Turbolinux Is Latest To Sign Microsoft Pact 180
mytrip sends word that Turbolinux has followed Novell, Linspire, and Xandros in signing a patent and technology agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft pledged not to sue Turbolinux's users for patent infringement. Turbolinux, headquartered in Japan, sells Linux systems mostly in emerging markets such as China and India. The Betanews story speculates on some of the technology benefits Turbolinux might get out of the deal.
Turbolinux? (Score:1, Insightful)
My list keeps growing (Score:2, Insightful)
who?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Tiny Trend (Score:3, Insightful)
I, for one, am not all THAT surprised, but neither all that concerned, either. The message from the other LARGER Linux distros like Redhat, Canonical, and Mandriva, have all have a clear message: ***NO*** If one of those were to fall for it, I would be VERY concerned.
Show us the infringing patents, Microsoft.... we are still waiting...
Trying to gain more visiblity? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't grok what Novell could possibly have been thinking, but it would make sense for the less popular distros to align with microsoft as they instantly become newsworthy and generate more interest.
Has there *ever* been a slashdot story on TurboLinux prior to this? If there was it certainly wasn't recently.
Re:Trying to gain more visiblity? (Score:2, Insightful)
Pat (Score:5, Insightful)
When Pat sells out, the fat lady will be singing. Not before.
Until then, get busy living.
Re:huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
had
Totally unnecessary. (Score:2, Insightful)
2 - Microsoft vs linux is a lost case for microsoft in europe. Eu favors linux, loves it, encourages it from underhand. Eu dislikes microsoft practices. (evident from latest rulings) And even some governments in europe heavily invest in linux. (some french govt agencies, some states in germany, central europeans and so on).
3 - Big markets for software are, U.S., Eu, China, Southeast asia general, Japan. Eu is lost to microsoft. In eu, companies play with eu rules, not their own. China is a communist party dicta, if microsoft goes foul with them (and they dare not) poooooof - a country that can put out 28 million out on duty to inform on great firewall breakers can field a million programmers to weed out microsoft code from linux and come up with their own distro, and then oust microsoft for good. noone can raise an objection, its communist party - you gotta stomach it. Southeast asia is a mixed pot, where ms can win, it can lose in someplace else, and they are so accustomed to piracy that they wouldnt care whether linux infringed upon microsoft and their govt ruled against it or not. That leaves only US and Japan as playgrounds for microsoft. in u.s. only, ms can put a strong lawsuit, but, as said, in here there is much capital to defend linux that microsoft dare not do it either. i wont name names and companies and foundations here, but you know them all already. So, there is only japan. the only weak place against microsoft is japan, and korea, and that japanese company did the only viable thing they could do. i dont blame them.
Re:Turbolinux? (Score:3, Insightful)
In order for that to happen, the item must first have been something other than obscure.
The last time I heard mention of Turbolinux, every distribution was obscure (and most of them still are). That Turbolinux continues to remain obscure while others have become somewhat more common does not mean that it's sliding anywhere, but is instead only an indication that it turned stagnant a long time go.
Who? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Queen (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep Passing the Open Windows
Yeah Baby, thats gotta be the one !!
http://www.pemcom.demon.co.uk/queen/works/windows.html [demon.co.uk]
And the problem is? (Score:2, Insightful)
Linus is a stubborn, cowardic fool.
Dave
Re:huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Turbolinux? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only two viable Linux distributions at the enterprise Level are Red Hat, and Turbolinux (sorry Vine). But Turbolinux has been on the decline for some time, and due to the growing intrest in Ubuntu and SuSE Turbolinux is feeling the squeeze.
I think that this deal could be huge for Turbolinux. You have to understand, MS is the norm, the standard, the *everything* in Japan. Linux exists but it is waaay fringe, fringe stuff. The company I work for is looking to upgrade an enterprise wide system (everything is MS here), so naturally I see it as a perfect opportunity to begin to integrate Linux/Open Source and the benefits that come with doing so. We've been talking to a lot of big vendors. When I ask them their stance on open source they laugh at me. They litterally laugh at me. They tell me something to the effect that "this is Japan; Japan is Microsoft." They gave me blank stares when I asked them if they knew what "Ubuntu" or "MySQL" was (well, one or two people knew what MySQL was). None of the vendor solutions we have seen so far is compatible with non-MS/Oracle technology.
So given the assumption that Japan is a Microsoft world, if you wanted to integrate Linux wouldn't you want to use a distribution that played nicely with your existing MS infastructure with minimal hassle? Wouldn't you want a distribution developed in your native country by people who understand Japanese culture? (And beleive me, Japanese corporate culture is waaaay different from Western corporate cultures). Of course you would--to a Japanese "salaryman" it is a no-brainer issue.
With this latest move by Turbolinux, my company is now considering the viability of incorporating Turbolinux into our infrastructure. We will be running tests. Maybe we'll go with Turbolinux, maybe we won't. Either way, this is a good move for Turbolinux (how MS will benefit remains to be seen...).