From: Nigel Kendrick support-lists@petdoctors.co.uk

Sorry if it wraps: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/16/1758249&tid=109&ti...

This has _nothing_ to do with Microsoft possibly buying Red Hat. People who even suggest this only expose their *0* understanding of business.

Microsoft has an alliance with Sun. Why? Because it was in Microsoft's interest to do so. Ever since Microsoft lost the right to Java code, .NET has fallen behind in many areas. They merely relicensed Java, and began other initiatives. Largely as customers demanded interoperability.

Same deal here. Red Hat products are now entrenched in everything from defense to financial. Most customers are now demanding more interoperability with Linux. Red Hat, due to their commercial marketshare, is going to be one of Microsoft's major targets. They already have some channels with Novell, but virtually _none_ with Red Hat.

Red Hat is firmly committed to 100% GPL. In fact, Red Hat made dozens upon dozens of millions of dollars in purchases of software they GPL'd just last year, let alone the amount of direct employment of core GCC, GLibC, Linux kernel and other developers -- far more than even IBM. The only thing that Red Hat has had to bite on is the trademark issue due to US trademark common law, ironically something that Sun -- more than any other company -- caused.

People think of Red Hat in terms of Microsoft, and from an "exclusive contracts" viewpoint, they seem similar. But Red Hat is two companies -- the latter and, by far, the largest portion both expense and labor-wise -- is the largest collection if GPL-centric projects. Red Hat, much like the Cygnus entity it engulfed even when it was much smaller than Cygnus at the time, has made their entire software focus on GPL to the anal power. Red Hat knows should they ever change from that, they will lose everything -- especially mindshare.

-- Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org