Linux recieves video gift from Microsoft for its 20th birthday
h-online.com
h-online.com
Two, it acknowledges the Halloween memos. This could have easily been left out.
Three, it's a cake. This new(?) cake tradition seems to say, "regardless of politics and history, cheers to you and your team on your achievements".
Finally, I don't think anyone can deny that Linux supporters have historically been brash and rude in the past when talking about Micro$ux Winblows. The rock at the window doesn't seem so out of place.
They make the Halloween docs look like a prank gone wrong instead of the vicious attempt to sabotage the free and open-source marketplace.
I'm not sure if that counts as acknowledgment. For what I know of Microsoft internals, the people responsible may even believe it.
Imagine if a big nuclear corporation came to greenpeace and tell them "cheers to you" "regardless of politics and history". It just looks the same way to me.
The worst part is to depict Linux and Open Source people has equal bullier that microsoft. I can't see anything else but an attempt to bring the enemy as low as they are in the public mind.
Speaks to how far Linux has come. This might be just be my isolated geeky viewpoint, but does anyone else see a world without Microsoft more likely than a world without Linux?
edit: down voted for asking a reasonable question? WTF? I google for "Microsoft sues Linux" and nothing reasonable came up (it's pretty much mostly the Tom Tom stuff, which wasn't about Linux). Hence, I asked what the poster was thinking of.
"whatever the reason might be" as if it wasn't clearly stated in the article.
"In July 2009 Microsoft submitted Hyper-V drivers to the kernel, which improve the performance of virtual Linux guest systems in a Windows hosted environment. Microsoft was forced to submit the code when it was discovered that Microsoft had incorporated a Hyper-V network driver with GPL-licensed components statically linked to closed-source binaries."
So obviously Microsoft didn't do it for altruistic motives.
Tux started the discord, by throwing a rock at Windows? What's that supposed to represent?
I understand about the Halloween memo, though it wasn't Linux that Microsoft was trying to frighten.
And what's with Tux jacking up a penguin to try to make it as tall as Bill? What's that supposed to represent?
Microsoft is always shown as the innocent bystander. Weird.
It feels exactly like it was done in the same humour as the IE team sending Mozilla a birthday cake.
Expecting an international corporation to paint themselves in a bad light is ridiculous. The fact that someone at Microsoft acknowledges Linux's accomplishments and appears to desire a mutually beneficial relationship can only be a good thing for everyone involved.
(typed from my Fedora 15 laptop)
Do Microsoft's relationships always turn out great for both parties?
A different spin perhaps?
Making ogg the default format sounds reasonable. Giving their video codec patents is not: they couldn't use them for defence. A global, written promise for not suing anyone for patent infringement unless they sue Microsoft for patent infringement sound much more feasible.
Those in (1) are the old guard, and opinions are hard to change. They tend to be near the top and want to return to the Bill Gates way of the iron fist.
Those in (2) are most of the programmers/devtools folks at Microsoft. They grew up and went to school (and maybe even came from academia) using Open Source and still love it. They are why you see things like F# being open sourced.
Then there are those in (3) which tend to be more on the XBox/Windows Phone side. Just like Apple, they don't really care about Linux. What they want is to offer another walled garden so they can take your money with little effort.
Or were you downmodding the typo? HN modding is weird...
I've been using Flash on both 64-bit and 32-bit variants of Debian for years now, with little problem. My only real complaint with Flash on Linux has been the inconsistent updates for the 64-bit plugin.
People who say "Flash works poorly on Linux" are either trolling, too newb to configure their browsers, or free software zealots who won't be satisfied until Adobe open sources everything they've ever made.
As for "too newb to configure their browsers", why should you have to delve into browser settings just to make something like that work? What you're saying here is an explicit "this won't work unless you fiddle with your settings" - which is basically the same as "this is not natively supported", ie: it doesn't "just work".