WINDOWS VISTA AERO vs LINUX UBUNTU BERYL

[Vin DSL]

What it says...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ

[Ron]

Fun video (a little long...) and looks like a great interface.

[Vin DSL]

Microsoft isn't laughing...

Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties from distributors and users. Users like you, maybe.

[matthew]

Sounds like shades of the SCOsource scam pulled on EV1. I'd hope that any business on the receiving end of any advances from Microsoft about this would at least ask for proof.

[JPC-Greg]

http://www.computerworld.com/action/...&intsrc=kc_top

[the_ancient]

Microsoft isn't laughing...

don't you know, Microsoft owns all software

[Ron]

ubuntu might be nice if it could work with my hard disk, or with my Belkin F5D7010 PCMCIA card (without using the Windows driver for it! LOL )

[hcomm]

I believe that as suits do proceed, microsoft will find itself to be in violation of more than one MIT style software patents. This could be a good thing. The very basis of VB and DOS is going to be decided once and for all. microsoft may end up paying royalties out instead of collecting them.

Free software, along with a lot of other things, also doesn't mean stupid software. Viva le difference!

[Gwaihir]

They are probably out to stall, not to win. The best thing the open source community can IMHO do is to force their hand: don't wait till they sue; sue 'm yourselves, now, for their slander. That way they'll have to either back it up or shut up.

[hcomm]

Letting them hang themselves is an interesting option. I'm just not sure that it will play out that way.
microsoft has some very tender issues relating to anti-trust still in play. This could have the effect of bringing the whole house of cards down. That'll teach bill to hang out with script kiddies.

[hcomm]

They are probably out to stall, not to win. The best thing the open source community can IMHO do is to force their hand: don't wait till they sue; sue 'm yourselves, now, for their slander. That way they'll have to either back it up or shut up.

I don't really think that someone threatening microsoft will have much effect. After all, they have more laying around in cash the the US government has in credit.

This will end up being a matter of the high court issuing a cease and desist on bill & co.

After all, they have to operate somewhere, right? Take away the little ranch in Redmond and they'll have to operate offshore.

I'll be eating a tuna sandwich and watching it all on CNN.

[JPC-Greg]

Actually microsoft should fear the world, google probably has more cash then them. Last reports showed google worth 6 billion and 1.6 of it profit /cash. The future of the net and computers will be google vs MS

[hcomm]

As long as Google can hang onto its 'don't be evil' philosophy, then a Google OS might be cool. Maybe they'll let Balmer take out the trash or run for sandwiches.

[jkeller]

What it says...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ

Nice. I use Mandriva Linux:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCnR6KNoa0

(plus VMWare for Flash development)

[Gwaihir]

I don't really think that someone threatening microsoft will have much effect. After all, they have more laying around in cash the the US government has in credit.

But they have far less 'credit' with their customers. Right now they're trying to scare people away from Linux and open source in general. The record and movie industry follow similar strategies of bullying their own customer base. Seems a dead end there too, but they at least do it practically industry wide (no alternatives). Microsoft may be the far biggest player in its industry, but it is by no means the only one. There are alternatives. So don't let them have their way; if some action from other sides helps their strategy backfire, it may well make more folk look for those alternatives, rather than less.

They are probably betting on the dispersed nature of the open source community for such a rise up not to happen. They try divide and conquer too and Novell took the bait, but the next target in line, Red Hat, is already refusing it. Well, I can only hope they're betting wrong and that some of the really big guns, like IBM, Google, and Yahoo, won't wait till MS comes to their door (as it will no doubt do last of all) but will get together and take 'm on soon.