Craig Mundie, Micro$oft Senior Vice President, formally declares war on arch-rivals GNU/Linux AND IBM during speech at NYU. Note: The "Micro$oft" edited version at the bottom of the page is heavily edited. The real speech sounded more like a "Heavy Wrestling Match" rather than the usual technologically savvy VP BS.  
In my opinion this is a call to arms. The UNIX Systems Administration community needs to instill a healthy, and justifiable fear of Micro$oft Enterprise products into the minds of our inferior-superiors, pointing out facts like: Micro$oft's own servers get successfully attacked at least bi-weekly, and that there are so many public ally known holes in the Back Orifice and IIS that it is only pure chance or luck if your Microsoft Net Facing Servers have not been severely attacked yet. I have seen quite a few instances of attackers utilizing these exploits to wreak havoc on MS Enterprise systems. The exploits are widely known and used by crackers and attackers all around the world. Even the NSA has their own little back door into any Micro$oft OS that would allow them to install software on your system without you knowing about it... Bill probably cut a deal with them during the anti-trust case....
 
Links to web resources provided below:
 
 
 
the article and the speech get the /. treatment
 
/. on Markoff article in NYTimes (note poster! my karma is going up up
up!) http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/05/03/0438206
 
Markoff article in NYTimes (registration required)
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/03/ [...] 3SOFT.html
 
/. on the speech
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/05/03/1953253
 
speech itself
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass [...] source.asp
 
Kernel Gawd Alan Cox responds:
http://www2.usermagnet.com/cox/index.html
 
 
Prepared Text of Remarks by Craig Mundie, Microsoft Senior Vice President
The Commercial Software Model
The New York University Stern School of Business
May 3, 2001
 
It has long been said that change is the only constant in the technology industry. In the past 20 years the velocity of that change has accelerated at a seemingly exponential rate, serving constantly as an engine of growth for the global economy.
 
Yet during the last year, the U.S. economy has hit what could be regarded as its most substantial speed bump of the past two decades. Illustrated most starkly by the declining valuation of the NASDAQ, we’ve witnessed a notable decline in consumer confidence that has people wondering whether we’re at a brief respite or whether we’ve reached the end of an economic era.
 
At Microsoft we believe that the personal information technology revolution that began in the early 1980s is far from over. It probably has at least two more decades to go. But it’s also important that we learn from the lessons of the past year and apply them in order to make the most of the potential that lies ahead.
 
One lesson is that we should keep things in context. Every big phase of economic expansion has its share of downturns, and new technological advances frequently bring with them a share of over-exuberance. The recent and substantial technology investment downturn mirrors similar episodes that affected railroads, steel, automobiles and radio. In this context, it’s not surprising that, as early as 1995, Bill Gates wrote in his book The Road Ahead about what he called the "Internet gold rush" and predicted both enormous long-term advances and substantial short-term setbacks, saying "Gold rushes tend to encourage impetuous investments. A few will pay off, but when the frenzy is behind us, we will look back incredulously at the wreckage of failed ventures and wonder, ‘Who funded these companies? What was going on in their minds? Was that just mania at work?"
 
But there is a broader lesson as well – companies and investors need to focus on business models that can be sustainable over the long term in the real world economy. A common trait of many of the companies that failed is that they gave away for free or at a loss the very thing they produced that was of greatest value – in the hope that somehow they’d make money selling something else. The Internet, for example, was full of sites producing content for free, in the hope that somehow they’d generate revenue from sources that never materialized, whether it was advertising, subscriptions, or a wing and a prayer. As we’ve learned – or really re-learned – one can’t build a business or our economic future on that type of flimsy foundation.
 
Contrast this recent experience with the two decades of economic success that preceded it. The global economy grew in an unprecedented way in no small measure because of a generation of new companies, of which Microsoft was fortunate to be one. Many or even most of these companies invested heavily in research and development and sold their principal products at prices that covered their costs and generated profits that they reinvested in further research and development.
 
