariel@oz.engr.sgi.com (Ariel Faigon) Message-Id: <199712051827.KAA54904@oz.engr.sgi.com> Subject: M$ 's strategy against Linux: nightmare scenario To: linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (SGI/Linux mailing list) Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:27:22 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: ariel@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (Ariel Faigon) Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc. X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME5a] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk [One of my filters just hit this on comp.os.linux.misc I think the guy has a point and I thought it was interesting] Subject: M$'s strategy against Linux: nightmare scenario From: mito@aparima.com (Louis-David Mitterrand) Date: 4 Dec 1997 19:06:27 GMT Message-ID: Organization: Aparima inc. Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc , comp.os.linux.advocacy Using Linux every day, one never ceases to learn and be amazed at the creativity and cleverness of Linux contributors worldwide. This platform is seriously coming of age: some major institutions are starting to rely on it for production work. Like Microsoft software at some time, Linux entered the enterprise through the back door right under the nose of IT staff sometimes. Now network admins are discovering its reliability, "suits" never had a chance to veto it because it never was a budget item, engineering likes to work with it at home. Then one day you wake up and you realize Linux has become ubiquitously present in your enterprise without having been officially invited. And everybody learns to like the Penguin: friendly, never raises a fuss, does its job, doesn't eat much. OK, now what's next? Linux means business, *is* business. The coming of age is very real: RedHat 5.0 is winning rave reviews for its ease-of-use and idiot-proof installation "even easier than NT", the Wine project (windows emulator) is starting to make serious progress and some major win32 apps are beginning to work. It won't take much more than another year to see comprehensive support for Win95/NT apps under Linux. Next thing, people will ask "why shell out $800 for NT Server, when I can get the same more reliable services from a $50 RedHat CD? These MS support people never answer the phone anyway, and I can run Office97 with Wine." Hmmm.. I see a pattern there. NT 5.0 delayed (again..) and RedHat is there today. Anyway the next question I have is a major one (two): - now that Linux is starting to appear on MS's radar screen what is MS going to do about it? - How should the Linux community ensure Linux's future, freedom and copyrights against a big, greedy, powerful corporation whose central product (NT) is threatened by a free unix clone? I want to rely on Linux for everything I do in my little consulting operation. "rely" means I want to be sure nobody will be able to highjack Linux. Bill Gates is not a fool and he is certainly not one to underestimate the power of grassroots movements. I'm sure he already has a strategy to deal with Linux at some point. Or he is seriously thinking about one. The problem is: I bet this strategy doesn't rely on fair competition in open markets and feature-to-feature comparisons. Why? Simply because it is impossible to compete against the Linux community's talent pool on the basis of performance and features. And I'm deeply concerned. What is the man preparing? Call me a paranoid and I'll answer "only the paranoid survive" (dixit Andy Grove, 95% market share). One main concern I have is Transmeta, inc., Linus Torvalds' employer. This company is more or less controlled by Paul Allen, the Seattle billionaire and Microsoft founder. Mr Allen is still a MS board member and 10% (?) shareholder. Mr Allen is also one of Bill Gates' closest friends (is he has any) and confidants. Weren't they together on Fortune Magazine's cover less than a year ago? It is of public knowledge that they consult regularly one a variety of subjects, especially on the Microsoft Corporation strategy. Now in my nightmares a conversation between the two of them often recurs: - B.G: "Hey Paul, this guy Linus Torvalds is finishing his studies out there in Finland, the stuff he's making - this Linux OS - looks pretty neat, why don't you make him an offer he can't refuse?" - P.A: "No problem Bill, I'll park him at Transmeta, they're making hot stuff and I'll give him plenty of free time to keep developing this Linux thingy, under our watchful eye." - B.G: "Right. Then if it gets out of control we can buy you out and put our stamp on the stuff. After a couple years we can claim all this was developed on company time. Then we'll just merge it into NT." - P.A: "I'll give you an option to take over at $xxx,xxx,xxx." This is a nightmare scenario of course. I have a deep respect for Linus' work and way of managing the kernel development. But isn't he a bit young and inexperienced against the West Coast's big guns? Hasen't he fell into a huge trap? Imagine Microsoft taking over Transmeta at some point in the (not so distant) future and saying that Linux code is tainted with MS copyrighted code because Linus worked on it while at Transmeta (now an MS affiliate)... Imagine RedHat, Caldera, Debian obliged to take down their FTP servers because of the legal tangle about Linux... Even if MS is rebutted in court and Linux comes out clean as *truly free* software it will take at least two years (or more) to clear out the smoke. Meanwhile NT will have made major inroads everywhere. And the Linux threat will be seriously diminished. I hear people yelling "how about the GNU license you dork?". Hmm.. and I answer: has anybody challenged the GPL in the courts? Has the FSF ever had to defend it against a mean, influential and deep-pocketed corporation? Like Stalin asking "The Pope? How many armored divisions?" I ask "GNU? How many lawyers, lobbyists, cash-on-hand at the bank? Up to now nobody cared about GNU software. No software company saw it as a threat. These bearded, suspender-wearing UN*X idealists didn't bother anybody. Today GNU software is becoming essential and a competitive threat. SUN should be even more worried than MS on that count. Please somebody tell me this nightmare scenario is just plain stupid, impossible and I'll be happy and go away and sleep better... Cheers. -- Louis-David Mitterrand mito@m2.sprynet.com -- Peace, Ariel From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: From: ariel@oz.engr.sgi.com (Ariel Faigon) Message-ID: <199712051827.KAA54904@oz.engr.sgi.com> Subject: M$ 's strategy against Linux: nightmare scenario Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 10:27:22 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: ariel@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (Ariel Faigon) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com To: SGI/Linux mailing list Message-ID: <19971205182722.vy6NGIu6xRhXcaiH4LVxf9nmwJAce9ywuNJlKJ-GRzY@z> [One of my filters just hit this on comp.os.linux.misc I think the guy has a point and I thought it was interesting] Subject: M$'s strategy against Linux: nightmare scenario From: mito@aparima.com (Louis-David Mitterrand) Date: 4 Dec 1997 19:06:27 GMT Message-ID: Organization: Aparima inc. Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc , comp.os.linux.advocacy Using Linux every day, one never ceases to learn and be amazed at the creativity and cleverness of Linux contributors worldwide. This platform is seriously coming of age: some major institutions are starting to rely on it for production work. Like Microsoft software at some time, Linux entered the enterprise through the back door right under the nose of IT staff sometimes. Now network admins are discovering its reliability, "suits" never had a chance to veto it because it never was a budget item, engineering likes to work with it at home. Then one day you wake up and you realize Linux has become ubiquitously present in your enterprise without having been officially invited. And everybody learns to like the Penguin: friendly, never raises a fuss, does its job, doesn't eat much. OK, now what's next? Linux means business, *is* business. The coming of age is very real: RedHat 5.0 is winning rave reviews for its ease-of-use and idiot-proof installation "even easier than NT", the Wine project (windows emulator) is starting to make serious progress and some major win32 apps are beginning to work. It won't take much more than another year to see comprehensive support for Win95/NT apps under Linux. Next thing, people will ask "why shell out $800 for NT Server, when I can get the same more reliable services from a $50 RedHat CD? These MS support people never answer the phone anyway, and I can run Office97 with Wine." Hmmm.. I see a pattern there. NT 5.0 delayed (again..) and RedHat is there today. Anyway the next question I have is a major one (two): - now that Linux is starting to appear on MS's radar screen what is MS going to do about it? - How should the Linux community ensure Linux's future, freedom and copyrights against a big, greedy, powerful corporation whose central product (NT) is threatened by a free unix clone? I want to rely on Linux for everything I do in my little consulting operation. "rely" means I want to be sure nobody will be able to highjack Linux. Bill Gates is not a fool and he is certainly not one to underestimate the power of grassroots movements. I'm sure he already has a strategy to deal with Linux at some point. Or he is seriously thinking about one. The problem is: I bet this strategy doesn't rely on fair competition in open markets and feature-to-feature comparisons. Why? Simply because it is impossible to compete against the Linux community's talent pool on the basis of performance and features. And I'm deeply concerned. What is the man preparing? Call me a paranoid and I'll answer "only the paranoid survive" (dixit Andy Grove, 95% market share). One main concern I have is Transmeta, inc., Linus Torvalds' employer. This company is more or less controlled by Paul Allen, the Seattle billionaire and Microsoft founder. Mr Allen is still a MS board member and 10% (?) shareholder. Mr Allen is also one of Bill Gates' closest friends (is he has any) and confidants. Weren't they together on Fortune Magazine's cover less than a year ago? It is of public knowledge that they consult regularly one a variety of subjects, especially on the Microsoft Corporation strategy. Now in my nightmares a conversation between the two of them often recurs: - B.G: "Hey Paul, this guy Linus Torvalds is finishing his studies out there in Finland, the stuff he's making - this Linux OS - looks pretty neat, why don't you make him an offer he can't refuse?" - P.A: "No problem Bill, I'll park him at Transmeta, they're making hot stuff and I'll give him plenty of free time to keep developing this Linux thingy, under our watchful eye." - B.G: "Right. Then if it gets out of control we can buy you out and put our stamp on the stuff. After a couple years we can claim all this was developed on company time. Then we'll just merge it into NT." - P.A: "I'll give you an option to take over at $xxx,xxx,xxx." This is a nightmare scenario of course. I have a deep respect for Linus' work and way of managing the kernel development. But isn't he a bit young and inexperienced against the West Coast's big guns? Hasen't he fell into a huge trap? Imagine Microsoft taking over Transmeta at some point in the (not so distant) future and saying that Linux code is tainted with MS copyrighted code because Linus worked on it while at Transmeta (now an MS affiliate)... Imagine RedHat, Caldera, Debian obliged to take down their FTP servers because of the legal tangle about Linux... Even if MS is rebutted in court and Linux comes out clean as *truly free* software it will take at least two years (or more) to clear out the smoke. Meanwhile NT will have made major inroads everywhere. And the Linux threat will be seriously diminished. I hear people yelling "how about the GNU license you dork?". Hmm.. and I answer: has anybody challenged the GPL in the courts? Has the FSF ever had to defend it against a mean, influential and deep-pocketed corporation? Like Stalin asking "The Pope? How many armored divisions?" I ask "GNU? How many lawyers, lobbyists, cash-on-hand at the bank? Up to now nobody cared about GNU software. No software company saw it as a threat. These bearded, suspender-wearing UN*X idealists didn't bother anybody. Today GNU software is becoming essential and a competitive threat. SUN should be even more worried than MS on that count. Please somebody tell me this nightmare scenario is just plain stupid, impossible and I'll be happy and go away and sleep better... Cheers. -- Louis-David Mitterrand mito@m2.sprynet.com -- Peace, Ariel