from http://aboutlinux.com/art_mslinux_a.html Strange Bedfellows: Microsoft will own 4% of Corel/Inprise by William Henning Editor, AboutLinux Copyright February 17, 2000 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Introduction I've been reading a lot about the Corel/Inprise merger lately. I think the merger could be good for the Linux community; Inprise has been making a lot of interesting moves lately - including announcing that Interbase v.6 will be open source software (for which they deserve a lot of credit; see www.interbase.com for more details). Their database, development tool and Corba expertise should help Corel's Linux efforts - and since Inprise and Corel are contributing to Open Source (Inprise, Corel's installer / file manager / etc.) there is no reason to think that the merged company will not continue to support Open Source software. I was reading Doc Searls Power to the Client earlier today; it is a great interview with Dale Fuller of Corel/Inprise at Linux Journal; and something jumped out at me: "Under Fuller, Inprise moved to reestablish the Borland brand (calling itself Inprise/Borland or vice versa), and resolved patent disputes with Microsoft. He also worked out a deal in which Microsoft agreed to license Inprise technology for about $100 million and purchase a 10% stake for another $25 million. He also made the decision to open the source code to InterBase and start the Kylix project, which would move the company's most popular development tools to the Linux platform, where they will run natively (due mid-year). And, like Corel, he repositioned Inprise as a Linux company." Now even though I hold Linux Journal in high regard I wanted to check on this before I wrote about what strange bedfellows mergers make so off I went to the Inprise web site where I poked through their old press releases. -------------------------------------------------- Mark Fearer * C:\DOS [EMAIL PROTECTED] * C:\DOS\RUN http://www.fearernet.com/mfearer * RUN\DOS\RUN ********************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text in the *body* (*not* the subject line) of the letter: unsubscribe gnhlug **********************************************************
