

Linux recieves video gift from Microsoft for its 20th birthday - aditiyaa1
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linux-receives-20th-birthday-video-from-Microsoft-1282639.html

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oasisbob
I think this is a great gesture. One, it's from Microsoft Germany, which in my
mind makes it seem more genuine. (High open source adoption, and I would be
surprised if it was blessed by Redmond.)

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.

~~~
rbanffy
I don't know about Germans, but I tend to be rude whit people who repeatedly
try to destroy everything I work for and believe in.

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.

~~~
zizee
<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents>

------
alf
"Microsoft or Linux" -> "Microsoft and Linux"

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?

~~~
vyrotek
I don't think either is going away for a long time.

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njloof
Happy birthday, Linux! Sorry about that time we tried to sue you out of
existence.

~~~
tzs
When was that?

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.

~~~
burgerbrain
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO-
Linux_controversies#Microso...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO-
Linux_controversies#Microsoft_funding_of_SCO_controversy)

~~~
aditiyaa1
For whatever the resaon might be, Microsoft also does this :
[http://www.itproportal.com/2011/07/18/microsoft-
contribution...](http://www.itproportal.com/2011/07/18/microsoft-contribution-
amongst-top-five-towards-linux-3-development/)

~~~
gareim
From the Wikipedia entry for "Linux kernel":

"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.

~~~
city41
Does any corporation do anything for altruistic motives?

~~~
aditiyaa1
I believe the only thing that a corporation can do that can count for
"altruism" would be to produce a product / service that doesn't suck and
practice fairplay rules with its competitors.Nothing more is expected of a
corporation in an ideal society.

~~~
Produce
The corporation sounds like a sociopathic entity by it's very design. No
wonder Mussolini said that corporatism was the first step towards fascism,
which, rather alarmingly, implies that the world has already taken it's first
steps towards it.

~~~
aditiyaa1
I don't think all corporations can be termed as sociopathic institutions .
There are ofcourse certain aspects of its design , that makes it behave this
way. Majority of the countries are dependent on growth based economies. So it
becomes mandatory for an corporation to show a higher rate of growth and hence
all kinds of malpratices arise. I am not sure whether measuring an
institutions performance from one quarter to the next quarter is a good
practice of measure. Correct me if I am wrong.

------
cpeterso
Microsoft's IE team sent Mozilla congratulatory "birthday" cakes when Firefox
3 and 5 were released.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Actually, cakes were sent for 3 and 4, and a cupcake for 5:
[http://www.geekwire.com/2011/cupcake-firefox-5-microsoft-
fun...](http://www.geekwire.com/2011/cupcake-firefox-5-microsoft-fun-mozillas-
rapid-release)

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ibejoeb
The video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA2kqAIOoZM>

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jleader
From my point of view, that's a bizarre depiction of history.

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.

~~~
rbanffy
The worst part? There are people who fall for this.

~~~
mph
The worst part is that there are people reading far too much into this.

It feels exactly like it was done in the same humour as the IE team sending
Mozilla a birthday cake.

~~~
rbanffy
I agree. It's just a video where a company pushes a distorted vision of the
past relationship between said company and the community it's bent on
destroying because it's perceived as a threat to its business.

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thyrsus
If Microsoft wants to send a video gift to Linux, how about dedicating all
their video codec patents to the public domain? Or making Ogg the default
media format?

~~~
loup-vaillant
One step at a time. If Microsoft goes Free Software all of a sudden it _will_
hurt its short term revenues.

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.

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clark-kent
Actions speak louder than words.

~~~
dorian-graph
That's cute. It's not always true, or rather, sometimes the strongest action
is a public comment, statement or apology.

~~~
rbanffy
I'd be happy if they returned the money they patent-extorted Tom Tom, Samsung
and HTC ;-)

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Rickasaurus
It's important to know that it's not Microsoft as a whole that hates Linux,
the company is really split into three ideological factions: (1) The Gates
Worshipers, (2) The Open Source Geeks and (3) The iWorlders

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.

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jff
So would that make this the first step of "embrace, extend, extinguish"?

~~~
code_duck
I wonder as well... are they trying to hint at something?

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mohsen
in case anyone was wondering what the date is and how it was picked:

<http://www.gatorlug.org/node/208>

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gecos
There's Novell inside the igloo wheedling Tux into taking the gift. Yet, the
cake is a lie. It really is.

~~~
CodeMage
Let's hope it isn't. Otherwise Tux might just invent combustible lemon to burn
Microsoft's house down.

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bromagosa
Didn't Microsoft understand anything at all?

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zemanel
it's a trick, get an axe

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vacri
... a piece offering in the form of a _flash_ video?

~~~
oasisbob
I didn't downmod, but it makes little sense to complain about flash video when
it's absolutely unrelated to the topic at hand, and it was uploaded to YouTube
by the Linux Foundation, not Microsoft.

~~~
vacri
"Whether selected by MS or linux.com"

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chippy
We're a PC

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ruethewhirled
Kinda lame how Microsoft does this, perhaps it's some underhanded ploy to
assert there relevance?

