You mean like MS having A. nothing to do with the Linux ideals and B. their products being piss water?

Something like that lol, but I strongly doubt they're ever going to release a "Microsoft Linux." They've spent too much time stating that Linux runs completely counter to their business model. Why would they cave now? It just doesn't make sense.

No it wouldn't. That would be like Coca-Cola releasing Sprite, because some people didn't drink cola and instead prefered citrus drinks, like 7UP. BTW, how much 7UP do you see these days? Not like you used to in the 80s, that's for sure. A better example would be Coca-Coloa Co. and Pepsico. releasing their own "energy drink" brands (which they have both done, BTW), to make sure up-starts didn't capitalize on that new market. If someone has decided to not drink soda, why try to keep shoving soda in their face? There are some customers that no amount of marketing will convince, so instead of trying to get them to switch what they drink to something that you make, why not make something that they want to drink?

Another way Microsoft could attack Linux is by restructuring their OS licensing and support model. If they made licensing much more simple and brought down the overall cost, the justification for going with something else would evaporate in the minds of most CIOs. Much corporate use of Linux is a rejection of the outrageous cost of operating systems from the big software vendors, like Microsoft, IBM, Sun, etc. Why would Oracle start offering support for Red Hat if it was simply the same thing? They think the incentive to go Linux is a cost incentive, so they believe by charging a fraction of what Red Hat does, they can lure away a non-trivial amount of Red Hat's customers.

Avoid the temptation to buy-in to arm-chair litigators on /., etc. People who do not work in a specific area of industry are nearly hopeless to try to understand it. Also, do not think that because individuals might find "the underdog" endearing and shun "the man", that corporations feel the same way. Executives want safe choices, and in most cases the safest choice is the biggest, baddest vendor who has the market share and the money in the bank to prove their stability. Linux might be the feel-good choice for some of the techy community, but when you get paid to run multi-billion dollar operations, you don't want the "feel-good" choice, you want the "sleep soundly at night knowing it's safe from litigation" choice.

I know a lot of posters on this site think I'm negative, and to a degree I am, but I'm just trying to warn you what's in the real world. A lot of members of this site are still in school and have no idea how businesses really work, or if you are employed, a lot of them are entry-level jobs. Yes, there are some grizzled veterans around, but those are the minority here, and on many pop-culture open-source sites. The better prepared you are for the "Real World(tm)", the less disillusioned you will be, and the better equipped to fit into a corporate environment.

I'm not saying Open Source doesn't have a place in big business; I'm just saying that big business doesn't buy software because they see it as some utopian vision for the future. Also, "open-source friendly" big businesses aren't that way because they love Linux, they're friendly because they're using Linux to increase their profitability, and that's the end of their investment.

There used to be a good joke website setup at http://www.mslinux.org/ which talked about a MS Linux Distro and stuff that it would have, etc, as well as "news" stories about current events like microsoft building monkey colonies on Mars or something. It was up long before the whole MS/Novell stuff.

Unfortunately, the website seems to be gone down now. I wonder if they were pressured by someone into removing the site? I wouldn't even be surprised if MS wanted the domain name or something.

Or maybe MS bought 'em off. http://whois.domaintools.com/mslinux.org
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_rep...ww.mslinux.org

If you're lucky, you can get it to come up on archive.org but it takes hours.

Well most people turned a blind eye that from windows 3.11 to win95 the big graphical difference was windows stealing the Mac desktop. Though for some reason I always like the old windows clutter way of doing business. Then Linux started making a more "Windows" looking desktop. The funny thing to me was that during the Mac OS X change over. Macs suddenly became highly customized Linux boxes. Wow.

So lets say for the sake of argument Microshot makes a linux distro. Well I mean since Novell was losing in the network world they shifted to the OS business. Suddenly MSLinux is sold on store shelves. They re-engineer wine or some other MS cross over App. I mean really lets say we can get real games on linux. EA starts making linux versions of their software. Periphials are made with drivers for linux. We are starting to look at a world where MS does what it does best. Coercing the world into making their jobs easier. I mean they sell the tech support while all the oss programmers churn out software. It would be fesible to see that.

A current business model similar is already in place. All Macs are doing is taking Linux software and making sure it runs on their machines right? They do not make new and innovative software. The just control the environment to make it easier for developers and the end users. Hell Mac made a big deal after finding the first virus for mac in like 5 years. Maybe they have not had a virus because as far as I know linux does not get viruses. Or at least not enough to worry about. So what would it take to send MS down this road?

