Novell's chief executive has justified his company's contentious Microsoft hook-up to open source devotees by claiming the deal is critical to the long-term success of their favorite operating system.
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mattflaschen
16 years 36 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago
"Microsoft is a reality in that
"Microsoft is a reality in that mixed source world. The acceptance of mixed source by all of us is going to be a critical part of long-term success"
A critical part of the long-term success of proprietary software, that is. The question is whether that's what we want. Matt Asay has written (http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/04/on_now_on_to_a...) about how he used to talk up the "mixed source" message for Novell before quitting and deciding 100% open source was the way to go.
pogson
16 years 36 weeks 3 days 12 hours ago
M$ cannot even make a decent release
M$ cannot even make a decent release of its OS. It is coasting and nothing in which the FLOSS community should invest any energy. Agreeing to operate with lock-in is not freedom. It is not good long-term business planning. The world needs IT that works and gets the job done efficiently. Paying ten times what the stuff is worth is not efficient. Agreeing to operate in an inefficient manner guarantees failure.
Look at the cost of setting up an IT system with FLOSS and compare it with the cost with that other OS. A factor of two cannot be ignored. Businesses that compete with businesses with a lower cost of IT are at a severe disadvantage if the cost of IT is a major part of the cost of operation. I have seen organizations that spend $1000 per seat per annum keeping that other OS running. Some Linux shops spend $10 per seat per annum. $100 is typical. Why would anyone agree the burden of that other OS while competing in the real world? The future will soon be here and M$'s mode of operation will be a small part of reality.
A Linux distro that ties itself to that anchor will have a few years of growth and then fizzle. Short-term thinking does not foster change or adapt to change. Change is inevitable. Would any distro make such deals if M$'s share of the market were 15%? That is a real possibility and soon if Linux keeps growing as rapidly as it has without the M$ partnership. Look at all the past partners of M$ that have been trampled. Linux/FLOSS will not be another.