Re: [Hampshire] Tombola of destiny

** Dr Adam J Trickett <adam.trickett@???> [2007-06-07 14:43]:
> On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 at 09:54:21AM +0000, Alan Pope wrote:
> > First Novell, now Xandros [0] Microsoft are """""protecting""""" Linux
> > users all over the place.
> >
> > Ok, who's next?
> >
> > Place your bets!
> >
> > I vote Mandriva.
>
> "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
>
> MS will team up with any small Linux company and any small linux company
> will team up with MS because they all have a mutual enemy in Red Hat. Some
> distro companies wont, but any that need the cash will take the money
> and run if they can.

I don't knowabout teaming up, from what I've read it sounds as though
Xandros approached Microsoft and are simply paying them for patent
protection. The whole thing with the MS patents in Linux sounds like a
reworking of the SCO fiasco, but MS are bigger and uglier to take on,
and they've gone for patents and decided not to push any legal action -
simply leave the worry there. More of a softly softly protection racket
really - not a "pay up or we'll sue", but a "pay up so you don't have
to worry that we might sue".

Perhaps Xandros are hoping that they'll be first in line when MS decide
they really need a Linux distribution of their own. Novell are too big
for MS to want to buy up for this, but Xandros are just the right size
of a tasty morcel of bought in inovation ;)

> "Companies don't have allies, only interests."
>
> MS and Sun teamed up with SCO against IBM and Linux. While IBM and
> Sun teamed up against MS on office formats. You can't trust anyone,
> even if you have a joint venture, and with big companies different
> divisions will openly act against each other...
>
> I expect more Linux distros to "sleep with the enemy" and as is often said
> after you shake hands with Microsoft count your fingers....

...and remember to count them on a regular basis in the future too.
** end quote [Dr Adam J Trickett]

--
Paul Tansom