This research and development model, in turn, was almost always based on the importance of intellectual property rights. Whether copyrights, patents or trade secrets, it was this foundation in law that made it possible for companies to raise capital, take risks, focus on the long term, and create sustainable business models.
 
Despite the demonstrable success of the computing industry and the IP-based economy, and the clear failure of newer firms that gave away products for free, it’s notable that in the past year there has been a broader discussion about whether the ingredients that delivered longstanding economic success can continue to do so. In part this discussion has focused on whether the personal computer will continue to provide a sustainable technological foundation for economic growth. And in part this has focused on whether IP protection as we have known it – whether for music, software, or other products – should continue to be a fundamental engine of economic growth.
 
The questions to be raised are twofold:  
 
Can the personal information technology continue to drive broad economic growth?  
The answer is "yes."  
The computing industry needs to move to a model of multiple computing devices that more effectively empower people to unleash the computing power of the Internet and move their ideas and their content with them from machine to machine.
 
Should an information-based economy protect the intellectual property assets that are driving its growth?  
The answer is "yes."  
We should examine the progress of the Internet to understand the landscape of the software industry today and how intellectual property fits into that landscape.
 
In thinking about the technology foundation we need, it’s important to recognize that the popular use of the Internet is still less than 10 years old, and is already moving into its third significant phase.
 
Phase 1: In the early ‘90s it was all about static information. The nascent World Wide Web was catapulted to the world stage as millions of individuals and businesses began to tap the potential of the medium.  
 
Phase 2: The late ‘90s saw the birth of the online transaction and the promise of Internet-based business models. Both were about connectivity, but now the static distribution of information was replaced by business-to-customer or business-to-business transactions. For the general public, Amazon.com came to personify the Internet transaction. Revenue models based on advertising sales vs. product sales came into vogue and Yahoo became the poster child for this model. The interesting part of this model is the shift of focus away from the technology IP to content IP as the revenue engine for a company.
 
Phase 3 is what is being worked on now. It’s all about connecting the currently separate complex systems of information and transactions and bringing that power to the individual in a readily accessible format on a variety of devices.
 
These new technologies will be able to identify the relationships between disparate information sources and transactional environments. The individual may then cull relevant data and execute the necessary transactions to complete a task or make strategic decisions. An example of this would be to have a single process for identifying physicians covered by your healthcare plan, comparing physical locations of clinics to mass transit schedules and routes, scheduling the appointment and taking care of the co-pay all at once. Most importantly, this can be done any time, any place and on any device.
 
There are challenges to the success of Phase 3 becoming a reality.
 
Business models:
The increasing numbers of failures in the .com space show a flaw in many of the existing Internet business models.  
 
Advertising as the primary revenue stream  
Operating under the assumption that market share equals revenue  
Free now, pay later  
Development models:
A heavy investment in research and development is going to be required in order for businesses and individuals to see the benefits of phase 3.  
 
People:
The technology industry has to prove its commitment to privacy and security in order to encourage user acceptance of the technologies. Furthermore, the next phase needs to be presented in a simple and compelling fashion so that individuals and businesses may make use of them easily.
 
The paradigm shift that is at the core of phase three is the focus of the Microsoft .NET strategy. .NET is a set of Web services that are user-centric rather than device-centric. This is a shift in focus from individual Web sites or devices to new constellations of computers, devices, and services that work together to deliver broader, richer solutions. People will have control over how, when and what information is delivered to them. Computers, devices and services will be able to collaborate directly with each other, and businesses will be able to offer their products and services in a way that lets customers embed them in their usage of the Web at their discretion.
 
It is important to note that Phase 3 will not come about due to any one company’s, or even a single group of companies’, efforts. Innovation investment and a significant community of software developers will need to share the excitement for bringing about the next generation of the Web. The resulting intellectual property will be the foundation of the business model providing the continuing opportunity for R&D investment.  
 
