Comments are welcome :-) ### http://www.tomshardware.com/column/20030401/index.html Microsoft Buys Linux At a small press conference in Nepal, attended by two Sherpas and a Yak, as well as a THG stringer, Microsoft spokeswoman Avril Wonful announced that the Redmond company had acquired Linux. Although this surreptitious attempt by Microsoft to kill the Open Source community was supposed to go unnoticed, THG sources had long known that Microsoft executives were holed up in a Buddhist monastery in the area, meditating and trying to achieve greater self-awareness. "I think we are all comfortable with being rich, and having very little to think about while our dominant operating system and office productivity units keep printing the big bucks," said one executive. "But, we felt that we need to find something more altruistic, something that would let us give back to the industry for being so generous to us. We also needed to stick it to the MSN and Xbox groups, who are dragging the stock price down." So it was that after a few days of living on sticky rice and tofu, the Microsoft executives came up with a plan to buy Linux. They made a few calls, and realized that no one really wanted to own Linux, and that it was available for next to nothing. In fact, according to sources intimate with the deal making process, Linux was pretty much given away, and Microsoft's negotiators could not believe their luck. "You know, we're used to paying a lot of money for stuff that never gives us much of a return, like WebTV, Apple, and Corel. Now, we get this Linux thing, and it's dirt cheap, and you know, it's, like, unbelievable. Apparently, it's just like Windows, but we don't need to have whole teams of programmers and support staff to maintain it. There's, like, all these people who'll do that work for nothing. We're seriously thinking of getting rid of Windows and just selling Linux. Sweet!" said another executive on condition of anonymity http://www17.tomshardware.com/column/20030401/Microsoft_buys_linux-01.html The Future of Open Source We spoke to Microsoft's newly appointed vice president of Open Source development, Attila Palpatine. Q - How do you see the future of the Open Source movement after your acquisition of Linux? AP - Obviously, we believe in standards and the Open Source movement. All we hope to do is bring a little order and structure to the process so that everyone can benefit from innovation. We are really big on innovation. That is why we buy anything remotely inventive. Q - Shouldn't developers be wary of trusting Microsoft? It's not like you have a great deal of goodwill out there in the Open Source community. AP - We understand that, and that is why we are so committed to Buddhism. I, myself, have met Richard Gere and talked to him seriously about the Open Source community, and we agreed that the best way to deal with the issues is to just put out really good vibes. I am putting out really good vibes right now. Can you feel them? Q - Please take your hand off my thigh. How do you think this is going to impact the hardware community? Obviously an area we are most interested in... AP - I think you will find that our existing contracts with the big OEMs allows us to encourage them to load a copy of Linux on every PC that is sold, or even a pc they are just thinking about building. Either way, we nail them with a Linux license. Eventually, we will probably merge Windows and Linux to create Winux, and that will mean a significant change for the hardware industry. Q - How so? AP - I think it is safe to assume that we will be able to make driver development a living hell, and that many people will be forced to spend a lot of money replacing hardware such as grapics cards, audio cards, or even peripherals like printers, just so that they can get Winux to work. We hope that the same driver milieu in Linux can be applied to the Windows community, which is getting very boring and stable; I am sure you will agree that the confusion alone will probably result in increased revenue for the hardware vendors. Q - Interesting approach. AP - Well, we realized quite recently that we can't keep selling more PCs and that the upgrade market was becoming increasingly commoditized so, we thought, what if we could turn the clock back to the good old days? Ergo, crappy drivers, and confusion in the hardware market. Surely that will drive greater sales. So, now we have Windows AND Linux, and the driver issues should mean every user has at least two of each add-in board and peripheral that they need. If nothing works, we can blame the hardware guys, and they'll probably just make up for it by doing more product launches. Everyone wins. We realize now that building more stability into Windows was just a bad move. It's done nothing but make people complacent. Q - What do you mean, `complacent'? AP - Well, they just don't buy as much because they're happy with what they've got. You don't get much progress without confrontation. So, we're going to confront users with products that don't work. No pain, no gain. You know? Q - What is good in life? AP - To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentation of their women. Q - Attila Palpatine, thank you.
