| gabriel rosenkoetter on 3 Apr 2004 18:39:02 -0000 |
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On Sat, Apr 03, 2004 at 01:10:36PM -0500, gabriel rosenkoetter wrote: > I don't think that has anything to do with your suggestion that Sun > products would be somehow co-opted by Microsoft ones. Let me rephrase that. On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 06:41:40PM -0500, Tobias DiPasquale wrote: > "The agreements involve payments of $700 million to Sun by Microsoft to > resolve pending antitrust issues and $900 million to resolve patent issues. > In addition, Sun and Microsoft have agreed to pay royalties for use of each > other's technology, with Microsoft making an up-front payment of $350 million > and Sun making payments when this technology is incorporated into its server > products." > > Who do you think is going to come out ahead in the long run on that deal? > Gabe, take the time to read and understand next time. I did read, and I did understand, the article, prior to posting anything to the mailing list. You are reading too much into the text that you have quoted there. There is no suggestion made anywhere that Sun is obligated to use this money to incorporate Microsoft technology, nor even that they have any intention of doing so. If they had some set schedule of software they wanted to license, they would have done so (or, at least, stated that they were doing so by Microsoft's set API licensing terms). What that says to me is that Microsoft admitted they were wrong on the antitrust issue (because they didn't expect they could win it in a US court, considering what just happened in Europe), admitted they were wrong on the patent issues (I don't know the details of the patent claims between Sun and Microsoft, but I expect all of them were the kind of frivoulous patents that software companies make precisely to have legal arsenal in disputes like this), and admitted that they were ALREADY USING Sun-owned software that they should have to pay a licensing fee to use, so they did. It does not say to me that Sun products will ever incorporate code licensed from Microsoft, and any suggestion that it does is pure speculation on the part of the suggester. The situation you suggest is not impossible, but it's far from the only conclusion and I really don't think that it's even the most probable conclusion. (Nor do I think that Magill's suggestion that Sun and Microsoft will now collude against Linux, with Sun playing sidekick, makes very much sense. The suggestion that Sun is dying, and that this is evidence of it, is completely absurd, as I've already said.) I expect that Sun will teach SunONE and their LDAP client how to play nicely with XP LDAP clients and Active Directory (which probably also means it'll start playing nicely with OpenLDAP, a change I'd be glad for *anybody* to pay to have made) > I'll thank you to keep your mouth shut until you do. Do try to show a little civility in public, please. Personal insults may be sent to me privately. -- gabriel rosenkoetter gr@eclipsed.net Attachment:
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