The business model I am speaking of for Phase 3 is the Commercial Software Model. The taxonomy of this model is built around 5 key elements:  
 
Community: a strong support community of developers  
Standards: promote collaboration and interoperability while supporting innovation and healthy competition  
Business Model: promotes the growth of a profitable business  
Investment: level of research and development investment drives resources for future innovation  
Licensing Model: provides product and source access without jeopardizing the intellectual property rights of those who create or use the software  
 
Microsoft has fostered the world’s largest community of software developers for well over a decade. Today, our developer network (MSDN) works with a community of 5 million developers. The element of the commercial software model for Phase 3 that we need to improve is that of our licensing model. Microsoft is expanding its licensing model to include our "Shared Source Philosophy."  
 
Shared Source is a balanced approach that allows us to share source code with customers and partners while maintaining the intellectual property needed to support a strong software business. Shared Source represents a framework of business value, technical innovation and licensing terms. It covers a spectrum of accessibility that is manifest in the variety of source licensing programs offered by Microsoft.  
 
The principles of the Shared Source Philosophy are:
 
Helping customers and partners to be successful through source access programs  
Building the development community and offering them the tools to produce great software  
Improving the feedback process in order to create better products for Microsoft’s customers and partners  
Maintaining the integrity of our customers’ environments  
Increasing educational access in order to get the technology into the hands of universities worldwide, and to seed the future of a strong technology industry  
Protecting software intellectual property based on the firm belief that software offers value as the basis of a successful business.
Some examples of Shared Source already being implemented at Microsoft:
 
Research Source Licensing: For nearly a decade Microsoft Research has licensed Windows source code to more than 100 academic institutions in 23 countries.  
Enterprise Source Licensing Program: Source code for Windows 2000 and subsequent releases of Windows is available for licensing at no charge to over 1,000 enterprise customers in the United States. Today we are announcing a pilot program expanding the ESLP to 12 additional countries.  
ISV Source Licensing: we are developing a program for licensing Windows source code to top tier ISVs for development and support purposes  
OEM Source Licensing: Windows source code has been licensed for years to leading OEMs to assist in the development and support of their consumer and server products  
Windows CE source code access: We are licensing Windows CE source code through Platform Builder 3.0 (generally available to all developers). Microsoft will be broadening and adding to the community support mechanisms through the Platform Builder Program. In the second half of this year we will offer academic site licenses for CE source code.  
Additionally, we have announced an expanded level of CE source access to, (i) our leading silicon vendor partners via the Windows Embedded Strategic Silicon Alliance program, and (ii) our leading system integrator partners via the Innovation Alliance Program.  
Sample code: Over the years Microsoft has made millions of lines of source code freely available to developers through resources such as SDKs, DDKs, and MSDN.  
We have announced that the specifications for the .NET Framework have been submitted to the ECMA standards body, enabling others to implement and evolve this technology in a platform-independent manner so that it is can be rapidly and widely adopted on an industry-wide basis.
We emphatically remain committed to a model that protects the intellectual property rights in software and ensures the continued vitality of an independent software sector that generates revenue and will sustain ongoing research and development.
 
The commercial software model is just one model being utilized in the software industry today. It is important to take into account the Open Source Software movement as an example of an alternative model.
 
The phrase "open source software," or OSS, is often used as an umbrella term for a collection of product development, distribution and licensing practices, many of which have existed individually since the early days of computing. There are actually a number of different approaches within this community, but the common traits are providing people with access to source code and allowing others to modify and redistribute that code.
 
As a result of Microsoft’s statement of position today, many people will attempt to say that Shared Source is Microsoft’s failed attempt at being an Open Source Company. This could not be a more incorrect statement. Shared Source is not Open Source. We recognize that OSS has some benefits, such as the fostering of community, improved feedback and augmented debugging. We are always looking for ways to improve our products and make our customers more successful, and to that end we have incorporated these positive OSS elements in Shared Source. But there are significant drawbacks to OSS as well.
 
The OSS development model leads to a strong possibility of unhealthy "forking" of a code base, resulting in the development of multiple incompatible versions of programs, weakened interoperability, product instability, and hindering businesses’ ability to strategically plan for the future. Furthermore, it has inherent security risks and can force intellectual property into the public domain.
 
Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.
 
In this sense, open source software based on the GPL mirrors the .com business models that proved the least successful during the past year. They ask software developers to give away for free the very thing they create that is of greatest value in the hope that somehow they’ll make money selling something else. In effect, it puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector. The business model for OSS may well be attractive for software as an adjunct to hardware – the model of the ‘60s and ‘70s – or for service businesses that do not generate the revenue needed for major investments in technology. But as history has shown, while this type of model may have a place, it isn’t successful in building a mass market and making powerful, easy-to-use software broadly accessible to consumers.
 
In contrast, two decades of experience have shown that an economic model that protects intellectual property and a business model that recoups research and development costs have shown repeatedly that they can create impressive economic benefits and distribute them very broadly.
 
Finally, the fact that we believe strongly in the value of IP protection doesn’t mean that we discount the importance of contributing to and supporting the public domain of knowledge as well. We believe that interaction between the public domain and the IP-based sector needs to be based on mutual responsibility and respect.
 
There is an important and longstanding tradition for the public domain of knowledge, or "intellectual commons." This is reflected in many ways, including federal support for basic research, the limitations on IP rights reflected in the law and, more recently, the broad practice of contributing technology to public standards groups for the continued development of the Internet. We support this and want to continue to be a constructive and responsible participant in this community, including making contributions to public standards. There is an equally important tradition of commercial companies having the opportunity to benefit from and apply this public knowledge, including by developing commercial products that are protected by IP rights. There are many examples of this, including the many products that grew from research in the space program and the advances in speech recognition technology that followed work done at pre-eminent institutions such as Carnegie Mellon.
 
The GPL asserts that any product derived from source code licensed under it becomes subject to the GPL itself. When the resulting software product is distributed, the creator must make all of the source code available, at no additional charge. This effectively makes it impossible for commercial software companies to include source code that is licensed under the GPL into their products, since by doing so, they are constrained to give away the fruits of their labor. As we think about technology, IP rights, and the public sector of knowledge, we need an intellectual model that encourages interaction, not a model that drives them apart. We believe that a shared source model, coupled with continuing contributions to public standards, provides a path that is preferable to the open source approach founded on the GPL.
 
Collectively we need to seize the opportunity to make the most of the next two decades of potential economic growth. This requires the proper combination of continuity and change. It means keeping the model of personal information technology but adapting it to the needs of the next generation of technology, as we are doing with .NET. It means promoting a sharing of knowledge, through source code and broader interaction, while respecting the importance of intellectual property rights. If we combine these approaches in the right doses, there is cause for great optimism about the economic road ahead.
 
 
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by metamax0 on 05/04/01 01:01 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Reply to Mundie's BS by kernel god:
Alan Cox.
   
Alan Cox: This is How Free Software Works  
 
In "The Commercial Software Model" Craig Mundie makes some interesting cases for the proprietary software model. In doing so he mysteriously forgot to include some rather important but inconvenient facts.
 
There are many things I directly agree with him on. That companies need to focus on sustainable business models for example. No doubt Microsoft would like to imply Free Software is not a sustainable business model. I would like to make sure people at least consider the possibility that proprietary software is the non-sustainable model.
 
 
Craig also refers to the importance of 'intellectual property rights'. In maintaining that these are the key to business success he overlooks a very large number of examples.
 
 
 
Firstly most of the great leaps of the computer age have happened despite rather than because of IPR. In fact before the Internet the proprietary network protocols divided customers, locked them into providers and forced them to exchange much of their data by tape.
 
 
 
The power of the network was not unlocked by IPR. It was unlocked by free and open innovation shared amongst all. The Internet is not the product of a corporation. The World Wide Web is not the product of a corporation. These great enabling technologies were created by co-operative innovation.
 
