Could you imagine a Microsoft Linux?
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Should Microsoft just give up the whole Windows business and switch
over to a Linux codebase? A former Microsoft Research employee thinks
so.
Keith Curtis believes that not even the well-received Windows 7 will
stop Linux from market domination. And in keeping with the "if you
can't beat 'em, then join 'em" attitude, Curtis thinks that Microsoft
and its customers would be better off if the company ditched Windows
and made its own version of Linux.
Microsoft Linux? Strange indeed.
"I think we could all be running Microsoft Linux. I sent an e-mail
to Steve Ballmer about this and he said he wasn't interested," he
quipped in a NetworkWorld
story. "Microsoft could very easily dominate the Linux market if they
wanted to. I don't think they should release all their source code ...
nobody would use it."
"I just look at their code bases and the world doesn't need any of
their code bases," Curtis added. "From the day I started using Linux, I
no longer used one line of Microsoft code -- it's been four years now."
Stranger things have happened in the world of the computing
industry, but Microsoft abandoning Windows seems like an impossibility.
Curtis points out that it wouldn't be a costly venture for Microsoft to
dabble in, as Ubuntu was started with about $10 million – just pocket
change for Microsoft.
