-----Original Message-----
From: Javilk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Saturday, November 14, 1998 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: WC:>: Open Source Philosophy Model?
>> But I also have no doubt that they will fail. I said years ago
>> that Microsoft was about to run into a buzz saw when they plugged
>> themselves into the 'net; that now seems to be coming true, and I
>> couldn't be more happy about it.
>>
>> And I think it's already started. Ask yourself: just what is
>> Microsoft going to sell? Their have two products: software and support.
>
> Linux.
>
> Don't laugh. There is nothing to keep them from bastardizing it, and
>selling it as an add-on or with a patented official Windows add-on and/or
>porting all their Windows apps. If IBM can sell computers with INTEL
>CPU's... Besides, Linux support can be a very good market.
I doubt MS would sell their own linux disto. For one they would have to
release
the source code for us to tinker with. I don't think they would like the
idea of
millions of people looking at their code.
If they did go into linux ... I wonder what they would charge for a free OS
....
> (Listen, I predicted the fall of the Soviet Union before the Gorby
>visit. Unfortunately, I was only joking, trying to get the people I was
>working with to think outside the box. They thought I was nuts! So was
>Tom Clancy's scenario of the gun battle outside the soviet white house in
>Red Storm Rising. Sure... and we only saw the Russian army shoot an
>artillery shell through the window of that building _live_ on TV how many
>years later??? Remember all the paper that flew out the window after that
>shell exploded? It made the cover of Newsweek, or was it Time, as well.)
>
> If MS is a distribution company, and has a history of
>stealing/buying/bastardizing products, then it is logical to assume that
>when they can't beat Linux, they will acquire and bastardize it, porting
>everything to it.
>
> Look at it this way, the opportunity of Merced, is forcing you to
>upgrade everything. Moving to a new and better operating system is
>another opportunity to force you to upgrade everything too! (Are you
>listening, MS? Port Everything! Not everyone is going to buy Merced.
>Port your tools to Linux, and you have a huge market!)
>
> Worst case, they acquire the source, modify it to use their FAT file
>system, add a few compatible calls to run legacy applications, and boom,
>we have MS Linux as a "known high caliber" product. That crashes a few
>times a week, as opposed to Window's few times a day, or Linux's few times
>a year. (I just had a crash -- the power failed and all my clocks and
>reset. Not even Linux can operate without voltage. I know my main Linux
>box was up over 18 days before the crash.)
>
> Best case, they just port their tool products, and set themselves up
>as a major Linux distributor, offering MS style support and training.
>
> OR... they can try to destroy the RNA, the standards, by trying to
>extend them. But realistically, as you pointed out, there are hundreds of
>developers per each MS employee. So they either sell Linux, or like the
>cell that hosts a virus, die. There is too much of a price performance
>differential between the products.
>
> Their only alternative to selling Linux, is to move into patented
>algorithms and file formats in high price vertical markets, or getting
>pork bills passed in Congress mandating specifications in federally funded
>projects, much the same way the railroads did. They can try that, but
>they are already known as the bad boys, the congressional pork angle won't
>work, the crows come home to roost.
>
> Funny, how someone predicted just this scenario some ten years ago,
>saying Unix would finally catch on, and MS, backing the wrong standards,
>would end up suffering. Though I think they predicted the bulk of the
>Unix stuff would come from Japan.
>
>- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----------------------------
>-------- MS asks "Where do you want to go?" -------
>------- Linux asks "What do you want to do?" ------
>-- It is doers, not goers, who built this world! --
>--------- Member: http://www.svlug.org/ -----------
>
>
>
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