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Microsoft to Buy Red Hat Linux
- Thread starter Daveway
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LOL, when I saw this, I thought it was a continuation of your thread where your friend convinced you that Apple was closing its doors. 
Yes, idle speculation... I could see MS taking a stake in a company that did Linux, but I'm not sure what buying one would do for them. With MS, they usually buy companies to get at either code or development talent, don't they? I don't know if RedHat has any great developers, but buying a Linux company for its code is kind of like buying a public library so you can read the books.
Yes, idle speculation... I could see MS taking a stake in a company that did Linux, but I'm not sure what buying one would do for them. With MS, they usually buy companies to get at either code or development talent, don't they? I don't know if RedHat has any great developers, but buying a Linux company for its code is kind of like buying a public library so you can read the books.
mkrishnan said:
Code or development? You forgot about the third and main reason--Competition. Remember Netscape? Never bought them.
I can see MS, buying RedHat, just like they bought Virtual PC.
Apple should buy them, and if they don't I have lost all respect!
1) The story seems like crap.
2) I'm not sure why people aren't more aware that Red Hat's employees are responsible for a LOT of what people think of as "Linux". Development on the kernel and its modules, X11, large chunks of Gnome and the "Freedesktop.org" work - there's been a lot of heavy development done by the Red Hat folks over the years. Just for kicks, Google "Alan Cox" or "Havoc Pennington" sometime.
People tend to think that Linux is all being put together by volunteers and hobbyists, but it just ain't so. Now the OSS projects that seem cool and then peter out after a couple of years... those are being developed by the volunteers and hobbyists.
2) I'm not sure why people aren't more aware that Red Hat's employees are responsible for a LOT of what people think of as "Linux". Development on the kernel and its modules, X11, large chunks of Gnome and the "Freedesktop.org" work - there's been a lot of heavy development done by the Red Hat folks over the years. Just for kicks, Google "Alan Cox" or "Havoc Pennington" sometime.
People tend to think that Linux is all being put together by volunteers and hobbyists, but it just ain't so. Now the OSS projects that seem cool and then peter out after a couple of years... those are being developed by the volunteers and hobbyists.
Frisco said:
I knew there was a reason I should've lost all respect for Apple by now. I thought it had something to do with set top boxes, but apparently this was it.
Yes, true, competiition is valid. But I don't see how Netscape fits into that model, since MS bought neither Netscape nor any other major web browser developer, AFAIK.
And RedHat is not analagous to the other situations in which MS has done something like that. How does plucking RedHat help MS with competition when there're several other very competent commercial distros such as SuSE?
And Apple, buying RedHat? What would they gain? They already have excellent Unix distro technology. They even already made significant progress making Darwin run on x86, should they ever want to. At best, RedHat would get a competent installer application, but that's about as good as it gets.
YAY, now we have less choice!!
Maybe MS feels most threatened by Red Hat and what they're capable of in the future?
Maybe MS feels most threatened by Red Hat and what they're capable of in the future?
Which is exactly why MS can't buy them. They've already been convicted of being a monopoly and misusing that position against their competitors. There's no way they would risk, or succeed in, eliminating a major, very visible competitor such as RH. IBM, HP and Sun would scream bloody murder, with good cause.Abstract said:
Microsoft buying Red Hat is not going to allow them to 'screw around' with your systems. That would only happen if you were to upgrade to Microsoft Linux (which, of course, they wouldn't release).
Well SUse and Novell go hand and foot, so I doubt Microsoft would be interested in that type of deal.
http://www.novell.com/linux/suse/