On 29-May-98 Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
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
Well, it *can't* be impossible to make a commercial venture out of distributing/adding value to Linux because companies like SuSE and Caldera are doing it.
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,
Ah perhaps I was unclear/partially wrong. I meant _keep_ the open source kernel as-is and build tools and apps around it.
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 ...
Yet exc{HANG}e is selling. Better, faster, more stable doesn't necessarily sell. I look at something like Netscape, they sold it (for a while) and it was completely proprietary. And [at least on the WingDings platform] it wasn't half as stable as M$IE. I think Microsoft is going to do all of this without being a distributor anyways. NetShow is just the start... --- jonathan@aracnet.net <A HREF="http://members.xoom.com/JMarkevich"><A HREF="http://members.xoom.com/JMarkevich</A">http://members.xoom.com/JMarkevich</A</A>> Westheimer's Discovery: A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library. -- To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e