 
 
Empowerment stems from open free technology. Proprietary technology can create innovations but they come with a terrible price. Customers are unable to combine innovations from competing companies. They also pay higher prices due to the lack of commoditisation. Try using a Wordperfect spell checker in Microsoft Word.  
 
 
 
Craig also talks about standards. Standards are something Microsoft talks about a lot. As people who have attempted to work with Microsoft 'standards' can tell you they are selective at best. In their Halloween memo Microsoft talked about 'Embrace and Extend'. They are hard at work on this.'.NET' is an attempt to build a proprietary service network on top of an open Internet: in effect to lock customers into higher layers of the OSI seven layer model. Exchange supports Internet protocols like SMTP and IMAP. However many of the advanced features are mysteriously only available with Microsoft clients. Pick a Microsoft server and you have to pick a Microsoft client. Pick Microsoft Project and you have to run a Microsoft OS, and in fact may have to run half of the company on a Microsoft OS.
 
 
 
Craig claims
 
"Computers, devices and services will be able to collaborate directly with each other, and businesses will be able to offer their products and services in a way that lets customers embed them in their usage of the Web at their discretion."
 
 
Somehow the words 'providing they use Microsoft products' were left out.
 
 
 
So is 'Microsoft Shared Source' a failed attempt at Open Source? Not really. In fact it is a demonstration of how far Microsoft are from grasping the entire concept of Open Source. IBM were providing source code in the 1960's under similar terms. VMS source code was available under limited licenses to customers from the beginning. Microsoft are catching up with 1960.
 
 
 
The very language they use to describe 'Shared Source' misses the point of Free Software. To them 'Shared Source' remains about control and about 'owning code'. Free Software is about generating revenue from doing work the customer wants and will pay for. It recognizes that much of the software world is now commodity and that proprietary software with all its overheads is in fact not a sustainable business for commodity products.  
 
 
 
'Shared Source' is a very misleading name. Sharing is a two-way process.
 
 
 
A generic baked bean manufacturer does not worry a great deal about IPR. They worry about providing a product the customer wants, and selling very large numbers of them. A Free Software company worries about providing what the customer wants and selling a lot of services, and on customizing and improving software as customers pay for it. This is the recognition that with over one hundred million computers in the world a large amount of software is firmly in the baked bean camp.
 
 
 
The obsession with selling software and controlling customers continues throughout the paper. Craig is apparently unable to grasp the concept of selling services and building rapidly upon an open code base. There are stable long-running free software companies. Cygnus Solutions predated the great .com boom and now as part of Red Hat continue happily onwards. They are not unique. Yes, Craig, there are a lot of Open Source companies built on .com models that will fail due to bad management, misguided funding or just bad luck. There are an awful lot of proprietary software companies who are and have done exactly the same. Incompetence is not a property of licensing. Any company must have a good business model and good management, even baked bean manufacturers.
 
 
 
Craig also appears so obsessed by 'forking' of code that he has to repeat his misunderstandings twice. In a Free Software environment the customer controls the direction of software. If nobody wants it to go that way nobody will pay for it. There are forks in the Linux tree, but they are for deeply embedded systems. Here the customer intentionally forks off from the main tree to create a specialized system for specialized applications. Perhaps a better way of putting the Microsoft approach is "Microsoft knows best. Daddy will decide what is good for you". No wonder embedded developers are rushing toward the Linux OS. With Linux they can customize if they have to - as they do with many of the more bizarre embedded setups. With Microsoft you must pick a prepackaged fork and live with it - 98, ME, NT, 2000 (all three versions), CE ... They do at least have a fair range of forks to choose from.
 
 
 
I pity his timing for the comments about security risks and forking. To say the things he did on the same day as hackers issue 'time to die' messages to millions of sites requiring immediate IIS security fixes and the same day the Linux Standard Base publishes the road-map and timetable for the 1.0 release internally must be a PR manager's nightmare.
 
 
 
Apparently Craig also has problems reading licenses. The GPL requires you provide the source to the customers not to everyone. It also requires you provide the source _at_cost_ not for free. You don't need to be a lawyer to check your facts Craig. Your customers will spread the software on for you, generating you business opportunities without intervention.
 
