MESSAGE
| DATE | 2009-07-21 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Strange News this week
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On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 11:33:31PM -0400, Ron Guerin wrote: >
Ruben Safir wrote: > > What would be interesting is if MS and
Google end up in a OS war moving > > increasingly closer to GPLed
software for greater market shares. Not > > impossible..... > >
> > > I'm thinking more along the lines of deja vu when Apple came
out with > their BSD kerneled OS. That was supposed to be great
for "us", > remember? I'm not sure how having vast numbers of
former Free Software > users/developers running Quartz/OS X has
helped us. I must have missed > that memo. Hopefully I'll get
the one they send out for the > Not-X/Chrome OS. > > - Ron
Oh - I'm not saying any of this is inherently good for Free Software
specifically other than the fact that it is now so criticle to the
computer ecosystem that they can't ignor it and are embracing it.
The real battle coming is when MS tries to weaken the GNU/Linux
system through the MS/Linux system.
This is not a new thought on my part :)
BTW -----
massive code drop to the once-hated GPL looks like the first in a
series of open source moves from the Redmond software giant.
Today, the company will announce a set of plug-ins for Microsoft
Office for scientific discovery, chemical equations, and formulas
built by Microsoft, and the plug-ins look like they will join a
growing set of add-ons and code for Microsoft Office and Office
applications released under Microsoft's OSI-approved open-source
licenses.
You can check out Microsoft's open-source software for Office on
CodePlex here. No further details were available on the new,
Microsoft-led plug-ins at the time of going to press.
On the server side, Microsoft has promised news on its relationship
with leading Linux distro Red Hat on virtualization in a statement
that also hinted at the possibility of Fedora running smoothly as
a virtualized guest on Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 and forthcoming
R 2.
Speaking after Microsoft announced it had released 20,000 lines of
Windows kernel code for inclusion in the Linux kernel, senior
director of platform strategy Sam Ramji told The Reg we should:
"Expect more from us on Red Hat in the coming weeks."
He said the release of the kernel source code would make working
with Red Hat easier, before adding: "We'll also expect to work with
other commercial and non commercial distros."
Microsoft and Red Hat announced a partnership in March to test,
validate, and jointly support each others' operating system running
in their respective virtualizaiton hypervisors.
Building on the release of the kernel code Monday, Ramji promised
Microsoft would work with the community to continually maintain
and improve the code.
The Windows kernel code and subsequent improvements are being made
available for free by Microsoft.
Updates and changes will be coordinated by Novell Linux Driver
Project lead and Novell programmer Greg Kroah-Hartman, who apparently
approached Microsoft to release the code, and Unix expert now
Microsoft principal group program manager Hank Janssen.
Asked why open-sourcers should take Microsoft's commitment seriously,
Ramji qualified Microsoft's growing support for open-source and
Linux, which has stretched to a license it once backed away from
hissing. He said the company was being pragmatic.
"We like any business we are interested in that has sustainable
revenue," he said. In this case, it's selling more copies of Windows
that run open-source applications or that work with Linux.
He predicted there would be even more backing for open source inside
Microsoft as more business units see the benefits of this strategy.
He noted the volume of requests Microsoft has received from customers
to work with open source and Linux is enough for it to "break with
tradition."
Just don't expect Microsoft to make too many concessions to modern
times by releasing more Windows drivers for Linux under the GPL.
Microsoft's 20,000 lines of code cover just three drivers - SCSI,
IDE and Ethernet - in just one area of interest: virtualization.
However, if you take a look at the number of drivers the Linux
kernel still needs on hardware here, you'll see just how far Linux
lags Windows on some basic plug-and-play functionality.
"We don't have anything else on the roadmap right now," Ramji said.
"If we identify other areas - let's say mouse or graphics and those
become important, we certainly listen to those needs. Our roadmap
is about improving the performance and the manageability of Linux
on top of Hyper-V." ®
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