Microsoft would like to buy Linux

Must be a poor day in MS, missing brains, Linux IS free but limited for non-commercial redistribution,that's why they don't know how to handle it. Look what they done to the bought Unix (NT in their own lingo).

Stanislaw Whom Windows95 converted to Linux, bless you MS.

Linux may be distributed both commercially and non-commercially. Red Hat, for example, has many commercial Linux offerings.

Perhaps you meant "limited to non-PROPRIETARY distribution"? That's a completely different word, you know, with a completely different meaning.

Even so, you can certainly distribute proprietary applications on Linux. Look at Oracle for Linux, for example.

The ways in which those two OS companies send their products on market are sooooo diverse that you either follow what you _must_ or you chose what _you_ can and like to use. To each his own. And I chose to use this tool, as I can do what I need not being reminded every few moments, when connected to the www. to get permission(s) to read the next screen. I paid in hard cash for the OS, not for kindergarten teacher to remind me to 'behave', to some standards which changed since I left school. For me Vista is RIP. But Win98se is used (sometimes) to perform as a program in ways that are too much of a bother to teach Linux to do it. And don't say NT, I have one Unix clone on my box and it serves my needs.

Have fun.

Stanislaw Slack12 user from Ulladulla.

No problem. They can go down to the local bookstore and buy a copy.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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The GPL would cause Microsoft some serious problems if they really wanted to pull this off. There is no central 'rights holder' who could restrict owners (those who have purchased or downloaded copies) rights to use, modify, and redistribute copies.

Microsoft would have to purchase every copy out there. If one slipped by, its owner could go into business burning copies and starting the whole movement over again.

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Paul Hovnanian	paul@hovnanian.com
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On a sunny day (Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:03:32 -0700) it happened "Paul Hovnanian P.E." wrote in :

At the risk of being wrong... I did read today that a federal judge has ruled that not SCO, but Novel holds the copyright on Unix. As Novel is in bed with Microsoft these days, and sort of cross-licencing, ownership of Unix comes nearer to them (MS), all they have to do is take over Novel. Hostile or not hostile, then they could play the same game SCO - IBM as MS - IBM.

Something sucks in all this. As far as the GPL goes, [and] there is now GPL3, it may make little difference if MS sells Unix with a service contract.

The gist of it all is, that as things become more important, then the big companies and governments grab them.

I would be surprised if MS started selling Linux soft I wrote, or contributed to, On one hand it is nice for the ego, but on the other hand I wannebee rich too. LOL :-)

Well, it's your fault for giving them permission to do so, then.

Well, ummm....

NT did not start out as Unix. NT started out as OS/2; until XP there was an 'os2krnl.exe', which was an RMX scheduler. Microsoft did buy an AT&T source license for Unix, which they sold as Xenix.

I've read some of the memos regarding open source software. Aside from the marketing "stuff", there are 2 real reasons MS won't get any where near Linux:

1) If there was a chance some GPL'd code got into one of their products, they could be forced to release the rest of their code. 2) They can't figure out how to make money from it.

Cheers.

On a sunny day (11 Aug 2007 23:36:21 -0400) it happened DJ Delorie wrote in :

I have released a lot of stuff under GPL2, and contributed to some stuff under GPL2. If MS decides to make a Linux distro, sold with a service contract for many $$$ including that GPL2 stuff, then there is nothing I can do.

Even if I started making different non compatible versions so it would only work with my stuff ... like Redhat did (libc for example)... it would not work. They (MS) would split and create their own branch.

If I see this right, then the existence of Redhat is now in danger too, unless the make allies with MS.

I will have to have a look at GPL3 again. Or sell Redhat short.

No, they'd just have to pay damages for copyright infringement, the same is if they incorporated any other code without permission (cf. Stacker).

This is a little confused. NT was designed "from the ground up" by David Cutler and others; it was largely influenced by Dave's former work on VMS. At that point in time, *it was not at all clear* which *API* was going to be the predominant/"winning" choice among programmers; indeed, many people thought that numerous would continue to flourish. As such, NT was designed to be able to support multiple programming APIs, including OS/2's, some base-line UNIX models, and of course DOS. Over time, as Microsoft took over the world, they dropped support for OS/2 and UNIX.

Not that NT was originally designed as somewhat CPU-neutral as well, with its hardware abstraction layer (HAL) and all -- at one point it ran on all of x86, Alphas, and MIPS.

---Joel

From how I interpret the GPL, you're _allowed_ to distribute proprietary wrappers, apps, eye candy, etc - the only part that _has to be_ open source is the part that's already open source when you get it.

Which is why I don't understand why M$ hasn't jumped on it, unless it's a pride thing.

Cheers! Rich

If two works are mere aggregates, like two independent programs on one cd-rom, the licenses are independent - the fact that one is GPL doesn't mean that they both have to be GPL.

If two works are combined into one work, like linking a library into an application, if either is GPL the combined work as a whole must be distributed under GPL-compatible terms.

However, my original post was to clarify that the GPL says nothing about *commercial* distribution - it certainly allows you to charge a fee for the GPL'd programs you distribute, provided you do so under the GPL's terms (minimal fees for source distribution, etc). People think that "free software" means "costs no money" but that just isn't true - it may, but it doesn't have to.

Yes, but you can't restrict someone who has a GPL'd piece of software from going out and making it free to everyone, so any "successful" GPL'd piece of software will eventually end up in the "costs no money" camp.

Realistically I think it's much harder for someone writing GPL code to make a living (writing that code) than it is for someone writing commercial software to do so.

Well, I work for Red Hat, so I'm kinda biased ;-)

I really like the saying, "Free software isn't like free beers, it's more like free speech." ;-)

Cheers! Rich

I think Slackware (and probably most other Linux distros) has it right - you can download the whole thing for free, or you can buy a 4-CD set that includes the source code and comes with an instruction manual on the CD. About the only difference is the boot disk, which comes with the CD set, but you have to make your own if you D/L it.

I paid $40.00 once for Slackware and two Linux books, but was kind of disappointed that the books were merely a dead-tree copy of the HOWTOs. (which come with the distro anyway.)

I wonder if we can talk Win Hill and Mr. Horowitz into putting AoE on-line, but set it up where they can get paid for the answers to the exercises. ;-)

Win? What do you think?

Cheers! Rich

I bought a copy of Redmond^H^H^H^Hhat a couple of years ago, and it gave me the creeps.

When I ran the install, it didn't even offer me the choice of what partition I wanted to install it on, let alone fdisk!

I didn't install it - I got out my old Slack 3.3 and installed it instead. I let the Redmond^H^H^H^Hnay sit on the shelf for awhile, then gave it away.

Howcome it's so microsoftish? Going for Aunt Tillie-friendly? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Well, no; NT came from DEC's VMS operating system:

Here's the history of OS/2:

Finally, RMX was a real-time executive written by Intel, not intended at all for the PC at any time, and completely unrelated to either NT or OS/2.

I know nothing about Windows internals (been on linux for several years), but even google couldn't help with 'os2krnl.exe'.

John Perry