Rumor Mill at it again, but disturbing.

[Crewp]

I saw this report and though it appears to be a rumor, I think just the thought is disturbing as an open source community member. That MS would try to extend it's reach into the Linux world. What are all your thoughts?

http://techaeris.com/2015/10/01/sources ... he-rumors/

[BenTrabetere]

Here is what it might look like....

http://www.mslinux.org/

I especially liked the name of the Troubleshooting Daemon and that MS has hired lawyers "to attack it's own product line in an attempt to confuse the DOJ."


If MS were to purchase Canonical I think the worst that could happen MS would turn Ubuntu into the distro nobody wants. Linux users would switch to another distribution, Windows users who tried MS-Linux would return to Windows, and advocates from both sides would enter into another protracted OS war.

[monkeyboy]

At one time when MS cast it shadow across the Linux landscape it was much more relevant then it is today. In the future I suspect it will mean even less.

[DrHu]

IBM is doing more with Linux than Microsoft ever will

They do however get some UNIX Gurus into the Ms World fold in server land

• They (UNIX experts) end up saying it's different (MS vs UNIX/Linux) but it gets the job done
  --once you get used to the WIMP face of everything--it all works out..

As to Ms ever making a Linux or buying a Linux OS company: always possible
--and should it happen you can expect that particular Linux OS distribution to disappear as an independent resource

• Don't expect to see any OSS/free version of said distro..

Lindows/Linspire(Freespire)
--tried to out window MS, one-click repository and a file manager that looked like windows explorer

• Same with Corel

Although I did like the idea of using Hasskell as the system language and their very quick install: albeit simple installation method (no customization of partitions, as far as I remember it..

None of those attempts lasted too long
--Linux users tend to like Linux style and really have no need to match either Ms or Apple OS desktops' in order to feel satisfied with the OS

[MtnDewManiac]

That MS would try to extend it's reach into the Linux world.

Extend its reach? Is has contributed quite a bit to the linux kernel (IDK if Microsoft still does, but it did a lot in 2012 - IIRC, Microsoft was ranked 17th in kernel contributions).

BtW... I'm not trying to be mean to linux (after all, I use Mint), but when I see a rumor that Microsoft is buying (any) linux, I take it with the same grain of salt that I would if I saw a rumor that Coca Cola was purchasing PepsiCo - why spend huge amounts of money for a more-or-less insignificant increase in market share, lol?

Besides... Since so much of the stuff that Ubuntu uses in its distro is other people's work - and open source and GPL - it'd kind of be like, IDK... Deciding that you want to own the Best Brownie Manufacturing Company - so you purchase one of the restaurants that sells their brownies . If it really wanted to wreak havoc, it'd be trying to purchase Debian. That could make things pretty interesting for a lot of people; look at all the distros that would be non-functional if everything Debian suddenly disappeared from them (Mint's main editions are based on Ubuntu - which is based on Debian - and LMDE is, of course, based on Debian). At the very least, I'd guess that the various affected distros' developers would find a lot of additional work by having to deal with all the things that are now handled "upstream."

I think Canonical Ltd. does provide paid support services, but so does Microsoft, so I don't suppose it'd be interested in it for that. And, AfaIK, Canonical isn't exactly hugely profitable (if, in fact, it has actually managed to pass the break-even point, lol, which I am unsure of).

BtW, Microsoft has had "relationships" with the open source world for a while (possibly, in "computer years," a long while). And Microsoft donated a "significant" amount of money to the OpenBSD Foundation earlier this year (significant enough, in fact, that it made Microsoft the first Gold level contributor in the OpenBSD Foundation's 2015 fundraising campaign).

When you are a corporate entity that operates in a world that contains anti-trust statutes, you probably aren't very likely to buy one of the major players in the small minority of which you can point to when saying, "See? Microsoft isn't a monopoly!" without having a very good reason.

Regards,
MDM

[xenopeek]

Is has contributed quite a bit to the linux kernel

They have contributed drivers for Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor, to facilitate running Linux systems on their hypervisor. That is the extent of their Linux contribution. They have not made any contributions of general utility. After many patch sets in 2012 to get the work on the driver done (which were criticized for their poor quality, hence needing so many patch sets) contributions from Microsoft have dropped off the radar.

