Microsoft teams with Linux distributor Xandros

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You're Asking the Wrong People

"Can't we all just get along?" is not a question to ask the FOSS community. It's a question to ask Microsoft. They are the ones who seek to embrace, extend and extinguish the common standards that everybody else uses. Or develop their own standards that are incompatible with the commonly agreed-upon standards.

It's not surprising. They are now a CONVICTED predatory monopoly and cannot survive on a level playing field where they have to compete on the merits of their products. They have to have a captive market to survive. Which means that they cannot TRULY cooperate for two way interoperability.

As for GPLv3 (ignoring your gratuitous insults), while the Linux kernel is under GPLv2 and probably will remain that way for some time, many other parts are not. The Linux kernel can't even boot itself. It relies on other programs to be able to boot. The GNU Utilities (by no means a small or insignificant part of a Linux distribution) are anticipated to go GPLv3 as soon as the license is finalized. Samba and probably others will follow very shortly. Sure, the last GPLv2 versions can be forked and continued that way--that's what software freedom is about. But sooner than later, the GPLv3 versions (which will be supported by the community) will become superior to the forked GPLv2 versions, and people will be wanting distributions with the better versions. So sooner than later, Microsoft is going to have to face up to the realities of living in a GPLv3 FOSS world.

Just like they're going to have to cough up some patent numbers if they're going to have any street cred with their saber-rattling.

Posted by: dumptux   Posted on: 06/04/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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