Lets think it starts as a way to make MS more available to more users. Buy our distro and you get the benefit of using all this stuff that you can not use right now. For instance the ability to know you can have a driver for every device you buy for your computer. So linux users start going well.... its not like I am running windows. I get the best of both worlds. Then next thing you know MS starts making innovation for linux. Making it easier for morons to use linux. Then next thing you know. There are no more Windows releases. Just convient programs that are backwards compatible with your old windows software.

Thats not too bad in my book. No worse than Machintosh's business model.

Feeling uneasy? If I were using suse I'd perhaps have a re-think.
My gran had a nice young chap call at the door on one occasion they had a nice conversation only later did she realise that his lousy scum of an accomplice had broken in at the back....Suse/Novell is now infected.

To say they are infected is a bit wrong. They definitely have bad bed fellows as of late. I liked Suse before any of this. The reason SuSE is doing this is because they have become coporate by having novell by them out in the first place.

But there is something with having goal oriented jerks running the system that gives them the urge to fix issues. Linux as a whol;e has issues. The linux community is sorely filled with the "good enough" bug. Let put out a product that does what its supposed to do. Well that is good enough.... its free anyway so why should anyone complain. It seems like because the SuSE distros have big money backers at least they tend to tie up their problems. 10.2 OpenSuSE is one of the best distros I have used. In the last 7 years I have drifted from distro to distro. Now I have found something I like.

And to tell you the truth.... if M$ started making a linux I wouldn't be suprised if things started looking more legit. I only wish Macintosh would release a copy of their linux for us PC users. I would buy it.

I am optimistic about Linux in the future.I think that Windows will disappear after a while.Do not ask me how is this going to happen.It is just a probability,which MS does not even think of...

I don't think Windows will disappear. But I fully expect it to morph into something totally different from what it is today. Even Microsoft is starting to realize the power of open source. Look at their document templates.

I have to admit that during the 80's and 90's no one would have thought of IBM becoming almost nothing. Sometimes the winds of change happens too quickly for large companies. Mac is only hanging on by beating iPod to death. Truly now they are using intel processors and linux OS. What are they as far as computers go?

You may very well be right. When you think of it lots of things are like that in business. One day your on top of the world and next someone has come up with something that you just never seem to stay on top of. Tandy disappeared like that also.

You know. If M$ manages to sue a Linux vendor for infringing "intellectual property" (which is a load of BS) then wouldn't IBM be able to nail M$ to the wall for infringing on OS/2 ?

I read somewhere that these kind of lawsuits will make things hard for the future of computer users. If say Microslobs sued a linux vendor and won. Then all any computer giant would have to do is take a small company to court over intellectual rights. They would not even have to win. Most small companies could not afford drawn out legal battles. MS has lawyers sitting around looking for something to do.

That would be a sad day in the Cyber World. Imagine coming up witha new website but when you start it google sues you for taking their idea.

One of the most-overlooked characteristics of the Linux system is that it is built from many parts, loosely-joined.

For example, on my system the "kernel image" is about 2 megabytes. Surrounding that kernel are many more megabytes of other software, most of which was (in my case) selected for the purpose. I basically choose not to run anything that I don't need, but then again I do run Gentoo.

Anyhow, the question becomes "where does all this content come from?" Quite a lot of it, strangely enough, came from the Defense industry or from public institutions which contributed the core content gratis partly because it was "public property." Legions of developers have contributed improvements to it.

Realistically speaking, when vast amounts of source-code are exposed to public review, the "line between copying and inspiration" becomes blurred. The notion of "owning something" is necessarily linked to the words "free and clear," and in such a collaborative environment these words become quite vague. And, though lawyers might not like to admit it, that sword cuts both ways. This is also something that the U. S. Patent laws still do not properly consider.

Companies that do develop software sometimes do not intend to reveal the methods and/or the source-code used to build it, because their revenue-models are not set up that way. (And if you intend to pay your employees, or to get paid, then you have to pay attention to your revenue model!!) We need to provide a legal setting that is conducive to them, too. No, in my opine, it's not "heresy" to say that.

But at the same time, Microsoft in particular needs to be conciliatory to the open-source world that is now so-effectively eating their lunch. Cooperation, not threats of phalanxes of lawyers, should be the order of the day. (And frankly, Microsoft might need to trim back its expenditures on lawyers!)

We are all engaged in an engineering pursuit intended to serve customers, and cooperative development of software is proving able to take this industry where it must be able to go. Our .. mutual .. customers demand it. This is emphatically not the time for needless obstructionism.

Okay, maybe we don't need to quite land in "hug harbor" like one of the latest Apple ads suggests, but "Mac" and "PC" [and "Penguin"] really are in the same business and we'd all better start acting the part.