A lot of open source advocates like to rage against the machine at Microsoft, but when a former Microsoft Research employee says that Windows 7 won't stop Linux from market domination, that's an opinion to note.
Full story »A lot of open source advocates like to rage against the machine at Microsoft, but when a former Microsoft Research employee says that Windows 7 won't stop Linux from market domination, that's an opinion to note.
Full story »
lozz
14 years 23 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago
This is still rubbish
M$ was built on theft from the time the principals were still at school.
When bankers started giving them money to expand the scope of their operation they graduated to using lawyers to help them commit more legal forms of theft.
Then a great light dawned when they discovered patents. Now they write junk-patents to try to steal software before it even gets written.
They were never great innovators: just thieves.
The crowning jewel in their criminal scheme would be the successful heist of GNU/Linux and Free Software, This would give them the fully integrated Operating System that they have so sadly lacked throughout the course of their notorious career.
Ballmer knows GNU/Linux would be worth trillions to M$ and he's been green with envy for years.
Even Curtis can't get away from the basic M$-Think;
"programming can become similar to lawyer-ing"
Yeah, right.
Lanadapter
14 years 22 weeks 4 days 7 hours ago
Yeah, no
"Now they write junk-patents to try to steal software before it even gets written."
While it's true software patents are immoral, you cannot steal something that the victim never had.
Well, there goes me thinking I'd only have to point that out to the pro-IP crowd......
lozz
14 years 22 weeks 4 days 4 hours ago
Yeah, yes
M$ has a way. They seem to be filing speculative patents, describing processes that have yet to be developed, lately. Then they can collect if anyone else decides to develop a similar process.
The US Patent Office is happy to assist them in this unethical behaviour.
lverona
14 years 23 weeks 2 days 19 hours ago
Indeed
Thieves is too strong a word and many might see it as pure emotion with no rationale. I would put it differently - Microsoft was started as a business company, the primary goal of which is to earn money. People who run Microsoft are not interested so much in computers, their main interest is acquiring wealth and this fundamental priority is what explains all their actions. Bill Gates simply saw software as a business opportunity, nothing more.
Creating Microsoft Linux is unlikely due to company priority. It is impossible to acquire wealth in the Linux world - making a living - perhaps, but not making a fortune. Entering into the world of GLPed software is not possible for them - they live on a closed source product and lock in mechanism. They managed to win the desktop and the only reason they stay with their mediocre products is because software developers are locked in to the system, and people are locked in into windows only software.
As soon as Microsoft release Microsoft Linux, they would enter a real competition. A competition they are very unlikely to win. Windows is not a bad OS technically, it is mediocre. There worse systems and there are much better.
And today Microsoft is not competing. It is just making sure that the OS lock in is there. With Windows 7 it is nothing new. It is for many users an alright system. It is nothing special, just another operating system.
I would seriously question Microsoft can make trillions with Microsoft Linux. I really doubt it. And so do they. This is why to them GPL is a parasite. They are afraid of GPLed software for a very good reason.
lozz
14 years 22 weeks 4 days 4 hours ago
They did do that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates
Wikipedia presents a fairly toned down version of their activities at school, and Boycott Novell has emails where Gates admits thieving software from Xerox for his early M$ OS.
In fact, Boycott Novell maintains an excellent record of Microsoft's iniquities towards all other players in the software field; illegal, semi-legal, and all of them downright immoral.