I'm not interested in disputing or evaluating any of the allegations raised in
your letter, I'll leave everyone to draw their own conclusions. However, I am
curious about the consequences of what you propose. In particular, your
remedies.
Let us assume that George Soros accepts your letter and withdraws funding from
Transmeta. What are the consequences for Linux and Microsoft?
Transmeta could easily collapse, thus throwing several prominent Linux
developers out into the job market. Worse, the resulting publicity about the
reasons would create a media circus that would be highly damaging to Linux as
a whole and the release of 2.6 in particular.
Microsoft is bound to capitalise on this and sieze the opportunity to try to
displace Linux from the server and enterprise (the very places it currently
feels the greatest heat from Linux). I don't claim it would succeed, but it
will certainly try.
The net effect of your proposal therefore would be to cause a stall in Linux
development and hand Microsoft an opportunity to capture the Server market and
the Enterprise. Is that really your aim?
If you really hold true to the principles of openness, why not instead ask
Soros for funding to create a company that will produce the OS you think Linux
should be and compete directly with Microsoft in "the client" arena? At least
that would be a positive remedy, intead of the wholly negative one you
propose. Perhaps it would even give you the opportunity to see at least one
of your works proliferate?
James Bottomley
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 07 2002 - 22:00:45 EST