Re: The latest Microsoft FUD. This time from BillG, himself.

Henning P. Schmiedehausen
2001-06-21T08:37:29Z

Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com> writes:

>What would be wrong with Microsoft/Linux? It would be:

Nothing, but...

> a) the Linux kernel
> b) the Microsoft API ported to X
> c) Microsoft apps
> d) Linux apps

>Since Microsoft is all about making money, it doesn't matter if they
>charge for the dll's or the OS, either one is fine, you can't run Word
>without them. If you don't need the Microsoft apps, you could strip

... I would bet, they will try to give you a binary-only kernel module
that must be loaded or else the M$ Word .NET for Linux will not
run. Because they can not license check or something...

>For the last 10 years, Unix has gotten the OS right and the apps wrong
>and Microsoft has gotten the apps right and the OS wrong. Seems like
>there is potential for a win-win.

3:1 that M$ thinks along the same ways. The (now probably called off)
split-up of M$ into an OS and an applications company would've
accelerated this move very much.

It's BTW, what I tell people around me since four years on a more or
less regular base... :-) (check older mails, you'll see that I got
lots of heat for thinking so).

I, personally, would love to see Office, Outlook and Quicken for
Linux. No, not clones. The real thing. Those are about the only
reasons I have to keep a blown up typewriter (aka NT Server) as a
pet. And getting these applications as competition, it would boost the
development and quality (!) of the free alternatives as well. I'd love
to see IE5.5 for Linux, too.

Devils' advocate position: If Linux would not be under GPL but under
BSD license, M$ may have already done so. But consider them porting
one of their monster applications and release it just to find out that
they've linked to GNU readline somewhere because of an QM oversight.

I'd guess, to them, the risk of having their core code base (their
source of revenue) "infected by the GNU virus" is just too high.

Hmmm. After all, they're already using FreeBSD. Maybe they will
release "Windows for FreeBSD" with Office. Now that would be an
interesting impact on Linux (I would be over there in seconds =:-) )

Regards
Henning

--
Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- Geschaeftsfuehrer
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