On 2003-03-05, Eli Billauer wrote: > My original argument was that if Linux becomes too popular, bad things > may happen. And if "Microsoft Linux" would be marketed agressively, it > would be the first time most people would ever hear about Linux. (Most > people are "your grandma"). > I think, if they do base something on Linux, they will make very sure it's not called so :-). That's actually more subtle and harder to rebuke attack: people will see MS has something that works well (right, as if they won't break it in the process :) without knowing the credit is not due to MS.
> There would be one version of Linux, being distributed for money by > Microsoft, with less and less open software on it, and then there would > be "those guys" who play with something that "looks like Microsoft > Linux", but you can't run anything on it, and nothing works with it. > I can run on it all the things I run today. It "looks like MS Windoze" to those who don't understand already and "nothing works on it" as far as they are concerned. Things can't become any worse than they are today (and they are not bad): Linux runs everything I need. If MS makes any sort of MS Linux, the effort to port to true Linux will be smaller than porting any windows app today. > Now what happens when everyone thinks that Microsoft invented Linux? (as > most of my non-computeroid friends think that the idea of Windows was > invented by Microsoft) > Linus still holds the trademark and that can be applied in extreme cases, e.g. if MicroSoft actually claims something like that [IANAL]. > You can rule out every scenario I bring by showing that it's not 100% > with the licence, but if we realize what has already been done by > Microsoft and friends, and where it got them -- are we really out of danger? > What is the danger here, really? They can't take the free software from me. They can only give another unfree software to those that already use their unfree software. So what? -- Beni Cherniavsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I'm too lazy to use GUI - why should I click all these things to get my job done? ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
