Re: Faustian Pact between Novell and Microsoft

["Jeffrey V. Merkey" <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com>]

Petr Baudis wrote:

>>It's official.  Microsoft and Novell will now fork Linux.
>>    
>>
>
>(It's not clear what do you mean by "fork Linux". You mean fork the
>kernel? Basically all the normal distributions are "forking the kernel"
>and it seems to work fine. If not the kernel, it's even less clear.)
>
>But I guess I just take you too seriously. ;-)
>
>  
>
No problem. I was shocked to see it happen, but I left Novell 10 years 
ago trying to make
the same thing happen between the two, so today for me the future took 
root in the
present. Seriously, Novell has a limited lifespan unless acquired, and 
an M$ acquisition
would be a good thing for the company. Given the resources both 
companies have, I
would expect the see them take Linux in another direction. Linux is just 
out there floating
with no good anchorage for long term survival -- a lot like Novell. 1 + 
1 = 0 in this case,
but with M$ assimilating it, 1 + 1 + 1 = 5 is possible.

At any rate, the Linux folks working for M$ is not an outcome I would 
have expected, but
I was happy to hear it. Let's see what M$ comes up with as a Linux 
knockoff and see who
uses it.

Jeff