Anyway, till the article is updated with facts there's not much use speculating. If you do want to prepare for the worst, install LMDE

[MtnDewManiac]

Anyway, till the article is updated with facts

It was already updated with a statement from Ubuntu:

UPDATE (10/02/2015 12:32a ET): Canonical spokesperson Jane Silber responded to our request with the following statement. “Your sources are wrong; there are no such discussions.”

If you do want to prepare for the worst, install LMDE

Yeah, that'd be "worst," all right. I like the ability to use PPAs and have Xfce pre-installed, so unless/until the developers decide that producing a new whole version every couple years is just too doggone often or the forum software becomes even more deplorable, I'll stick with the main edition. Err... Wink. But to each his, her, or its own, as they say.

Regards,
MDM

[Crewp]

I only started this thread as a (open chat) to see what fellow community members think. But as MDM said why would MS even want Canonical? My thoughts tend toward not the OS market, but the phone market. MS has the same mission as Canonical right now, and that is to intergrate there software to run on all platforms, to wit Canonical is doing a better job of than MS. But anyway this is just opinion, on a rumor nothing more.

[exploder]

This was brought up on the Ubuntu forum yesterday. Microsoft refused to comment and Canonical basically said it's nothing more than a rumour. I think the rumours are because of the partnership between Canonical and Microsoft. There are so many Linux distributions and Microsoft can't buy them all so I think it's all just a wild rumour.

I can't see Shuttleworth selling Canonical after putting so much time and effort into the Ubuntu phone, he has come this far and I think he will see it through. Microsoft is interested in making it's products available to other platforms and that is a smart move with today's market.

[Derek_S]

I really don't care about Ubuntu itself. It was one one the first Linux distros I tried and I really don't care for the Unity Desktop. It strikes me as being about as well organized as a child's chest of toys, and I find very little has changed in the more recent versions. The Cinnamon desktop is light years ahead of Unity as far as I'm concerned.

But what concerns me is the large number of Linux distros that are based on Ubuntu, with Linux Mint being one of them. If Microsoft somehow manages to turn the future versions of Ubuntu into a "Linux-based" version of Windows 10, complete with their very own "information gathering" features, where does that leave Linux Mint and every other distro that's Ubuntu-based? At least Linux Mint does have the option of pushing on with it's own Debian-based version. But a lot of the others will either have to fall in line and follow Ubuntu or re-invent themselves by adopting a different "parent" operating system.

[MtnDewManiac]

]But what concerns me is the large number of Linux distros that are based on Ubuntu

<SHRUGS>.

There are other distros that aren't a rehash of Ubuntu - or even Debian. My first foray into linux was with Mandrake linux (version 8.1, PowerPack), and I believe it was built on something else. While that journey was aborted after a very short time due to Mandrake hosing me out of the very thing that I spent the $69 (IIRC) on it for in the first place, but I thought the distro, itself, was okay - especially for the time (late 2001). I was unsurprised when the company ran aground, filed for bankruptcy, and (AfaIK) folded - but, again, I thought the distro, itself, was fine. I remember that there were several DE/WM choices and many things could be preinstalled by the user (IIRC, it came with six CDs at a time when most OS probably came with one). And both the partitioning and hardware(?) setup tools that were available during the distro installation process were probably better than average (again, for the time). I don't think that NTFS was an available FS during installation (but there did seem to be a staggering amount of choices) - or, possibly, the user just couldn't use it to shrink an NTFS partition, I don't remember which.

Here's a chart showing some distro choices (and their parent distro):

Code: Select all

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

Regards,
MDM

[mike acker]

I saw this report and though it appears to be a rumor, I think just the thought is disturbing as an open source community member. That MS would try to extend it's reach into the Linux world. What are all your thoughts?

http://techaeris.com/2015/10/01/sources ... he-rumors/

Simple: Operating Software has to be secure,-- and MSFT doesn't have that. and they can't change their ways at this point: app developers have enjoyed their bad habit too long; their crap won't run on a secure system .

A simple study of losses to computer fraud will show this has to change. msft cannot white-wash the problem with add-on "fixes": it has to be corrected in the O/S, starting when the power switch is pressed. i.e. msft/windows is a dead man walking, -- and msft knows it .

[Jaegweir1259]

Taking Free opensource projects and merging with the virus commonly known as Windows and then sell it at a profit, Capitalism is great. no not happy.