Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (1156 mails)

[weissel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Wolfgang Weisselberg)]

Hi!

Trying to kill the keyboard, jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxx produced:
> Don't tell anyone I said this; I'd get burned at the stake if this slipped into
> say, the SuSE list (G) but why doesn't M$ distribute Linux in an NT/Unix
> bundle?  *Then* they can boast about integration.  They can add on to the open
> source kernel, keep their addons proprietary (as long as that will last) and
> people will love Linux because, "Hey, it's Microsoft"

Well, actually, doing that is kind of ... near impossible, luckily, thanks
to the GPL. They can make proprietary programs and run them under Linux. But
they can't make a program which is partly (or partly derived) from Linux
code and not make it GPL'd, too. Meaning they'd had to give out the code,
allow everyone to give it away, copy it, munge it, and then sell it/give it
away ... and with the kind of source M$ produces, they just can't do that,
people would ROFLOLAndDie ... or scream in horror.

They can't even use libraries under the GPL for proprietary programs (but
proprietary programs are allowed to be linked to libraries under the
GPLibraryL).

Anyway, M$ will not successfully be able to make a stand where open sourced
programms are better, faster, much more stable ... etc. E.g. compare
sendmail to M$ Exchange ... 

-Wolfgang


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