 
 
In talking about risk Craig is keen to talk about the risk of 'loss of IPR' but strangely neglects to ask about the many risks of proprietary software.
 
 
 
Imagine if your provider suddenly curtails their bulk discounts for corporations and they had no competitor
 
Imagine if you are forced to upgrade the OS to upgrade the word processor
 
Imagine your vendor had the power to refuse to do Y2K fixes and require you upgraded because nobody else was allowed to fix it
 
Imagine your vendor suddenly dropped support for your Alpha CPU boxes one day - and there was no alternative supplier
 
Imagine working in a secure environment and finding the string _NSAKEY in the OS binaries without a good explanation
 
 
Perhaps these risks sound familiar to some. I wonder why?
 
 
One area where in part I agree with Craig is that the GPL may not always be the right way to release works funded as research for all to benefit from. There the BSD license may be more appropriate. Of course the GPL offers some interesting options - it provides a model for releasing research code for free to the benefit of all those who contribute back to the original work. At the same time it allows a research institution to sell that work to people who do not wish to contribute back to the common good - thus generating funding for further investment. To some this is a very appealing model - share alike and share freely, be it under the GPL by sharing code and ideas or in dollars by giving back some of the money made on their research.
 
 
 
Now that is sharing.

Yeah, I started a different thread below on this topic...and the New York Times says that Microsoft has placed Linux and GPL on the top of their list of enemies. They even went as far as calling it "communism" and a "threat to the technology sector as well as free enterprise." A Microsoft VP also said that "Linux and the General Public License encourages software piracy and breaches, or encourages individuals to break copyright laws and should be illegal since it can not be enforced or controlled." Microsoft was clearly making these comments hopeing state and federal legislatures are listening.
 
The New York Times said Microsoft is starting to become angry with Linux because there are rumored that a few major corporations are threatening to switch from Windows to Linux if Microsoft installs their anti-piracy software and subscription software in their XP line of products.
 
Microsoft argues that Linux stiffles innovation. I disagree. I think it encourages it since if you don't like how it acts, you can go in and make it better and if thousands and thousands had that power...think of how fast software would develop.
 
Microsoft is a business trying to make money. Linux is competition that isn't trying to make money. You start selling a product for a good price (you want money for your hard work) but the guy next door is selling a better product that does the same thing yours does but is free. Wouldn't you be upset as well? He'll run you out of business. That is how Microsoft sees GPL illegal. Because their profit potential will plummit and will force layoffs!

>They even went as far as calling it "communism" and  
>a "threat to the technology sector as well as free  
>enterprise." A Microsoft VP also said that "Linux and the  
>General Public License encourages software piracy and  
>breaches, or encourages individuals to break copyright  
>laws and should be illegal since it can not be enforced or  
>controlled."
 
Wow!  Mundie said all that?  Those bits seem to have been left out of the official transcript.  Any links to the "real" transcript?
 
It should be illegal because it can't be controlled?  
And why exactly does it need to be controlled?  Because it's biting MS in the A$$!  LoL
 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.

I can't remember the name of who said it and the Times didn't specify exactly who; all they said was that it was a "Cheif Microsoft Officer" so it must be a VP some other top guy.
 
But Mundie did basically declare war on Linux and GPL during his little speech that had harsh words for Sun Microsystems and IBM who are basically supporting Linux 100%. Little do people know but at several IBM facilities; The employees are using Linux and IBM seems to threatening Microsoft that they will dump windows because of their subscription software and even went as far as saying they will offer users the option to have Linux pre-installed and will advertise it. Microsoft is apparently extreamely upset. Of course this is just off the rumor mill so we will have to wait and see if it is confirmed or not.
 
Why does it need to be controlled? Microsoft is trying to prove that Linux is an illegal renagade force that will eat away at mankind and be the death of us all. Frankly, I refuse to buy that BS! They want it to be controlled because they see no other way to compete with it. No company owns Linux and there is no company for Microsoft to break out the monopoly game with. Linux is developed by Linus Torvalds; a number of hackers and thousands and thousands of programmers. So how do they fight it?
 
