[Gllug] Rumour, fact, or lies?

Dean dean.wilson3 at virgin.net
Fri Jul 27 10:40:07 UTC 2001


On Fri, Jul 27, 2001 at 10:48:07AM +0100, William Palfreman wrote:

Microsoft used to own a part of RedHats shares but those were sold a
while ago.

> Microsoft has absolutely no financial advantage in buying shares taking
> over Redhat.  Being owned by Microsoft would cause both staff and
> customers to leave by the ton.

Yes and RedHat as a company would crumble. So Microsoft would lose money,
on the plus side it'd be a winning move on the FUD and PR fronts. "Flagship
Linux company crash signals end of an era" You can't buy PR like that by
conventional means :)

We wouldn't fall for it but the industry rags would.

> Microsoft would be throwing money in
> the bin (something they are not well known for doing) in return for a
> company called BlueHat or something being set up the next day, using the
> same people and exactly the same GPL'd code.

But with no market penetration or business partnerships with companies like
IBM. RedHat don't (to an outsider) seem to be too worried about the
software, anyone can bundle and sell GPL'd stuff, they are aiming for the
services market and in that field you need partnerships, good press and a
proven track record.

> There is a guy who goes to Lonix who does this all the time too: last
> month he claimed that Bill Gates wrote the original Gcc and that Microsoft
> invented DHCP.

> Some people were actually taken in by this. 

I wonder if they want to buy a bridge.

As a disclaimer i don't see Microsoft buying RedHat in the future, if
nothing else it'd screw over a lot of their work in the Anti-Trust case. 

	Dean
PS <Trivia> In this months Linux Mag in the article on getting help with 
Linux is a screen shot showing GLLUG mail... </Triva>

-- 
Profanity is the one language all programmers understand
   --- Anon

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