As for the GPL; Bill Gates is scared to death of it becomming popular. If GPL becomes widely excepted; that means Microsoft will be sitting all alone with the closed source Windows, why the rest of the industry is moving forward with open source. That is what Microsoft is deathly afraid of and expect them to fight to the bitter end.
 
You see; if Gates is forced to make the Windows source code public...no anti-piracy codes; no subscription software and they would be forced to drop the price significantly. Gates and Mundie are praying to god that Linux doesn't become widely used because they will have no way of competing with it.

<b>*Wow*</b>
 
I'll give you an 'A+' on that essay. I didn't read it, but it just 'felt' like one of those 'A+' ones......

lol. I wonder how many teachers actually grade that way :^)
 
Another computer wanted. Donations accepted. :^)

LoL Microsoft's little treatise got a lot of peoples' dander up!  Alan Cox, Linus, and quite a few other people responded!  Check out <A HREF="http://linuxtoday.com" target="_new">http://linuxtoday.com</A>--though you may have to go back a few days by the time you read this.
 
Kelledin
 
bash-2.04$ kill -9 1
init: Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

Damn, We GOT to get Linus, Alan, Bill and Craig together in the same room one of these days and see what happeneds.
 
I think they wanted to send a clear message to Microsoft that Linux isn't going to just accept little attacks like this and will fight for it's own cause. I mean, Linus sure wasn't afraid to speak his mind.

<font color=red><b><i>FIRE IN THE HOLE!!! <A HREF="http://kelledin.tripod.com/atomic_blast.jpg" target="_new"> </A></i></b></font color=red>
 
Kelledin
 
bash-2.04$ kill -9 1
init: Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

Look at it this way. You buy a car and the salesman tells you "sorry, but you arn't allowed to look under the hood." That is what Microsoft tells you. When consumers buy something; they like to feel ownership that they own this because they bought it and worked for the money to buy it. Microsoft doesn't want the consumer to feel that way. Microsoft still wants to own Windows even after you buy it.

Yeah. I call that 'Rumble Royale'. I'd give it 5-to-1 against that it did not come to maiming/beheading.

Ya'll made a great point, I like the car buying allegory.  
I would say the chances of M$' Licensing to kaput are closer to 80%.
 
 See... my perspective from the inside looking out is that dudes like me (UNIX Systems Admin, Hacker, Programmer, Networkers) that keep telling our Department Inferior-Superiors that Open Source = Stability + Security + Extensibility. They soak up our watch words and faithfully pass them on up the ladder.
 
M$ can spit and fume all they want but the sheer numbers speak for themselves. I have personally overseen installation of many Linux and FreeBSD machines, and the customer demand for them in the web server world is only getting more and more thirsty. People that spend money on dedicated machines do not want some snot-nosed script kiddies to crack their servers with some program they got from some nefarious website... M$ can no longer cover its open and festering wounds: NT, 2000, IIS, and the Back Orifice to name a few...
 
The leaders of companies want robust data access and unheard of speed and stability for the least cost. GNU GPL had provided us with just that.
 
We can just sit back and watch the game, M$ might throw some interesting punches, but friends and fellow hacks IMHO, the fight was over before it could begin.
 
BTW, Microsoft, Where are those benchmark figures for MS-SQL?
 
 
"Ex Nihilo, Nihil Sunt!"

Heh...an insignificant thing, but I wonder if anyone noticed the easter egg I left in my post?
 
(I know, I know...geez, the things we worry about when innovation is at stake...)
 
Kelledin
 
bash-2.04$ kill -9 1
init: Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

I saw it!
 
BUT, I would give my life savings to see Bill Gates getting beat up by a giant penguin!
 
http://home.earthlink.net/~macinta [...] n-logo.jpg
 
See, told ya that Tux isn't as nice as he seems!